Labour's Chuka Umunna calls for ambitious Brexit negotiations

Mr Umunna, a former leadership hopeful, led a bid for the UK to remain in the single market after Brexit last week by proposing an amendment to the Queen’s Speech.

Jeremy Corbyn had ordered his MPs to vote against it but dozens rebelled and supported Mr Umunna resulting in three frontbenchers being sacked.

In a visit to the Express & Star this week Mr Umunna reasserted his vision for a 'soft Brexit' and sought to rubbish any fears about remaining inside the single market while sitting outside the European Union (EU).

He said: "Regardless of where people sit on the political spectrum everyone agrees we will want to sell into Europe, they are our biggest customer and 44 percent of our goods go to the EU.

"We sell more to other countries outside Europe as a result of our agreement with the EU. If you look at the EU market and want to sell into it we have to comply with its standards and rules and regulations otherwise they won't allow us to. That is going to be an issue whether we like it or not .

"My argument is people say you can't influence things in the single market once you have left and point at other countries like Norway, Lichtenstein and Switzerland but I say we are not Norway, Lichtenstein and Switzerland we are the fifth biggest economy in the world and second biggest in Europe, the second biggest military power in Europe. We are a huge power, a country of 65m people.

"The other counties I mentioned are far, far smaller. To say we can only get what they got when we are the UK, we have got to be more ambitious in this negotiation.

"I don't think we should take any of these things off the table. We can respect the referendum result but if we are serious about retaining the benefits we have at the moment we have got to be open minded at the start of the process.

"Let's not wave the white flag and say we are small little Britain. We are a great country. Let's have big and great ambition."

Reflecting on the General Election result, Mr Umunna said it had been a great success for Labour but the party now had to push on once more.

He added: "It helped to have a leader who actually likes to talk to people and campaign in a General Election as opposed to one who looks uncomfortable in anybody's company.

"But while we have had huge success we must look to build on that now. Unless we get the 55 extra seats and retain the gains we made we do not deliver a Labour government.

"For as long as there is no Labour government people are being hammered by benefit cuts, students are having to pay upwards of £9,000 for their tuition and there are so many other injustices that we can't do anything about."