EU chief criticizes planless Brexiteers
With less than two months to go until Britain is due to leave the EU and concern mounting about a potentially chaotic departure, Tusk, who chairs meetings of EU leaders, also appeared to dash any British hopes that the bloc would reopen discussions over the Brexit deal that was overwhelmingly rejected by U.K. lawmakers last month.
“I have been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of plan how to carry it out safely,” Tusk told reporters after talks with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
As the men shook hands, Varadkar told Tusk “they will give you terrible trouble in the British press” over the comments — which, as predicted, drew outrage from British Brexiteers.
House of Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, a pro-Brexit Conservative, said Tusk’s remark was “pretty unacceptable and pretty disgraceful. it totally demeans him.”
Sammy Wilson of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party tweeted that Tusk was a “devilish euro maniac doing his best to keep the United Kingdom bound by the chains of EU bureaucracy and control.”
Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is due in Brussels on Thursday with what she says is a parliamentary mandate to re-open the withdrawal agreement, sealed between the EU and her Conservative government in November after 18 months of intense negotiations.