Donald Trump told me to sue EU – Theresa May

Appearing on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show, the prime minister said: ‘He told me I should sue the EU. Not go into negotiation, sue them.’

She added: ‘What the president also said at that press conference was ‘Don’t walk away. Don’t walk away from the negotiations. Then you’re stuck’.’

Mrs May also insisted that her controversial blueprint for Brexit represents a ‘good deal’ for the UK.

Amid mounting Tory anger over her proposal for a ‘common rule book’ with the EU on trade in goods, she acknowledged she had been forced to make changes to her original plans by Brussels.

However she said that result was a plan that would deliver ‘benefits’ for Britain, protecting jobs and ensuring there would be no need for a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Mrs May defended her revised Brexit plan, agreed by the Cabinet at Chequers, which led to the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson.

‘This is a good deal for the UK. In this one area we needed to make a change – the question of trade in goods in relationship to the frictionless border – we needed to make a change,’ she said.

‘We needed to come forward with another option to in order to ensure that we can get those negotiations on trade. The clock is ticking.

‘But this a deal that has benefits. Our companies will abide by these rules anyway, Giving them frictionless border means that the jobs that depend on that frictionless trade will be protected.

‘It means we deliver on the Northern Ireland border. It means we have got benefits out of this deal. This is a good deal for the UK.’

Mrs May said she had come forward with her revised approach after the EU offered two options for a deal – neither of which was acceptable to the UK.

‘The European Commission proposals that it put forward were no good. On the one hand it what would have been for us a very poor trade deal and would have kept Northern Ireland in the customs union, effectively carving Northern Ireland out in these terms of the UK. That is unacceptable to any government here in the UK,’ she said.

‘On the other hand what they call EEA (European Economic Area) plus, which would have meant accepting free movement and accepting being in the customs union. Both of those are unacceptable. They are what people voted against.

‘Faced with that we had an option. We could go for no deal – no deal is still there, it is still possible – but I think the best thing for the UK is to have deal that sets a good relationship with our trading partners in the future.

‘So if we were going to find something that was Britain’s interest, that delivered on the referendum and that was negotiable, we had to make what is a compromise but is a positive in terms of the benefits it gives us.’