Non, non, non!

Macron accused of behaving like Louis XIV after calling Brexit campaigners ‘ liars’

EMMANUEL Macron was called a ‘complete prat’ and accused of behaving like Louis XIV yesterday as he was criticised by both sides of the Brexit divide for branding pro-Leavers ‘liars’.

It came after the French president tore into leaders of the pro-Brexit campaign for telling voters it would be easy to leave the EU.

Mr Macron made the gloating comments following a disastrous summit for Theresa May in Salzburg where she was ambushed by EU leaders over her Brexit plan.

And yesterday Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar appeared to pour more fuel on the fire by claiming Britain was creating all the problems. He said: ‘Ultimately the problems that are being created by Britain and the British Government are being created as a consequence of Brexit and nobody in Europe or Ireland is to blame for that.’

Mr Macron had struck the most explosive tone of all EU leaders after emerging from the stormy two-day summit on Thursday.

He crowed that it proved the decision to leave was ‘not without costs’ and ‘not without consequences’, adding that Brexit had ‘demonstrated that those who said you can easily do without Europe, that it will all go very well, that it is easy and there will be lots of money, are liars’. Before the EU referendum, both sides accused each other of dishonesty and continue to do so.

Remain supporters point to debatable promises of extra cash pushed by the Leave campaign, including a pledge of an extra £350 million a week to spend on the NHS.

Brexiteers point to Project Fear, the name for a collection of terrifying predictions

issued by Remainers. In the event, many were shown to be false.

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab led the fightback against Mr Macron yesterday by insisting Mrs May was ‘the wrong Prime Minister’ to mess with.

Others accused Mr Macron of having so much arrogance, he ‘thinks he is Louis XIV’ – the so-called ‘Sun King’ who reigned for 72 years in France during the 17th century.

Yesterday Mr Raab told the BBC that Brussels was mistaken if it believed Mrs May could be bounced into giving concessions. He also hit out at what he described as ‘dark mutterings’ in Brussels about Northern Ireland being the ‘price Britain will have to pay’ for leaving.

This was in reference to the EU’s demands that Northern Ireland stay tied to the bloc rather than the UK on customs and the single market to avoid a hard border with Ireland after Britain leaves.

Mr Raab said: ‘That is not going to happen. Not with this PM, and not with this Parliament.’

Brexiteers said Mr Macron’s comments would only serve to strengthen anti-EU feeling and likened it to Barack Obama telling Britain before the referendum it would be at the ‘back of the queue’ on trade if it voted Leave. Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘It is the classic arrogance of a man who thinks he is Louis XIV. All he can do is make wild accusations because that we voted he does to leave.’ not like the fact Fellow Tory Nigel Evans said: ‘If I was him I’d stick to his domestic priorities and forget trying to belittle the leader of a country which heard the call and did their duty in 1939 to 1945 for France so that he has the freedom to make a complete prat of himself in 2018.’

Those on the other side of the Brexit divide were also outraged. Former minister Stephen Crabb said: ‘ The manner in which they sought to belittle and put down the Prime Minister yesterday pushes people like me... into a position where we say “the quicker we’re out of this circus, the better”.’

Tory MEP Daniel Hannan added: ‘If Macron thinks that we will respond to insults and bullying, he has badly misread our character and our history.’ Mrs May yesterday said the UK had ‘treated the EU with nothing but respect’, adding: ‘The UK expects the same.’

A diplomatic source said: ‘Nobody wants to punish Britain, it’s more that there are good cops and bad cops. France, you could call a bad cop. The Baltics, Netherlands, the ones that traditionally have a good relationship and a lot of trade with the UK – they are the good cops.’

The backlash came as it emerged that France’s Europe minister, Nathalie Loiseau, had likened the divisions over Brexit to the infamous Dreyfus Affair – the 19thcentury spy scandal that dominated French politics for decades.

The scandal led to novelist Emile Zola writing an open letter to the French president accusing the government of ‘treason against humanity’ by playing to the public’s anti-Semitism to divert attention away from domestic politics.

Mr Rees-Mogg dismissed the comparison as ‘senseless’, while fellow Tory MP Peter Bone said: ‘Is she trying to somehow say that Brexiteers are anti-foreign or antiSemitic or something?’

‘He has badly misread our character’