Boris Johnson urges Theresa May to strike a Brexit deal that ditches Brussels rules or risk leaving Brits as servants of the EU

BORIS Johnson has urged Theresa May to strike a Brexit deal that ditches reams of Brussels rules or risk leaving Brits as servants of the EU even after we leave.

The Foreign Secretary has broken the Cabinet silence ahead of a crunch meeting of the Prime Minister’s top team to say there is a risk the UK will be left a “vassal state”.

The leading Brexiteer spoke to warned Mrs May she must be able to negotiate “divergence” from the bloc’s restrictive rules when the talks move onto our future trading relationship in the New Year.

He said the government must seek to “maximise the benefits of Brexit” as another potential rift opened up between him and Philip Hammond.

It comes after the Chancellor caused a stir by saying that after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019 it will seek to keep the current status quo in a transition period.

The former Brexit minister David Jones branded it “capitulation”, and Iain Duncan Smith accused him of “undermining the Prime Minister's negotiations with the EU".

Tensions between ministers will come to a head when the Cabinet meets on Tuesday to discuss the PM’s divorce deal with the EU, and her plans for the next phase of talks.

Mr Johnson said he was planning a fresh intervention this week, advancing the case for a “liberal Brexit” in which he would play up advantages of leaving which had not been made yet.

But if that sets alarm bells ringing in Number 10, the former Mayor of London sought to praise the PM saying she had “done a fantastic job” in the first phase of the negotiations.

However he said the UK needed to seek a “new and ambitious” trade deal that “gives us that important freedom to decide our own regulatory framework, our own laws and do things in a distinctive way”.

And Mr Johnson said if Britain were simply forced to mirror EU laws, even remain supporters he know would be very annoyed.

He said they: “Would say, ‘What is the point of what you have achieved?’ Because we would have gone from a member state to a vassal state.”

Elsewhere in the interview he rounded on those who were calling for the 11 Tory rebels who voted against the Government to be deselected.

He said it was “absolutely obscene” that the MPs had received death threats, and backed their decision – adding: “These are honourable people - they are voting with their conscience.”

The interview comes ahead of a historic visit to Russia by Mr Johnson this week, the first time a British minister has travelled to Moscow in five years.

But against a backdrop of allegations of interference in Western elections by the Kremlin, and claims they could cripple Britain by cutting underwater cables, his meeting with Russian counterpart Segey Lavrov could be tricky.

He has also been warned the Russians will try to spike his food, get him drunk, disrupt his sleep and hack his phone by Chris Bryant, who revealed he had been the victim of suspicious activity himself on an official trip several years ago.