The United Kingdom should not go out of the European Union without a trade deal, Japan has urged to the two Prime Minister hopefuls Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, when either of them becomes the UK prime minister. That request was made by Japan’s foreign minister Tarō Kōno in an unusually blunt warning.

If there was a deal Brexit, Japanese companies that are operating out of the UK currently would be forced to relocate to other countries of Europe, Kōno suggested.

“There are over 1,000 Japanese companies operating in the United Kingdom, so we are very concerned with this no-deal Brexit,” Kōno told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday.

The fact that they would not be averse to take the UK out of the EU even without a deal if they were to become the prime minister has been said by both Johnson and Hunt.

He had asked both of them to avoid a no-deal Brexit, Kōno said.

“Whenever we had a meeting that was one of the major issue[s], ‘please no no deal. No no-deal Brexit’,” he said. “Whatever they do is up to the UK government, but we just don’t want to have a negative impact on the foreign companies in the United Kingdom, including the Japanese.”

The consequences of a no-deal Brexit for Japanese carmakers in the UK is the primary aspect that has kept him worried, Kōno said.

“There are a few Japanese auto manufacturers operating in the United Kingdom and some parts are coming from continental Europe, and right now they have very smooth operations,” he said even as the current British prime minister Theresa May is set to visit Japan to attend the G20 summit

“Their stock for each part is only for a few hours, but if there is [a] no-deal Brexit and if they have to go through actual custom[s] inspection, physically, those operations may not be able to continue. And many companies are worried about [the] implications, because they don’t know what’s going to happen, he said.

“Some companies have already start[ed] moving their operation[s] to other place[s] in Europe, so we do not want disrupt [the] economic relationship with the UK. So we have been asking the UK government [to] let the Japanese companies know what they can expect and [that] things should happen smoothly without any disruption,” he added.

While claiming that he was well acquainted with both the prime ministerial candidates, Kōno urged both of them to consider the case of Japanese companies operating in the UK after one of them assumes he chair of prime minister. He also warned that Japanese investment in the UK was in jeopardy.

Any negotiations on trade between Japan and the UK can only be done after the UK leaves the EU, Kōno said when he was asked about the chances of a bilateral free-trade agreement with the UK. “You have to leave the EU first to be able to negotiate, so it would take some time. There [is] going to be some kind of gap between when the UK leaves the EU and when we can ratify [a] new trade deal,” he said.

(Adapted from TheGuardian.com)

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