Tony Abbott appointed president of UK Board of Trade

The former PM has been appointed as joint president of Britain’s Board of Trade to boost global deals for the UK.

Tony Abbott has been lured to the UK to take up a global trade role.

Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has been lured to Britain to help boost global trade deals for the UK.

Mr Abbott, who last month told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to get his “mojo back’’ in taking a tough approach to dealing with migrants crossing the English Channel, has been appointed to Britain’s relaunched Board of Trade, an august body that first sat 400 years ago.

The Board of Trade was set up in 1622 to protect merchants’ complaints and protect the national interests but has been revived by Mr Johnson to act as a catalyst for international trade negotiations.

The Sun reported Mr Johnson asked Mr Abbott to be a joint president of the Board of Trade alongside the Trade Minister Liz Truss, to “bang the drum’’ about Brexit Britain. His exact position has yet to be clarified, but Mr Abbott is to help advise the board about prospective trade deals the UK should pursue after Britain leaves the Brexit transition period with the European Union at the end of the year.

Mr Abbott has been a fierce supporter of Brexit and was a guest at the Conservative party annual conference last October, encouraging the country to grasp the opportunities Brexit presented.

He said at a Policy Exchange event at that conference: “Now I know that many people here in Britain think that these are daunting times, but surely they are also stirring times because yet again, a great country is grasping for freedom.’’

Mr Johnson has been a fan of Mr Abbott’s straight talking, can-do approach and the Sun quoted a Whitehall source saying: “We are delighted to have him on board.”

Mr Abbott has previously tried to reassure Britons about leaving the EU on World Trade Organisation terms, explaining that Australia has traded with various countries and blocs on those terms and they weren’t to be feared. The Johnson government has since presented many of the post-Brexit outcomes, such as the new immigration scheme and a no deal scenario as being benign and of ‘’Australian style’’.

Last year Mr Abbott wrote: “Let me reassure anyone in Britain, anxious about the prospect of no deal, that Australia does one hundred billion dollars’ worth of trade with the EU every single year, on this very basis.”

Britain is already in free trade deal negotiations with the United States, Japan, Australian and New Zealand, but will have to adopt an aggressive series of talks with other nations as soon as the country’s future relationship with the EU is sorted.