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#SkyPapers explanation of rolling over trade deals after Brexit is shockingly wrong. Third country deals, such as Japan one, won't automatically get rolled over for the UK even under Theresa May's deal. The EU has promised to put in a good word on the UK's behalf, nothing more.
Of the 40+ trade agreements covering over 70 third countries, only the ones with Chile and the Faroe Islands have been successfully renegotiated. And Liam Fox has privately admitted to a business gathering that there is no chance all the rest will be rolled over by Brexit Day.
Why? The reason is simple, and predictable: our counterparts are seeking to extract better conditions from us, rather than passively rolling over the existing terms of the EU's trade deals we share in as EU members.
And they're in the driving seat because, until they put a trade deal in place, we have nothing. In other words, we're negotiating our way up from zero in their eyes, even if what we're really trying to do is preserve the status quo. That gives them massive bargaining power.
Unable to punch up, Liam Fox has sadly opted to punch down. Reports suggest that his team is trying to frogmarch some of the poorest countries into signing one-sided deals that risk damaging their precarious economies. A far cry from the "everything but arms" approach of the EU.
