Britain will not face a trade disruption as it negotiates Brexit, says WTO chief

The head of the World Trade Organisation said Britain will avoid enduring a “vacuum or a disruption” in trade as it negotiates its divorce from the European Union.

Roberto Azevêdo, the WTO director-general, told Sky News on Wednesday, "The UK is a member of the WTO today; it will continue to be a member tomorrow. There will be no discontinuity in membership”.

International trade secretary Liam Fox had suggested that after the country leaves the trading block the country would adopt WTO rules as part of a ‘hard’ or ‘clean’ Brexit.

Azevêdo said the country will have to renegotiate the terms of membership of the Geneva-based institution but that does not mean the UK is not a member.

“Members renegotiate their commitments all the time here. So they will be renegotiating a particular set of commitments they have now under the EU and transition from those commitments to another set of commitments.”

He maintained that, "Trade will not stop, it will continue and members will be negotiating with the UK, the legal basis under which that trade is going to happen.

“But it doesn't mean that we'll have a vacuum or a disruption in terms of trade flows or anything of the kind, not automatically."

Azevêdo said he will work “very intensely” to ensure that the UK’s transition “is fast and is smooth”.

"The less turbulence the better, the global economy today is not in the best shape for us to be introducing turbulence."

Before June’s EU referendum campaign, he had said the UK would have to start trade talks from scratch as it could not “cut and paste” the deal it has as a member of the EU.

Meanwhile, leaked recordings showed that Theresa May, the Prime Minister, warned against leaving the EU before the vote, as access to a 500m trading block was significant for the country, while she currently remains guarded over the extent of the UK’s access to the single market.