Well let me tell you what Liam Fox said to me when we had a meeting of all the Ministers in the Joint Ministerial Council. He said that all 53 free trade agreements that the EU had with other countries would automatically apply to the UK. Rubbish—it was rubbish. So, that gives an indication of my faith in the Department for International Trade. He cannot get away from the reality that his party, his leader, went on and on and on saying the EU will do a deal with us quickly. The German—[Interruption.] We heard it—the German car manufacturers will force the EU to do a deal. The German car manufacturers are more interested in the EU-27 than they are in the UK.

He talks about preparing for the no-deal Brexit. What does that mean? It means border posts. Well, customs officers are not being recruited. Apparently, we’re told there will be some kind of a strange pre-notification procedure on the UK side of any border that wouldn’t apply in the channel ports, and apparently it would apply magically on the open border that would exist with the EU in the Republic of Ireland. It’s cloud-cuckoo-land—the whole thing is cloud-cuckoo-land. The most sensible way of dealing with Brexit is to make sure we have the best relationship we can with our biggest market. If he thinks there’s going to be a free trade deal with the United States, he can go and speak to be the Bombardier workers. The US will look after itself. It has a Government that was elected on the basis of America first. It’s not going to do the UK any favours, and it’s quite clear that that is not what it’s going to do. Free trade agreements with countries that have considerably lower standards of living than we do end up with jobs being exported. Ask the Americans and the North American free trade agreement—it is what happened. Jobs were exported to Mexico and many of the midwest towns lost their jobs as a result of it, and that’s what he’s advocating—that kind of free trade agreement. The reality is we need to have the closest possible trading relationship with one of the world’s biggest markets—bigger than America—that’s on our doorstep, which we have a land border with. If we can’t do a deal with them, we have no chance of doing a deal with anybody else.