EU boss taunts British leaders

TUSK: DIVORCE DEAL MAY AGREED TO ‘WILL NOT BE REOPENED’

Impasse in Brussels has led to fears Britain could crash out of EU without a deal on March 29.

European Union leader Donald Tusk injected hellfire into the Brexit crisis yesterday, damning British leaders for their failure to plan for the divorce and saying he hopes Theresa May now has a “realistic” idea.

The British prime minister is due in Brussels today to seek new ways towards ensuring Britain’s orderly withdrawal from the EU in March 29 – and to avoid what Tusk warned could be a “fiasco.”

But EU Council president Tusk and EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, after meeting Irish leader Leo Varadkar, warned once again that the divorce deal May agreed last year but failed to sell to her parliament will not be reopened.

Neither will they change the deal’s “backstop” that ensures an open Irish border, they said. And, in remarks that triggered a firestorm, Tusk mocked British eurosceptic leaders, some of whom now favour a “no deal” departure.

“I’ve been wondering what that special place in Hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely,” Tusk said.

Juncker, at a later news conference, did not use the same language, but cheerfully laughed off Tusk’s remark, joking: “I am less Catholic that my friend Donald. I believe in Heaven but I’ve never seen Hell apart from doing my job here. It is Hell.”

This caused an uproar across the Channel, with a spokesperson for the Northern Irish loyalist party the DUP picking up on the infernal theme and branding Tusk a “devilish, trident-wielding, euro maniac.”

Number 10 was more measured in its response, but did not hide its irritation. “It’s a question for Tusk as to whether he considers the use of that kind of language to be helpful, and I appreciate that was difficult this morning because he didn’t take any questions,” May’s spokesperson said.

British ministers and Brexiteers have repeatedly used insulting language about EU leaders and the union, comparing it to Nazi Germany or the Soviet gulag, but many expressed outrage at Tusk’s taunt.

Eurosceptic British MEP Nigel Farage, who once called former EU leader Hermann van Rompuy a “damp rag”, tweeted at Tusk: “After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you and run our own country. Sounds more like heaven to me.”

The impasse in Brussels has led to heightened fears Britain could crash out of the EU without a deal on March 29, disrupting trade and supplies to manufacturing.

Tusk and Juncker said they look forward to hosting May. –