Lord Marland, a former trade envoy, was appearing on BBC Newsnight on Monday with Emily Maitlis and was discussing the upcoming trade negotiations between the Britain and the UK. France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, warned Boris Johnson that talks would be tough. Speaking at the Munich security forum, he said: “I think on trade issues and the mechanism for future relations, which we are going to start on, we are going to rip each other apart.”

Pressed by Ms Maitlis on why the French would let any deal through that gives the UK a competitive advantage, the Lord pointed out that French businesses depended on UK markets, as did most other EU countries.

He said: “There is no reason why it (the negotiations) should be [tough].

“You know the French own businesses in the UK and they export lots of products to the United Kingdom.

“It’s totally in their interests to have a sensible and pragmatic relationship through these negotiations.”

He added: “But in fact we must not forget it’s the European Union negotiating with the United Kingdom and not the individual countries.

“I can only hope that the individual countries – because of their economic importance – bring pressure to bear on the European Union to come up with a sensible deal.”

Earlier on Monday, Boris Johnson’s chief Brussels negotiator insisted that the UK will not follow EU rules and that Brexit will act as a stimulus for economic growth throughout Europe by promoting healthy competition.

In a speech delivered at a Brussels University, David Frost told his audience that the whole point of the referendum had been to give Britain the freedom to act as an independent sovereign state.

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Mr Frost argued that the freedom to diverge from EU rules and regulations was key to the Prime Minister’s vision to have the “ability to set laws that suit us.”

He said: “It isn’t a simple negotiating position which might move under pressure, it’s the point of the whole project.”

The EU is afraid that the UK would gain a competitive advantage over the bloc if it were allowed to ditch EU laws.

To prevent this happening Brussels insists that Britain must follow EU rules on tax, state aid, the environment and workers’ rights.

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However, Britain’s Brussels envoy countered by saying it was “absurd” to think that EU laws were perfect.

He pointed out that Britain’s standards of regulation and behaviour were in many cases superior to EU norms and practices, while insisting that the UK would not use Brexit to undercut Europe.

Mr Frost highlighted the hypocrisy of Brussels’ position on rule alignment, by claiming that the EU would never agree to the UK imposing its rules and regulations on the bloc.

He insisted that Brexit was not about lowering standards, but about about boosting economic growth throughout Europe.

He said: “Economic competition boosts wealth for everybody in the long run and more genuine economic competition across Europe, but it’s not competition for low standards.”

Mr Frost was hopeful that he could persuade Mr Barnier that “Britain doing things differently might be good for Europe as well as Britain”.

The UK’s chief European envoy urged the EU to treat Britain as an equal and no differently from other countries with which the bloc has already negotiated trade deals.

He said: “We only want what other independent countries have,” in a reference to EU deals with countries such as Canada, which have less stringent level playing field guarantees.

Brussels argues that the Canada model is not appropriate for Britain because of its close relationship to the EU’s economy.

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