BRITAIN will have to accept European Union rules “without exception” if it wants full access to the single market after Brexit, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker warned yesterday.

Speaking on French TV, Mr Juncker denied he was taking a “hard line” with Britain.

Mr Juncker said that the EU’s position was that there should be “no access to the internal market if you do not accept the rules — without exception of nuance — that make up the internal market system.”

However, Communist Party of Britain international secretary John Foster said yesterday Mr Juncker was “effectively insisting on all the neoliberal conditions associated with EU membership,” such as “no state monopolies or state subsidies which prejudice competition and free movement of labour, services and capital.”

He said EU leaders wanted to “preserve key elements of the single market” by “insisting on conditions that would trap Britain in a neoliberal framework that would prohibit state-directed industrial strategy, public ownership and investment in services and jobs.”

Mr Juncker called on Britain to present its resignation “as soon as possible,” but the two-year process of negotiating withdrawal will not begin until the government triggers article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

The TUC called on the government yesterday to apply five tests before triggering article 50, saying they will ensure workers do not pay the price for the referendum result.

The tests include ensuring the government has a clear plan to “protect jobs, industries and public services at risk from Brexit” and that it “must guarantee all workers’ rights currently derived from the EU.”