Brexit: Donald Trump told me to sue the European Union, British PM tells BBC
But Theresa May said the US president had also told her to keep negotiating with the bloc.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday that United States President Donald Trump told her to sue the European Union, instead of negotiating the United Kingdom’s exit from the bloc.
May’s comments came in response to a question by BBC’s Andrew Marr, who asked her what suggestion Trump had given her which he said she found “brutal”. “He told me I should sue the European Union – not go into negotiations,” she said. “Interestingly, what the president also said at that press conference was ‘don’t walk away’. Don’t walk away from those negotiations because then you’ll be stuck. So I want us to be able to sit down to negotiate the best deal for Britain.”
Trump told The Sun on Friday that he had “told May how to do Brexit, but she wrecked it”. He added that May’s proposals would “probably kill” a trade deal with his country. However, hours later, he claimed a US-UK trade deal was possible.
On Thursday, the British government published a document containing details of its plan to exit the European Union. Prime Minister Theresa May, who unveiled the white paper in Parliament, promised to push through her plan to keep Britain closely tied to the European Union’s single market after Brexit.
The plan has met with protests in the House of Commons. On July 9, two senior ministers in May’s Cabinet – former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis – resigned, just two days after the prime minister held a crisis meeting with her colleagues.