Liam Fox: Brexit is a 'golden opportunity' for trade

Liam Fox toured an aviation company during his visit to Manchester

The UK will be a standard-bearer for free trade when it leaves the European Union, Liam Fox says.

The International Trade Secretary said Brexit was a "golden opportunity" and that it was "100% wrong" to say the vote was a sign of Britain looking inwards.

Liam Fox said products made in the UK could be sold around the world after Brexit

The UK is unable to negotiate trade deals independently while in the EU. Mr Fox will be negotiating new arrangements with other countries after Brexit and has already had some talks.

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In a speech in Manchester, he said free trade had "transformed the world for the better", and that the UK had "a golden opportunity to forge a new role for ourselves in the world".

He predicted the UK would "carry the standard of free and open trade as a badge of honour" once it leaves the EU.

And he defended his recent comments that Britain was "too lazy and too fat" with businessmen preferring "golf on a Friday afternoon" to trying to boost the country's prosperity.


"What I said was as a country we have been too willing to rest upon the achievements of previous generations," he said. "I think the figures speak for themselves."

The former GP added: "When I was a doctor my job was not to tell people what they wanted to hear, it was to tell people what they needed to hear in order to put things right."