Varadkar throws lifeline to the beleaguered May
EU leaders will give her more time to avoid no-deal Brexit, he says
AMID all the gloom for Theresa May yesterday, Leo Varadkar offered some hope, telling the Irish Daily Mail that EU leaders would extend the Brexit process if that stopped the UK crashing out without a deal.
Such a move would require the backing of all 27 remaining states.
‘If the UK makes that decision then we’d have to consider it,’ the Taoiseach said.
‘But I think it’s fair to say that if the choice were between no deal and an extension of Article 50… I can’t see many people not understanding that an extension would make more sense than no deal,’ he said.
The UK is due to leave the EU on March 29 but fears are growing that MPs’ refusal to back their prime minister’s draft agreement with the EU could see it crashing out without any deal.
Meanwhile, the Irish Government will begin publishing its contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit next Thursday, Mr Varadkar has revealed, with the EU doing the same on Wednesday.
‘Preparations have to be made,’ he said. ‘No matter what, we have to make those preparations, so the next step now is that on the 19th of December, the European Commission will release its legislation for a no deal. The Tánaiste will meet the stakeholders forum on the 20th and 21st and after that we will produce a further updated document on our domestic preparations.
‘That will then be picked up in January for a final seminar on no-deal preparations, that’s happening between the 10th and 15th of January, and we will release more information at that point.’
Yesterday, Mrs May said the UK was also stepping up its no-deal preparations, indicating whatever assurances she receives may not be enough to win over MPs.
But she said discussions with the EU on further reassurances for MPs will continue over the coming days.
In a press conference at the end of a European Council summit in Brussels, she acknowledged that it would not be possible to reopen the agreement to alter the backstop provisions, which have sparked mass rebellion among Tory MPs. It also emerged that a paragraph promising further assurances was dropped from the European Council summit conclusions on Thursday night.
Mr Varadkar said it was deleted because there was no support for it among EU leaders as robust assurances are ‘already in place’. Part of the problem is that the EU feels the prime minister has been unclear about what kind of reassurances she is looking for.
‘We can’t have a situation whereby any negotiating party, and this is true for everyone, can be coming back every couple of weeks following discussions with their parliament, looking for something extra, looking for something more. You can’t operate international relations on that basis.’
He has also ruled out the prospect of needing an emergency budget next year if there is a cliff-edge Brexit, which Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin had said would be necessary.
‘We framed the budget very much with Brexit in mind, and bear in mind the analysis of the ESRI which came out during the week,’ he said.
He said the ESRI said that even in a no-deal hard Brexit scenario the economy will continue to grow, albeit at a rate of 3% instead of the predicted 6% rate.