PM: We’ll copy EU trade deals

BRITAIN is hoping to ‘copy and paste’ dozens of EU trade deals after Brexit so they are ready to use immediately, Theresa May has said.

Speaking on her trip to Japan, the Prime Minister said ministers plan to offer about 40 countries that have free trade agreements with Brussels the chance to replicate those deals with Britain. Mrs May said the current negotiations between the EU and Japan over a deal could be ‘the basis for a future trade deal between the United Kingdom and Japan’.

She added: ‘There’s obviously a number of trade deals that the EU has with other countries, and we are looking at the possibility of those being able to be brought over into, certainly initially, trade deals with the United Kingdom.’

Subsequently, the UK may then choose to work with the countries to adapt the deals, Mrs May explained.

‘Even if we start on the basis of an existing trade deal that a country has with the EU, it will be up to the United Kingdom and that country if we wish to renegotiate and change those terms in the future,’ she said.