Coveney on Brexit: 'Personalised attacks on politicians are not the way forward'
Tánaiste Simon Coveney has said that “personalised attacks” on individual politicians to try to get them to agree to British Prime Minister Boris John’s Brexit proposals “are not the way forward.”
The way forward is to face the truth, he told RTÉ radio’s Sean O’Rourke show.
Such attacks are not going to force the Irish Government to change its position, he added. There should be less focus on personalities and more on the outcome.
The only people saying that the current proposals from Boris Johnson will work are the DUP, said Mr Coveney.
Everyone else in Northern Ireland including business and farming representatives “are saying that it won’t work.”
We’re trying to ensure that any deal will work for everyone, that there will be no veto, no kicking the can down the road. That the deal can be implemented.
Mr Coveney said that just because the British Prime Minister says something in the House of Commons that does not mean it is fact. However, he acknowledged that the proposals are “a step forward.”
Mr Coveney also said that Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe is now preparing for a no deal Brexit Budget. “We have to assume the worst. To be cautious and careful, that there is the likelihood of no growth. The objective of the Government is to be cautious.”
Brexit negotiations have to continue on the basis of optimism and realism and on that basis he welcomed the Prime Minister’s proposals this week. But any proposals “have to actually work.
“If this is the final British proposal there won’t be a deal.”
The Tánaiste said that the negotiations are between the UK and the EU. “That’s where the negotiations are at.”
There are lots of political leaders who want an input to the negotiations, he said, but all would have to be listened to “not just those who have a confidence and supply agreement with the British government.
“The Prime Minister’s room to manoeuvre is very tight, but he boxed himself into that corner.”
