WOULD-be prime minister Jeremy Hunt was in Bournemouth to insist he was “the person most likely to lead us out of the European Union by the end of October”.

The foreign secretary took a walk along the prom with Tory activists this morning, ahead of a leadership hustings with rival Boris Johnson.

The visit took place after Japan’s foreign minister said he was “very concerned” about the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the 1,000 Japanese companies in the UK.

Mr Hunt has cited examples of businesses that could go to the wall in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but still refused to rule it out.

“You’ll never get the right deal if you take no deal off the table,” he said.

“It’s the first rule of negotiation. You have to be willing to walk away and I do think that a no-deal Brexit would be disruptive but in the end, as a country, we would cope.

“We’ve had much tougher challenges in our history but it wouldn’t be my first choice just because of those pressures on business and the risk you have if your strategy is a no-deal strategy is that you trip us into a general election, Jeremy Corbyn gets into number 10 and then we’ll have no Brexit at all.

"That’s why what you need is a prime minister you can trust to actually negotiate a deal and I’m that person.”

He insisted he could turn around the party’s fortunes after their drubbing in the local and European Parliament elections.

“I’m the person who’s most likely to lead us out of the European Union by the end of October because I’m a negotiator, a businessman by background, an entrepreneur, and that’s what we need to get us out of this difficult situation,” he said.