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LONDON — After nearly 50 years, the United Kingdom is an independent trading nation once again.  

This is an unparalleled opportunity to turn our vision of Global Britain into reality, driving forward an export-led and investment-led recovery by championing free and fair trade.  

I am proud, having spent many of my formative years in Scotland, to be bringing the benefits of free and fair trade to every part of the United Kingdom.

Free trade helped build the United Kingdom, bringing opportunity to every corner of our country through new jobs, businesses, and industries.

As the world recovers from coronavirus, we need to draw a line under trade disputes which risk holding back our businesses and people.

Neither side benefits from tit-for-tat tariffs, which drive up costs for consumers and producers alike. 

We are using our freedom as an independent trading nation to forge closer bonds with like-minded democracies, driven by our shared love for freedom, innovation and preserving our natural environment.

We are lighting the spark for a strong economic boom, bringing well-paid jobs and economic growth to every region and nation of the United Kingdom.

Tomorrow, I will be presenting our formal letter of application to New Zealand and Japan to join them in one of the world’s largest trading areas: the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

As a newly independent nation, Global Britain is working with like-minded democracies for a better world. Together, we are standing up for the rules-based order against the state-sponsored undermining of free enterprise and human rights.

Growing up in Leeds in the 1980s and 1990s, I was struck by the lip service paid by politicians to equality while, in the real world, children from disadvantaged backgrounds were being let down.

This rings true in what we have just agreed with our European friends, which delivers everything that the British public was promised in the referendum. As an outward-looking global trading nation, we will now take back control of our laws, borders, money, and trade.