The former Chancellor this week used a speech to insist the Government should give up its “fruitless quest” for an EU trade deal after Mrs May had got Britain into a “state of cringe”, begging Brussels for a deal it had no intention of granting.

The Prime Minister struck a last-minute deal with Brussels settling on a deal to cover their demands for the so-called divorce bill, EU citizens’ rights and the Irish border.

Lord Lawson said becoming a “supplicant” to Brussels enables the bloc to impose “humiliating conditions” on Britain, as he once again urged Mrs May to walk away without a deal.

He told BBC Radio 5Live: “I think she has put herself, I think she means well, certainly, and she did say at the beginning in her Lancaster House speech that no trade deal was better than a bad trade deal.

“But she now appears so desperate to get a trade deal that the European Union side of the table are able to impose humiliating conditions.

“And, therefore, the only way we can avoid that, avoid being a supplicant, of course, we would like a good deal but I don’t think incidentally there is any way they will give us a good deal.

“If they give us a good deal then other countries might say, ‘hey, we would like that too,’ so the only thing that will be on offer is a bad deal, I’m afraid.

“That is perfectly acceptable. We trade, for example, very happily with the United States with no trade deal at all and the rest of the world trades with the European Union for the most part without a trade deal.”

Lord Lawson began his criticism when delivering The Fourth Annual Margaret Thatcher Lecture, at a dinner in London hosted by the centre established in her name to educate people about the late politician’s life and values.

The peer proclaimed Lady Thatcher would have been “delighted” at the Brexit referendum vote and the Government’s resolve to implement the result.

Lord Lawson added: “But while she would have been delighted by the prospect of Britain regaining its sovereignty outside the European Union, she would have been deeply concerned at the current state of the so-called negotiations.

"We find ourselves today quite unnecessarily as a supplicant, in a humiliating state of cringe, begging for what is both unnecessary and unattainable, a posture which would have been anathema to Margaret Thatcher.

"The time has come to call an end to this demeaning process. We must get up off our knees. Enough is enough.

"The Government should instead devote its energies, as is long overdue, to making the necessary arrangements for leaving without a bilateral trade agreement and preparing the regulatory changes to take the greatest advantage of our new-found freedom."