How rude! Tusk scorns May in front of cameras
EU CHIEF Donald Tusk publicly criticised Theresa May’s Brexit strategy yesterday just as she welcomed him to Downing Street.
In a breach of protocol, Mr Tusk used a pre-summit photocall to tell the Prime Minister he was ‘not happy’ with her negotiating ‘red lines’ that will see the UK leave the single market, customs union and jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
The brief event was held ahead of a working lunch in Number 10, where the Mrs May briefed Mr Tusk on the outline of today’s Brexit speech.
As the cameras rolled, Mrs May engaged in the normal diplomatic small talk about the weather.
But after joking that his journey from Brussels had not been ‘frictionless’, he said was ‘not happy’ with the government’s negotiating position. His intervention followed a speech in Brussels yesterday morning in which Mr Tusk warned the Prime Minister her goal of continuing with ‘frictionless trade’ after Brexit was impossible.
He also defended controversial EU proposals on the Irish border, which critics have said would lead to Northern Ireland being ‘annexed’ by Brussels.
The plans, designed to prevent the creation of a so-called ‘hard border’, could force Northern Ireland to remain within the customs union and single market – setting up regulatory barriers with the rest of the UK. Mrs May told MPs on Wednesday that ‘no UK prime minister could ever agree’ to the plans. She said the plans would ‘threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK’ by creating a border down the Irish Sea. Mr Tusk said he was ‘absolutely sure that all the essential elements’ of the divorce proposals would be accepted by the 27 remaining EU members and stressed that the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, had the support of the bloc’s leaders.
He said the UK Government’s decision to rule out membership of the single market and customs union had been acknowledged ‘without enthusiasm and without satisfaction’.
‘One of the possible negative consequences of this kind of Brexit is a hard border on the island of Ireland,’ the EU Council President said. An EU source last night said the meeting was ‘an open and honest debate in a good atmosphere’, while Downing Street said it was ‘positive and constructive’.