Jeremy Hunt hails Singapore as model for post-brexit Britain

0 Jeremy Hunt: Dismisses alternatives to EU deal Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has suggested that the UK should follow the example of low-tax Singapore as it forges a new position in the world after Brexit.

In what will be seen as an attempt to burnish his credentials with Tory Brexiteers, Mr Hunt hailed the south-east Asian city state for “plugging into the international economic grid” on gaining its independence in 1965.

He also dismissed alternatives to Theresa May’s EU Withdrawal Agreement, denouncing the option of a second referendum as a “dereliction of duty” and warning that a no-deal Brexit “could leave us poorer”.

Singapore has long been touted as a model for the UK after EU withdrawal by fer- vent Brexiteers such as former minister Owen Paterson, who last year wrote that Britain should adopt its “low-tax, low-spend, low-regulation” policies .

Writing in a Sunday newspaper, Mr Hunt said Singapore had transformed itself from a “tiny territory devoid of natural resources into the world’s eighth richest country”.

He added: “While the circumstances of Britain’s departure from the EU are different, there could be few better instructions for us as we make our post-brexit future.”

The Foreign Secretary, who backed Remain in 2016, has emerged as a potential successor to Mrs May after shifting his position to back Brexit.

While acknowledging that the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement is not “perfect”, he urged fellow MPS to back it in next month’s vote. Almost 200,000 Irish passport applications were received from the UK this year.

The number from Scotland, England and Wales increased by more than a fifth compared to 2017, Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said.

Minister Simon Coveney said the total had risen since the Brexit vote in June 2016. Out of the total number of applications received this year by the Passport Service, 84,855 applications were from Northern Ireland and 98,544 applications were received from Britain.