…As Six people found dead in mass killing at Japan tourist hotspot***
Donald Trump has suggested Theresa May’s Brexit agreement could threaten a US-UK trade deal.
The US president told reporters the withdrawal agreement “sounds like a great deal for the EU” and meant the UK might not be able to trade with the US.
No 10 insisted it is “very clear” the UK would be able to sign trade deals with countries around the world.
Downing Street added that Mrs May is ready to defend her deal in a TV debate with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
It has been reported the debate could take place on 9 December – two days before the Parliamentary vote on Mrs May’s deal.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Mr Trump said: “Right now if you look at the deal, [the UK] may not be able to trade with us. And that wouldn’t be a good thing. I don’t think they meant that.”
It would appear Mr Trump was suggesting the agreement could leave Britain unable to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the United States.
However, responding to Mr Trump’s comments, a Downing Street spokesman said the Brexit withdrawal agreement struck on Sunday would allow the UK to sign bilateral deals with countries including the US.
“We have already been laying the groundwork for an ambitious agreement with the US through our joint working groups, which have met five times so far,” the spokesman added.
The comments came after Mrs May fought off criticism of her Brexit deal from MPs on all sides of the Commons on Monday – insisting the agreement would all the UK to regain control of laws, money and borders.
Theresa May took a kicking in the House of Commons and then her closest ally, in the shape of Donald Trump, puts on his size 12 hobnail boots and joins in.
When Donald Trump fired a broadside at Theresa May’s Brexit deal there was nothing accidental or off the cuff about it.
Senior members of his administration maintain close contacts with prominent eurosceptics in the Conservative party.
But when the president says the agreement could jeopardise trade with the UK, it’s hard to see what he means. During the transition period, business with the US would presumably carry on in exactly the same way as it does now.
Yet all the time that Britain is in some way yoked to EU rules then there are limits to what can be negotiated in terms of a free trade deal – all points that have been made by those who campaigned for a more decisive Brexit.
This intervention, coming post deal and pre-Commons vote, can only be interpreted in one way – the president is siding with the prime minister’s critics.
Sir Michel Fallon, meanwhile, has launched a scathing attack on Mrs May’s Brexit deal, labelling it “doomed”.
The senior Conservative and long-standing party loyalist echoed Mr Corbyn’s words when he described the deal as “the worst of all worlds”.
Asked if the prime minister was now also doomed, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “That’s up to my colleagues.”
In the meantime, residents of a remote village in south-western Japan are coming to terms with a gruesome mass murder after six people, including five members of the same family, were found dead inside a farmhouse.
Police said they later discovered the body of a seventh person who had jumped or fallen from a nearby bridge into a river in Takachiho, Miyazaki prefecture, a mountain village of 12,000 people and a popular tourist destination.
Investigators discovered the body of a woman outside the house and the bodies of five other people, including a young girl, inside, on Monday. Media reports said some of the victims appeared to have been stabbed.
Police named three of them as Mihoko Iihoshi, the 66-year-old wife of the house’s owner, 72-year-old farmer Yasuo Iihoshi, their seven-year-old granddaughter Yui and a male acquaintance, 44-year-old Fumiaki Matsuoka.
The bodies of the remaining three victims – two men and a woman – were yet to be publicly identified.
Police went to the house after a relative told them his calls to the family had gone unanswered, according to Kyodo news.
The seventh body, whom police believe could be that of Yasuo Iihoshi’s son, was found in a river about three kilometres away. It appeared he had driven to the bridge in the family car.
The area is near Takachiho valley, a popular tourist destination known for its scenic gorge and connections to Japan’s indigenous religion Shinto.
The discovery sparked fear among residents, with local officials urging people to exercise caution and collect their children from school, Kyodo said.
Mass killings are a rarity in Japan, which is considered one of the safest countries in the world, thanks in part to its strict gun laws. However, killings carried out with knives occasionally make headlines.
In 2001 a man with a history of mental illness forced his way into a primary school in Osaka and fatally stabbed eight children aged between six and eight. In 2008 seven people were killed when a man slammed a truck into a crowd on a busy shopping street in central Tokyo and then launched a frenzied knife attack. In July 2016 Satoshi Uematsu, who claimed he wanted to make people with disabilities “disappear”, killed 19 people and injured 27 others in a knife attack at a care facility in Sagamihara, south of Tokyo.
BBC with additional report from Guardian UK
