Foreign secretary hints he still wants UK to leave EU customs union, and says Brexit vote was a demand for democratic control

Britain will not seek to obstruct greater European defence and foreign policy cooperation as it prepares to leave the EU, Boris Johnson has pledged.



The foreign secretary said the UK was not bent on the destruction of the EU, and would not adopt a “dog in the manger” manager to disrupt member state cooperation if they continued to meet the goal of spending at least 2% of their GDP on defence.

Other UK ministers have opposed greater EU defence integration, warning that it could represent a threat to the primacy of Nato. But Johnson said: “It is not part of our agenda to seek to undermine or to be dog in the mangerish about the EU.

“There is a conversation going on now about the EU’s desire to build a strong common security defence policy. If they want to do that, fine. Obviously it would be important to get 2% spending on defence. But we are not there to block or impede further steps towards further EU integration if that is what they so desire.”

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Some Tory Eurosceptics have openly called for the EU to break up under the pressure of populist revolts in a succession of countries, but the Foreign Office is aware that such an aggressive stance could hamper Brexit negotiations with Brussels.

Johnson gave a strong hint that he remained committed to leaving the EU customs union, saying the UK needed the capacity to strike its own trade deals and act as a “protagonist” for free trade.

He said Theresa May’s previous remarks on the EU had “given a very clear picture of how we are going to proceed if you understand the working of the EU”.

“We have already said we are going to cease to apply European law in this country – the judgments of the European court – and we will use this moment to do free trade deals, and be an agitator for global free trade,” Johnson said. “From those two points you can draw all the necessary conclusions about how we see the future.”

It is widely accepted that if the UK stays inside the EU customs union, it cannot legally strike its own free trade deals with third parties.

In a wide-ranging speech at Chatham House in London, quoting Robert Burns, Harry Potter, Lord Curzon, Talleyrand, Tolstoy and AJP Taylor, Johnson tried to present a picture of the UK as a continuing global player in spite of Brexit.

In a central passage of his speech, he urged the rest of the world to interpret the EU referendum vote as a demand for democratic control, and not an as an expression of xenophobia or isolationism.

He said too many people had tried to psychoanalyse the British vote to leave the EU, “imputing bad motives, with too many people too quick to draw comparisons with populist movements across the world”.

He said: “Such glib analogies should not be allowed to replace individual analysis. Discontent can have subtly different wellsprings. There are plenty of people that voted to leave the EU not because they dislike or fear foreigners but because they believed in democracy and, after 43 years, they had not come to endorse the finalité politique of the EU.

“It is my passionate belief there is no contradiction whatsoever between a trust in the nation state as the key building block of the global order, and a generous and open mindset to the rest of the world.”

He said the UK would “refuse to be defined by this decision” and was fated to be outward looking. “The UK was defined a wanderlust of aid workers and journalists, traders diplomats and entrepreneurs. Whatever that feeling is, it is not xenophobia.

“We are not some bit part, some spear carrier on the world stage, we are a protagonist running a truly global foreign policy.”

He solicited the support of ambassadors in the Chatham House audience to refute claims he had told a group of foreign representatives at a breakfast this week that he favoured the free movement of people within the EU.

He insisted he had told the group: “Important though that EU migration had been, we had to have control. I am a liberal internationalist. I believe immigration can do great things,” adding when he was London mayor he saw the strength and dynamism that immigration gave to the UK economy.

With the US president-elect, Donald Trump, and the likely winner in the French presidential election, François Fillon, seeking closer ties with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Johnson gave little ground, saying the new era must not be handed to strongmen opposed to liberal values.

In dealing with Putin, he said, “you have got to be strong and you have got to be firm. People push and push and push until they meet a push back. So when it comes to sanctions or whatever, you have got to remain absolutely solid in what you are doing, and not be afraid to be so.”

He also gave no ground on the longstanding British demand that President Bashar al-Assad stand down as part of a transition to political order in Syria. Trump has suggested he will allow Putin to keep Assad in power, and the near collapse of east Aleppo makes this outcome a near certainty.

But Johnson said: “After five years of slaughter, Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 deaths. There are millions of people in that country who will not accept rule by him again, and the answer has got to be a political answer.

“We have to move away from Assad’s rule and find another way that retains a future for Syria that retains a united country. With the best will in the world, I cannot see that happening under Assad.”