Chips are down as Johnson gets into trade row with Italians

BORIS JOHNSON has become embroiled in an extraordinary Brexit row with Italy about sales of Prosecco and fish and chips.

Carlo Calenda, a former Italian envoy to Brussels, said the Foreign Secretary had told him that Italy would sell less Prosecco if Britain was not allowed to remain in the single market. Mr Cal- enda told Bloomberg Television: “He basically said, ‘I don’t want free movement of people but I want the single market’.

“I said, ‘No way.’ He said, ‘You’ll sell less Prosecco’. I said, ‘OK, you’ll sell less fish and chips, but I’ll sell less Prosecco to one country and you’ll sell less to 27 countries. Putting things on this level is a bit insulting.”

Mr Calenda said he had “loved” Mr Johnson’s biography of Winston Churchill, but added that “on Brexit we are on opposite sides”.

He accused Britain of “chaos” over its position ahead of Brexit negotiations and said it was unacceptable for the European Union to be held to ransom over “an internal UK debate”.

He said: “Somebody needs to tell us something, and it needs to be something that makes sense. You can’t say that it’s sensible to say we want access to the single market but no free circulation of people. It’s obvious that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

“There’s lots of chaos and we don’t understand what the position is. It’s all becoming an internal UK debate, which is not OK.”

Mr Calenda, who is now Italy’s minister for economic development, said the British Government “needs to sit down, put its cards on the table and negotiate”.

In an interview with a Czech newspaper on Tuesday, Mr Johnson, described as “b------s” the repeated claims by EU politicians that freedom of movement is a central tenet of the bloc’s existence. He said: “Everybody now has it in their head that every human being has some fundamental God-given right to move wherever they want. It’s not true. That was never the case. That was never a founding principle of the EU. Total myth.”

Mr Johnson also became the first minister to confirm Britain is likely to leave the customs union after Brexit.

“[There will be a] dynamic trade relationship [between the UK and the EU] and we will take back control of our borders, but we remain an open and welcoming society,” he added.