His comments came after he was asked about German chancellor Angela Merkel’s suggestion the EU should quarantine arrivals from the UK owing to the emergence of the Delta variant of Covid-19.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Aldershot’s New Normandy Barracks, Johnson said: "I think that the real opportunity we all have now is to open up travel through the double jab.

"If you look at it, we’ve got more than 60% of our population have now had two jabs, I think 83% have had one jab, we’re really getting through it now.

"I’m not going to claim that this summer, for travel purposes, is going to be like any other summer. I don’t want to cast a pall over things but, as I said the other day, it will be different."

An update on the government’s traffic light regime is expected on Thursday afternoon (24 June), and is likely to come from transport secretary Grant Shapps.

Travel is anticipating a minor expansion of the green list, potentially with several new island destinations, as well as potentially a move that would allow fully vaccinated arrivals from amber list destinations to skip quarantine.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi on Wednesday (23 June) said it was time to get the travel industry back on its feet, and suggested vaccine certification – as well as testing – would play an important role.