Fully consistent with what the PM is saying now:
There came two other gentlemen, one of whom uttered the common-place complaints, that by the increase of taxes, labour would be dear, other nations would undersell us, and our commerce would be ruined.
JOHNSON (smiling). ‘Never fear, Sir. Our commerce is in a very good state; and suppose we had no commerce at all, we could live very well on the produce of our own country.’
This was Samuel Johnson, in the 1770s, who also wrote that
The interruption of trade, though it may distress part of the community, leaves the rest power to communicate relief; the decay of one manufacture may be compensated by the advancement of another…
Johnson, of course, also famously said that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Which may somehow be relevant.
Common Infirmities 