Priti Patel:

The Government needs to call time on its latest Project Fear campaign. It’s time they stopped talking down our country and started to believe in Britain and the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead after we leave the EU.

During the European referendum, the Treasury was rightly derided for its Project Fear campaign. They said 800,000 people would lose their jobs and the country would plunge into a deep recession. They said GDP would fall 6 per cent while house prices would fall by 18 per cent if we voted out.

Against their regressive backdrop, the British public voted to leave and the fearmongering was proved false.

Fast forward two years, the UK continues to have record employment, growing manufacturing output, more than £100billion of exports to the USA, more than twice as much as exports to any other country, and an economy worth more than £2trillion. Investors and businesses continue to set up in Britain, as shown by Chanel who are establishing their global office for their global brand in Britain. Boom! Another glowing reference and sign of confidence in the UK.

But here we go again. Our friends at the Treasury have doubled up, and co-opted Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, to bolster this message with wild predictions that house prices will fall by a third – while interest rates and inflation will soar.

Even No10 officials have joined in. Issuing selective “observations” of Cabinet meetings gloating at Carney’s “spicy” assessment of impending doom if we refuse to cave in and sign on the dotted line. The public knows this relentless campaign of doomsday and fear is laughable. But at the same time it is also incredibly serious. Why? Because these assessments have nothing to do with Brexit. Scenarios of house prices falling 33 per cent alongside double digit increases in unemployment were part of the 2017 Bank of England stress test – an extreme scenario to assess whether banks could withstand a financial or economic shock. So to present this as the most likely scenario for a no-deal Brexit amounts to irresponsible scaremongering that is untrue.

The Government is charged with delivering a better future for our nation and they have a clear choice

– to deliver on a referendum mandate to take back control. But all we are seeing is that they want to do a deal that fails to deliver on the referendum and frighten us into accepting a deal that is bad for Britain.

This is the week at the Salzburg talks for Britain’s leaders to make history and seek an ambitious free trade agreement with the EU. A deal that secures a lasting and positive partnership with Europe – yet allows us to take back control and do trade deals around the world.

With a post-Brexit economic policy that sets our economy and country on the right track, with new freedoms, the UK will exercise greater fiscal flexibility and regulatory reform to transform our country into a dynamic engine of prosperity, job creation and growth.

Free to set our own laws, Brexit should act as a catalyst for a new era for an outward-looking UK, ambitious in removing barriers to trade, enterprise and economic growth.

It is time for the Government to knock off the tired old Project Fear rhetoric. We are a global trading power and the sixth largest economy in the world.

For centuries our wealth has come from our ambition, entrepreneurial skills and global reach. We can be a free and independent country and will prosper if given a chance.

Now is the time to show leadership, believe in Britain and make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead.