ONE DIPLOMATIC SLIP ...AND WE’RE OFF TO HELL IN A HANDCART
DONALD Tusk made one of the EU’s first major miscalculations in Brexit talks yesterday – someone really should have told him that preaching fire and brimstone is the DUP’s speciality. As soon as the European Council president sent out his inflammatory tweet the UK was up in arms, clutching her pearls and using all manner of expletives to describe discourteous Donald. Sammy ‘Let them eat chippy’ Wilson of the DUP was one of the first out of the gates, describing Tusk as a tridentwielding ‘devilish Euro maniac’.
It was quite the escalation from Tusk’s pondering of whether there was a ‘special place in hell’ for those who campaigned for Brexit without a clear plan for delivering it safely.
But of course the whole delivering Brexit safely message got lost in this age of instant outrage, and soon Tusk was charged with not simply targeting Brexit campaigners but the British people as a whole.
It wasn’t long before the issue made its way to the House of Commons where Tory MP and Brexiteer Peter Bone jumped up and down demanding that something be done to restrain those uppity Europeans.
‘I don’t recall any president insulting members of this house, members of this government and the British people in such a way. What means is open to the House to respond to such an outrageous insult?’ he demanded of the speaker of the house John Bercow.
Bercow, one of the few remaining voices of reason in Westminster, was as unforgiving as he was articulate in his response.
‘I was not hitherto conscious, that the honourable gentleman, was notably sensitive, that he was in any sense a delicate flower. That he was capable of being a quickly and severely injured soul by virtue of the ad hominem remarks of others,’ he said.
Of course, Donald Tusk knew his remarks would be misinterpreted and outrage would follow. That much was obvious when he burst into laughter saying ‘I know!’ when told by Leo Varadkar that the British press would give him terrible trouble for the comments. A few British hacks were already foaming at the mouth.
Yes, it was bad diplomacy. There’s little that’s diplomatic about eternal damnation, even if Jean-Claude Juncker claims he’s ‘never seen hell apart from the time I was doing my job here’.
But let’s not forget that throughout these talks Brexiteers have appeared to threaten Ireland with food shortages and economic ruin, likened the EU to Soviet Russia and invoked xenophobia to the nth degree.
Sure it didn’t help that EU Brexit Coordinator Guy Verhofstadt doubled down by tweeting: ‘Well, I doubt Lucifer would welcome them, as after what they did to Britain, they would even manage to divide hell.’
But after two years-plus of being asked by the UK to compromise on their core values to facilitate Brexit, you can understand Tusk and Co. wanting to let off a little steam. Much more worrying is the fact that 50 days out from Brexit, the EU seems to have given up on even pretending that any goodwill remains between the two sides.
Of course if Donald Tusk had been paying attention, he’d know exactly where the ‘special place’ in hell is.
In the Brexiteer mindset, hell is other people.