Can the British lion look forward to a roaring 2020s?

What will the 2020s be like for the British people? To judge from the Prime Minister’s speech to business leaders, our relationship with the European Union should be very different from that of recent history. From now on, the EU will have to treat the UK as “equals”: nothing more, nothing less.

Boris Johnson’s robust tone is not merely an opening shot in the trade negotiations that are now beginning in earnest. It is true that Brussels must be made to believe that the British might walk away and settle for a barebones Australian deal with tariffs rather than a Canadian free trade agreement. In the end, despite the haggling, a compromise will have to be reached. But the EU will have to accept that its relationship with the UK cannot now be one-sided, with the European Court continuing to exercise jurisdiction.

An example of how a worst-case scenario could play out is provided by Nissan. In the event of the EU imposing tariffs on imports from the UK, the Japanese car manufacturer is reported by the Financial Times to have drawn up a plan to close its operations in Spain and France, doubling down on its aim of capturing a larger market share in Britain. So Nissan’s Sunderland plant might outdo its Continental competitors if the EU Commission really insists on a protectionist outcome. Such a “survival of the fittest” relationship with Europe is not what either side desires, but the British have less to fear from it than is commonly assumed.

An unexamined assumption is being made by many commentators about what “Johnsonism” will really amount to. The assumption is that he wants a big state in order to consolidate his new conquests in the North. There is something in this, but almost certainly less than meets the eye.

Never forget that Boris is a child of the Thatcher era. His instincts are thoroughly Thatcherite and his default position on any economic question is always to side with the free market against bureaucracy, the entrepreneur against corporate monopolies, the individual against the state.

None of this precludes ad hoc interventions that appear to fly in the face of laissez-faire. We have already seen two such cases: the rescue of the airline Flybe and the renationalisation of Northern Rail. There will be substantial investment in the regions over coming years, taking full advantage of the relaxation of EU rules on state subsidies.

Much of this happened under Margaret Thatcher too. What matters is the direction of travel. Here there will be no change: the UK will continue to boast a significantly smaller state than most of its Continental counterparts.

In France, the recent wave of strikes revolved around pensions for transport workers. Emmanuel Macron wasn’t proposing to abolish the lavish retirement packages that those who work for the French public sector expects as of right. He merely wanted them to work for a little longer to earn their privileges. Measured as a proportion of GDP, the French state pension system is three times larger than the British. No wonder Paris has resembled a war zone in recent months: in these pitched battles between pensioners and police, a great deal is at stake. Fortunately for Britain, the combination of our less top-heavy socio-economic model and the greater independence that ought to accompany Brexit should mean that, rather than fighting over who gets the biggest share of the cake, we will focus more than our neighbours across the Channel on making the cake bigger.

In the century from 1920-2020, the British were a great nation only intermittently blessed with great leadership. That of the last three decades has mostly been mediocre. We can only hope that, as a new chapter in the history of these islands opens, our leaders will rise to the challenge. Britain has given Boris a huge vote of confidence. Now he needs to return the compliment — by giving this country back the self-confidence it has lacked. Only if he succeeds can the British lion look forward to a roaring 2020s.