Big business groups oppose Crawford Falconer’s approach and emphasise the importance of preserving close links with the EU

Britain’s new chief trade negotiator has backed scrapping domestic regulations to get a trade deal in defiance of business leaders and ministers who vowed not to allow a “regulatory race to the bottom”.

Crawford Falconer, 63, a British-born New Zealander, took up his job last month after a million-pound search for the right candidate to negotiate trade deals after Brexit.

His enthusiasm for leaving the European Union became clear through his role as a member of a “special trade commission” set up by Legatum Institute, an influential think tank that has espoused a hard Brexit.

A paper in April by that commission urged Britain to leave the customs union and the single market and allow the country to “put our domestic regulations on the table