Fox hints Britain is getting ready to quit single market

LIAM Fox yesterday dropped the strongest hint yet that Britain will ditch the European Union’s single market and strike its own free trade deals in future.

The Brexit-backing Cabinet minister said it was in other countries’ interests to avoid imposing tariffs on goods such as cars after the UK quits the EU because this would ‘harm the people of Europe’, and the International Trade Secretary also declared that once Britain leaves, trade with EU states will be ‘at least as free’ as it is now.

Theresa May’s Government has come under fire from the defeated Remain camp, including former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan saying there was a ‘lack of a plan’, for not spelling out exactly how it will deliver Brexit. No.10 has said it is not prepared to provide a ‘running commentary’ on the process, slapping down ministers who were considered to have revealed their negotiating hand.

In a speech in Manchester, Dr Fox stopped short of saying categorically that Britain will quit the single market and the customs union, which sets tariffs across the EU.

But he said the UK would become a ‘newly independent member’ of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and take an ‘axe to red tape across borders’. This would allow ministers to take the hard-line on immigration which has been demanded by voters.

A string of Eurocrats have made it clear that, if Britain wants to end free movement of EU workers, it will have to quit the single market.

Dr Fox told business leaders Brexit was a ‘golden opportunity’ and the UK would be in a ‘prime position to be a global leader in free trade’.

The minister, who previously found himself in trouble with No10 for his candid remarks, said Britain lost its independent seat on the WTO when it joined the European bloc in 1973.

Dr Fox also warned EU leaders that they must negotiate a free trade deal with the UK post-Brexit or European citizens would suffer.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem EU spokesman, said Dr Fox’s speech was ‘delusional’.