Phil Hogan: ‘There won’t be a no-deal Brexit’
EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan has said there will not be a no-deal Brexit, despite swirling uncertainty about the prospect of a general election in Britain.
Speaking in Kilkenny today, Mr Hogan said that the “Johnson deal” agreed between the UK and the other 27 member states represents “a very big success” for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Government.
He said this is because it protects all of the priorities identified by Ireland during the Brexit process, particularly the protection of frictionless trade between north and south.
“The deal achieves the objectives that were set out by the European Union, it achieves the objectives set out by the Irish Government in relation to an all-island economy — no hard border on the island of Ireland, protection of the Good Friday Agreement, [and] frictionless trade between the island of Ireland and the European Union — and this was a very big success for the Irish Government [and] for the European Union, and shows the great solidarity that there was with Ireland by the other 26 member states at a very difficult time for Ireland,” he told RTÉ News.
“There won’t be a crash-out, I think there’s a great determination not only in Europe but in the House of Commons that this will not be the case.
“There won’t be a no-deal Brexit, there won’t be a crash-out of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
“Boris Johnson had to, of course, eventually come to the realisation that he had to seek an extension of membership of the UK of the European Union.
It’s a question of how many weeks or how many months will be agreed at this stage. Hopefully, it will be agreed today.
EU ambassadors postponed a decision on how long to delay Britain’s exit from the bloc until next week, diplomats have said after talks in Brussels.
The 27 member states agree in principle that Brexit should be delayed beyond the end of the month, but talks are ongoing about how much longer to wait.
Mr Johnson has told Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to “man up” and back his plans for a pre-Christmas general election.
The British prime minister reiterated his offer to give MPs more time to consider his Brexit plan if they agreed to an election on December 12, and told the Labour leader it was up to him to decide whether to get the deal done.
Mr Johnson insisted Britain could still leave the EU on October 31 — despite the EU27 accepting the “principle of an extension” — but said the fate of Britain’s exit date was now in Brussels’ hands.
During his eighth visit to a hospital since becoming prime minister, Mr Johnson told reporters in Milton Keynes that Labour was “split from top to bottom” on whether to hold an election.
“We have got Momentum, who are the communists who back part of the Jeremy Corbyn enterprise, saying they want an election.
“And then you have got loads of MPs led by guys like Keir Starmer and Tom Watson who don’t seem to want an election... Time for Corbyn [to] man up. Let’s have an election on December 12.”
