Boris pours cold water on suggestion Britain could pay to have single market access post Brexit

The issue of continuing to pay money to EU coffers for access to the single market arose last week after David Davis, the Brexit secretary, admitted paying money for certain access to the single market was something Whitehall would consider; a view endorsed by Chancellor Philip Hammond and No 10.

When asked about the suggestion on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show, Mr Johnson conspicuously refused to back it, describing it as “pure speculation”.

“That is obviously something that David Davis is considering but it doesn’t mean a decision has been taken,” he declared, adding: “I am not going to get involved in the minutiae of our negotiating position before we trigger Article 50.”

"I do believe that as a result of Brexit we will be able to take back control of the money that we currently give to Brussels.

"Very large sums of money will be coming back to this country which will be capable of being spent on priorities such as the NHS. That will be one of the outcomes of Brexit."

Mr Johnson, who led the official Leave campaign, said he would support paying in to European programmes like the Erasmus student exchange scheme and the Horizon research programme.

He added however: "I see no reason why those payments should be large."

Mr Johnson said it was "reasonable" for Mr Davis to say the Government would not apply immigration controls outside the EU in a way that disadvantaged business.

He said that with net migration of 330,000 last year, the figures were currently too high but he declined to repeat the Government's pledge - first made by David Cameron - to get it down below 100,000.

"I would be in favour of a reduction but you can still have a very open and dynamic economy with immigration running at a reasonable level. That's what we want to see," he said.

"The pledge has been made to get immigration down. The only way you can do that is by taking back control."

The Foreign Secretary, who has said Britain would "probably" have to leave the EU customs union, acknowledged the UK would have to come out of the common tariff area if it wanted to strike its own free trade deals with non-EU countries.

"You can't do free trade deals unless you come out of the common commercial policy, the common tariff area. That is a different thing from somehow remaining within the zone where there is currently free movement of goods and services," he said.

Mr Johnson acknowledged that Brexit negotiations were likely to be difficult at times but he said that there remained a lot of goodwill towards Britain despite the vote to leave the EU.

"What the EU wants to achieve is a partnership. There will be more sturm und drang[storm and stress] between now and the end of the negotiations and it may get pretty hairy at times and there may be some difficult bits but beneath it all there is a massive fondness for the UK and the desire to do the best possible deal."

On the same programme, Sir Keir Starmer, the Shadow Brexit Secretary, said the choice facing Britain now was one between an "isolated, hard Brexit and a collaborative, co-operative Brexit". He suggested that as the Tories focused on Brexit supporters and the Liberal Democrats focused on the Remainers, it was only Labour, which could bring both sides together.

The London MP again stressed that while Labour would not seek to frustrate the triggering of Article 50, it would oppose a deal, which resulted in an "arms-length" relationship with the single market because this would hurt both UK businesses and consumers.

Mr Johnson described the referendum as the "biggest apple of discord I've ever seen hurled into British politics".

He said: "It split families, it split parties, it was really painful and I don't want to see that happen again. For the Liberal Democrats to burble on and with Keir Starmer to burble on about having a second referendum is totally mad."

Meantime on ITV’s Peston on Sunday, the Secretary of State said university students should not be included in net migration figures, something Prime Minister Theresa May ruled out in October.

Mr Johnson said: "It's a great compliment to this country that, as Theresa and I have found virtually everywhere you go, the number one question people ask is 'How can I make sure my kids are going to be able to come to the UK and come to university here?'.

"Let me give you one statistic - of all the kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers in the world today, one in seven were educated in Britain.

"And there's no reason now - when you look at the talent coming to our universities - to think that that ratio will go down."

Asked if he took the view that university students should not be included in immigration figures, the Foreign Secretary replied: "I do take that view and it's of massive benefit to this country.

"You've obviously got to have limits, you've got to make sure - as Theresa has rightly said - when they come, they've got to be coming for a bona fide degree and they're not staying on without permission.

"That is totally reasonable. But don't forget that international students - I used to be shadow spokesman for higher education and even then the contribution was £5 billion from their fees to our higher education economy," he added.

While the UK Government has yet to set out its negotiating proposals in detail, ministers are coming under growing pressure to avoid a so-called hard Brexit ie quitting membership of the single market and the customs union.

In the wake of the Lib Dems' Richmond by-election victory, a group of Tory MPs has warned the Prime Minister that any trading arrangement which restricts UK businesses and consumers could alienate core Conservative voters and even cost the party the next General Election.