Jacob Rees-Mogg has accused the European Union of having a vendetta against Britain for voting to leave in an exclusive interview with GB News.
The minister for Brexit opportunities and Government efficiency told GB News reporter Tom Harwood how we have to look after our own interests.
Fears are growing that the UK and the EU could be about to enter a trade war after a number of disagreements over the Northern Ireland protocol.
The Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a new executive in Northern Ireland could not be formed under the rules set out in the 1998 peace agreement without changes to the protocol.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
GB News
European leaders have warned the UK not to make the incendiary move, amid fears it could provoke a trade war with Britain’s largest trading partner.
But Mr Rees-Mogg believes the EU is deliberately trying to make things hard for the UK.
He told us: "We've been making that very clear to them, if in the end they refuse to move, if they're not willing to act in good faith, then we will have to do things for ourselves.
"We can't accept disruption within the United Kingdom.
"I think it (the EU) wants to make it feel bad for having left the European Union, that underpins its whole policy, and it doesn't really mind about the consequences of that.
Jacob Rees-Mogg spoke to Tom Harwood
GB News
"We just have to get on with life and recognise that we've left, we've got to make our own way, we're an independent country, and what the EU wants or thinks is secondary."
Meanwhile, Lord Frost, the architect of the 2019 withdrawal agreement that included the protocol, was pressing for Mr Johnson to tear up the deal on Northern Ireland despite the risks of a trade war with the EU.
And Mr Rees-Mogg questioned whether the EU wanted a trade war in a time of rising inflation.
He told GB News: "You have to say to the European Union: 'does it really want to punish its consumers at a time of rising inflation?'
"An inflation for a lot of EU countries is higher than it is in the UK.
"Do they really want to make prices even higher for their consumers and their voters?"
He also said: "We can't tell the EU what to do, we have to have an idea of what it may do, and it may decide it wants an act of self-harm, that is not under our control.
"It would be a pretty silly thing for it to do but we have to govern in our own interests, not constantly dance to what the EU thinks or does. We've left, it's not our business anymore."