Liam Fox calls for clear out of Downing Street advisers who doubt Brexit

A Brexiteer Cabinet minister has called for a clearing out of Number 10 to replace any advisers still harbouring doubts over Britain leaving the European Union.

Liam Fox, the Secretary of State for International Trade, says the “opportunity” offered by Brexit can only be seized if those officials who are sceptical of its chances of success are removed from Downing Street.

Writing for telegraph.co.uk, Dr Fox said Theresa May's successor should surround themselves with people who are not scared of cutting ties with the EU.

He says: “There are some potential benefits [of Mrs May's departure]. One of the most significant will be to clear out Number 10 so that the PM’s advisers do not see Brexit as a problem to be solved but an opportunity to be grasped.

“It will be key to ensuring that we do not see the priority as being keeping as much of the EU as possible rather than deciding what best suits Britain’s long-term interests.”

Individuals such as Olly Robbins, Mrs May's Europe adviser, and Gavin Barwell, her chief of staff, have come in for particular criticism from Brexiteers in the Conservative Party.

Ian Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, earlier this month said Mr Robbins and his team “couldn’t negotiate their way out of a paper bag”, while Mr Barwell has previously been accused of talking up the prospect of a second referendum.

Dr Fox's concerns are echoed by Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.

Ms Truss, who backed Remain in 2016, warns: "The approach has been to try and compromise and split the difference. And that to me is not what Brexit is about.

"Brexit was a project that said, we want to be different, we want Britain to do things differently, we want the ability to control our own destiny.

"And you can't do that sort of half in and half out. So, what we need to do now as a party is present a much more go-getting vision of what can be achieved, rather than being on the defensive."

Brexiteers have long been suspicious of Downing Street’s approach to negotiating Britain’s departure from the EU.

When Steve Baker, a prominent Eurosceptic, quit last year as Brexit minister over Mrs May's Chequers plan, he described his department as existing to provide a Eurosceptic cover for Downing Street while officials worked on a plan its ministers would never have accepted.

Mr Fox goes on to call for a new way of thinking in Downing Street to harness Britain’s entrepreneurial spirit and put international trade at the centre of the country’s strategy for a post EU world.

He writes: “Of course, compromises will be needed, but a different starting point will usher in a new mindset. There will be a chance to flesh out the Global Britain vision that Theresa May championed – outward looking, free trading and liberal, abiding by but shaping the international rules-based system.”

Mr Fox has been attempting to finalise agreements to replace the existing free trade deals the EU has with around 40 major countries and regions in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

So far the UK has agreed "continuity" deals with 10 countries and regions, including Norway and Iceland, Israel, Switzerland, Eastern and Southern Africa and the Faroe Islands.

Mr Fox writes: “Britain’s exports currently stand at record levels with the world’s consumers flocking to buy UK goods and services in unprecedented numbers. The IMF predict that ninety per cent of global growth in the next five to ten years will occur outside Europe. That is where we will need to be.

“If we want to take advantage of these new markets, with their rapidly expanding middle classes, we will need to invest in the necessary capacity.  Africa, for example, will be a prime market. Yet the Department for International Development has more staff in Kenya than the Department for International Trade has in the whole of the continent from Egypt to South Africa.

“There are new possibilities for us if we grasp the chance to use our post Brexit freedom to better align our trade and development and create the conditions where developing nations can genuinely have the chance to trade their way out of poverty on a sustainable basis.”