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British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves after a meeting with the President of the European Council at the European Council in Brussels on February 7, 2019. | Aris Oikonomou/AFP via Getty Images
Theresa May: Tusk’s ‘hell’ comments ‘not helpful’
British prime minister says remarks from European Council president had caused ‘widespread dismay’ in the UK.
Donald Tusk’s “hell” comments on Brexit were “not helpful,” and the EU should focus on working with the U.K. to create a close future relationship with the bloc after it leaves, said Prime Minister Theresa May.
Speaking to Sky News after her meeting in Brussels with the European Council president, May said: “I’ve raised with President Tusk the language that he used, which was not helpful and caused widespread dismay in the United Kingdom.
“The point I made to him is that we should both be working to ensure that we can deliver a close relationship,” she added.
In a press conference Wednesday with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, Tusk had said that there is a “special place in hell” for Brexiteers who had advocated leaving the EU without a plan for how to do so — a remark that provoked outrage among Brexiteers who claimed it was an insult to the U.K.
May is in Brussels seeking changes to the Withdrawal deal agreed between the EU and the U.K. but overwhelmingly rejected last month by the House of Commons. She held discussions with Tusk, as well as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Parliament President Antonio Tajani and senior MEP Guy Verhofstadt.
But despite vowing to “battle in Brussels for Britain,” May came away with little apparently to show for her diplomatic push. EU officials stuck solidly to their line that the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened and the controversial Northern Ireland backstop cannot be renegotiated because it is vital to maintaining peace.
May said she had come to Brussels to “set out our clear position” and “secure legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement to deal with concerns that the parliament has over the backstop.”
“Juncker and I have agreed that talks will now start, to find a way to get through this,” she added. “I am going to deliver Brexit, I am going to deliver it on time … I’ll be negotiating hard in the coming days to do just that.”