Coveney congratulates May for facing down hardline Brexiteers
THIS week’s slew of resignations in the UK has been hailed as “a good week for Brexit” by Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney.
Mr Coveney also congratulated UK Prime Minister Theresa May for “facing down” hard Brexiteers. He said Britain was now on the path for a “sensible, soft Brexit”.
“I don’t believe it was possible to move the Brexit negotiations forward without having that moment when the majority of the Conservative Party was willing to face down the hardline Brexiteers,” he said.
Two senior cabinet ministers, foreign secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit secretary David Davis, resigned in protest at the cabinet’s agreed new future relationship plans with the EU. Junior minister Steve Baker, former head of the Euro-sceptic European Research Group, was the third departure.
Mr Coveney said the ministers “didn’t represent the majority of opinion in the Conservative Party, or House of Commons”.
The UK is due to release the full detail of its White Paper this morning. It is Britain’s starting point in negotiations on how it hopes to achieve frictionless trade with the EU, securing a no-Border scenario in Ireland and plans for global trade with other countries outside the EU’s customs union.
However, most EU governments, including the Irish Government, remain to be convinced as to whether it will amount to cherry-picking elements of the single market.
“What we have now is what the majority of people are looking for which is a sensible soft Brexit whereby the trading relationship between Britain and the EU is as seamless as we can make it,” said Mr Coveney. He urged Brussels to accommodate some of the “British thinking”.