EU leaders: Britain can call off Brexit if it dislikes the new deal
EU leaders said they were hoping for a ‘‘no-Brexit scenario’’ yesterday as they suggested that Britain could call off the entire process if it did not like the terms of the deal.
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said reversing the referendum result would be the EU’s preferred outcome of the negotiations.
‘‘The EU is prepared for a final deal with the United Kingdom in November. We are also prepared for a no-deal scenario, but of course we are best prepared for a no-Brexit scenario,’’ Tusk said at a press conference in Brussels.
He added: ‘‘Since the very beginning we have had no doubt that Brexit is a lose-lose situation and that our negotiations are about damage control.’’
Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament coordinator, added that he would like to see the UK eventually ‘‘rejoin the European family,’’ though he expressed doubts that this could be achieved by a second referendum. Other officials did their best to appear magnanimous at the moment of their Brexit victory, having succeeded in preventing the return of a hard Irish border and keeping Britain shackled to Brussels red tape for years to come.
‘‘I am not smug or selfsatisfied,’’ Michel Barnier had said on Thursday as he declared that ‘‘decisive progress’’ in the Brexit negotiations had been achieved.
‘‘Mrs May said this is the best possible agreement in the circumstances’’, Barnier said, unaware at the time that a storm of resignations was already brewing in London.
The reaction among the EU27 was broadly positive, with one Irish newspaper claiming ‘‘victory’’ for Dublin at the expense of chaos in London.
Irish ministers were warned after May’s announcement that they should not say anything that could lead to them being accused of ‘‘gloating’’ over the controversial backstop clause.
Leo Varadkar is said to have been concerned that any provocative language from TDs [MPs] and senators may unravel the deal at the last minute.
‘‘There is a strong body of opinion now in Fine Gael [Varadkar’s party] that this is as good as it gets,’’ one minister told the Irish Times.
Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, welcomed the deal as ‘‘good news for the French economy,’’ though sources in Paris said they were disappointed that the agreement did not cover fishing rights.
Berlingske, a Danish paper, in a reference to the UK’s alleged bid to ‘‘cherry-pick’’ EU benefits, said the Britons were ‘‘beginning to understand the EU is not a buffet’’.
‘‘The EU is laughing at us,’’ Steven Woolfe, a British MEP, claimed.