A globally devastating nuclear war could prove to be a massive boost for post Brexit British industry, the UK’s Secretary of State for International Trade, former Secretary of State for Defence, and enthusiastic poultry farmer Dr Liam Fox told reporters Tuesday.

According to Fox, global devastation could prove just the boost that British industry needs to take full advantage of the UK leaving the European Union, the European single market and the customs union, as appears likely in March 2019.

“If Brussels won’t give us a sweetheart trade deal we can just nuke a few major European cities, and then sell them some of our old ones,” said “They can have Sunderland for free, that kills two birds with one stone.” said Dr Cox, pointing out that exporting Sunderland to central Europe would save the UK the cost of supporting tens of thousands of unemployed Mackems.

“And there’s even a chance that someone in the Sudetenlands might be able to understand their peculiar dialect.” added Cox.

“Actually that’s three birds,” added Dr Cox’s close friend, Adam Weritty, who was criticised by the UK parliament’s Standards and Privileges Committee for having posed as an official advisor to Dr Sox when he was minister of defence, and who Sox admitted had “defence related business interests”.

“Our Trident missiles are almost past their sell by date, if we don’t use them soon we’ll have to pay someone to decommission them.” he said.

“Why should we do that when we could pay someone else a whole lot more to replace them?” he smirked, groping furtively for his mobile phone and whispering “It’s on!”…

Asked whether a global nuclear holocaust might not create more problems than it would solve, Dr Fox pointed out that at the end of the second world war two Japanese cities had been destroyed by nuclear weapons.

“And look what an industrial superpower Japan turned into – clearly radiation has some benefits.” he said, declining to confirm whether that meant he was advocating having British cities nuked into oblivion.

“Although, let’s be honest: Sunderland, Liverpool, Glasgow…nobody I socialise with would ever visit them voluntarily and nobody there votes for us so what’s to lose?” he asked.