Donald Tusk, the EU Council president, looked to be carrying the burdens of the world
when he gave his latest news conference about Brexit in Brussels.
His melancholy might account for his distinctly undemocratic outburst on the eve of
crucial talks aimed at avoiding a no-deal withdrawal from the bloc. Mr Tusk said
there was a “special place in hell” reserved for those who had promoted Brexit
without a plan to implement it safely.
Yet this was no off-the-cuff remark by a wearied Eurocrat dreading another encounter
with Theresa May, but what appears to have been a deliberately provocative statement
intended to isolate Brexiteers in Britain, who are seen by Brussels as the main
obstacle to a deal. To this extent, Mr Tusk is right – the Government has not
been able so far to articulate a means of leaving the EU that can command a majority in Parliament.
Article 50, inserted into the Lisbon Treaty ostensibly to facilitate a member state’s
exit in an amicable way, to the mutual benefit of both sides, turns out to be a sham
intended either to prevent departure or to bring it about almost entirely on terms dictated by Brussels.
One theory is that the Commission is in a panic because it detects cracks appearing
among the 27 over the EU’s negotiating stance. Both Mr Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker,
the Commission president, reasserted that Mrs May would be offered nothing new when she travels to Brussels today.
If she hopes to hear that they are ready to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement text to
accommodate changes to the Irish backstop then she is likely to be disappointed.
The EU’s tactics appear to be to give nothing away and see what happens when the
matter returns to the Commons next week. But with less than two months to the UK’s
departure, the phoney frustrations of Mr Tusk may backfire by making a no-deal Brexit
the only option left. Is that what the EU wants? If that happens then Mr Tusk will have every cause to be despondent.
That may well be a failure of governance, but not of democracy.
What Mr Tusk’s
sneering remark betrayed was the utter contempt for the expressed views of
British voters in the 2016 referendum. The implication of what he said is
that no country can ever leave the EU in an orderly way, nor should voters
be asked a question that has a difficult or uncertain answer.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...tive-outburst/