Boris Johnson boasts post-Brexit Britain will soar like a 'supercharged' Superman

At the same hour in Brussels, the European Union's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, outlined the E.U.'s demands, declaring that Europe will only agree to free trade if Britain submits to the continent's regulations.

And so begins an 11-month transition period, when all this may or may not be sorted out. In this messy and drawn-out split, after 47 years together, the divvying up of the stuff is not so easy.

Britain under Johnson is now all about cutting loose and "going global" and making side deals with the Americans and Australians, while Europe is all about the need preserve a "level playing field," if Britain wants to be a friend with privileges - meaning access to its single market of 450 million consumers.

In broad strokes, in language orotund and marked by the clever turns of phrase he perfected as a Oxford-educated, Fleet Street columnist, the prime minister laid out his vision for a post-Brexit Britain that is a world champion for free trade.

He mixed his metaphors, but his message was clear. Britain is a ship in "the slipway" ready to set sail, a rocket "on the launchpad" ready to blast off, a butterfly "leaving its chrysalis." 

"We are re-emerging after decades of hibernation as a campaigner for global free trade," Johnson said. "And, frankly, it is not a moment too soon, because the argument for this fundamental liberty is now not being made."

The prime minister took a subtle swipe at President Donald Trump, warning his audience that trade wars and tariff barriers are in vogue - and that is a bad thing.

"Free trade is being choked, and that is no fault of the people, that's no fault of individual consumers. I am afraid it is the politicians who are failing to lead," said Johnson, charging that "the protectionists are gaining ground, from Brussels to China to Washington, where tariffs are being waved around like cudgels."

He observed that world trading volumes are lagging behind global growth and that global growth is anemic because of trade spats.

"Humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange," he said. "Some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other."

The prime minister said Britain was hungry for a trade deal with America. He warned his country not to be "paranoid" about trade with their American cousins.

Many British consumers are wary of the more lax food hygiene and animal welfare rules of industrial-scale farming in the United States - and a lot of those fears have focused on the American practice of injecting its beef cattle with antibiotics and hormones and bathing its poultry with chlorine to disinfect it before packaging and sale.

"I look at the Americans and they look pretty well-nourished to me," the prime minister cracked.

Johnson advised "all the naive and juvenile anti-Americans in this country - if there are any - there seem to be some. I say grow up - and get a grip. The U.S. already buys one fifth of everything we export."

He then roasted Washington for its own trade barriers against British goods. "It is an incredible fact that we still sell not one hamburger's worth of beef to the U.S., not one kebab's worth of lamb," he said.

Addressing U.S. Ambassador Woody Johnson, who was in the audience, the prime minister complained that if British companies want to sell insurance products in the United States, they must deal with 50 separate state regulators.

"And it is high time, I think we all agree, that they cut their punitive tariffs on Scotch whisky," Johnson said.

In a set of technical negotiating mandates released Monday, the remaining 27 E.U. countries made clear they want Britain to continue to abide by E.U. regulations in a number of areas.

E.U. leaders and businesses are worried that Britain could slash regulations on U.K. companies and then pump cheap goods into the E.U. market. They say they will throw up barriers to British goods before they allow this to happen.

The prime minister countered that Britain would not seek perfect "alignment" with all E.U. rules and regulations.

But he also dismissed speculation that his government wants to create a low-wage, low-regulation, low-tax state - sometimes described as a "Singapore on the Thames."

Johnson said he wanted to confront "the absurd caricature of Britain as a nation bent on the slash and burn of workers' rights and environmental protection, as if we are saved from Dickensian squalor only by enlightened E.U. regulation, as if it was only thanks to Brussels that we are not preparing to send children back up chimneys."

Johnson said, in most cases, British rules and regulations will be the same or tougher than European standards. 

In Brussels, top negotiator Barnier was less colorful, but equally firm.

"The most ambitious partnership is the one that we had, because we were in the same union," Barnier told reporters.

"When you are not a member of the European Union, then, objectively speaking, your position is different and less favorable," he said.

Although he is fluent in English, Barnier spoke almost exclusively in French - perhaps to emphasize that the E.U. is not willing to let Britain dictate terms.

He said that an agreement about E.U. fishing rights in British waters will be "inextricably linked" to any trade agreement, an escalation of the importance of a niche issue that nevertheless is deeply politically important to both sides.

Johnson has said he wants a comprehensive deal done by the end of the year. Barnier said that is a very tight deadline.

The kind of deal with Europe that Johnson wants took Canada and the European Union seven-plus years to knock out.