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Europe tells UK that “our hearts are still open”, and hopes London will listen

Wednesday, January 17th 2018 - 09:25 UTC
Full article 3 comments
Juncker told EU parliament: “President Tusk also made some comments on Brexit, he said that our door remains open. I hope that will be heard clearly in London.” Juncker told EU parliament: “President Tusk also made some comments on Brexit, he said that our door remains open. I hope that will be heard clearly in London.”

Europe’s top two bureaucrats believe the UK could still yet change its mind on Brexit. Donald Tusk, the European Council president, said “our hearts are still open” to “our British friends” to remain in the bloc. And quoting the UK Brexit secretary, he added: “Wasn’t it David Davis himself who said ‘if a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy’? We here on the continent haven’t had a change of heart – our hearts are still open to you.”

 Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, also addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg: “President Tusk also made some comments on Brexit, he said that our door remains open. I hope that will be heard clearly in London.”

Unless there is a change of heart among our British friends, #Brexit will become a reality, with all its negative consequences, March next year. We, here on the continent, haven’t had a change of heart. Our hearts are still open for you. — Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) January 16, 2018.

The pair spoke just hours after Boris Johnson reignited the Brexit bus £350m health service injection claim saying the slogan was a mistake – it was too low. The foreign secretary, one of the highest profile Leave campaigners, said the UK’s weekly gross contribution would rise to £438m by the end of a post-Brexit transition period.

As speculation swirls of a possible second referendum, Johnson has insisted Leavers were right to make the claims for the NHS.

“There was an error on the side of the bus. We grossly underestimated the sum over which we would be able to take back control,” he told the Guardian. “As and when the cash becomes available – and it won’t until we leave – the NHS should be at the very top of the list,” said Johnson.

His reassertion of the money that would become available for public services once the UK leaves the European Union came just days after arch Eurosceptic Nigel Farage conceded that a second vote could be the only way to shut down “Remoaners” for good.

However, he also said there was a real possibility that a second referendum could reverse the narrow 52-48 result of the first run. In the interview with the Guardian, Johnson said he doubted public appetite for a re-run but was confident Leave would win again if one was held.

He argued UK’s contribution to Europe was already up to £362m per week for 2017-18 and would rise annually to £410m, £431m, and then to £438m by 2020-21 – “theoretically the last year of the transition period”.

Categories: Politics, International.

Top Comments

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  • Conqueror

    Sorry Brussels, we won't be changing our minds. Europhiles can forget it as well. We are on the brink of regaining our freedom. Change our mind when the EU is proposing to end all rebates, all opt-outs, all freedom to set our own fiscal policies, to become a unitary state where nationhood means nothing? You are out of your tiny minds. If you have any minds.

    Jan 17th, 2018 - 11:53 am +1
  • EscoSesDoidao

    I literarily jumped for joy when the EU referendum result was confirmed. Brexit means Brexit. And it Is happening.

    Jan 17th, 2018 - 01:13 pm +1
  • Pete Bog

    “our hearts are still open” to “our British friends” to remain in the bloc. ”

    After we have been punished they're still going to have to find a new member to make up for the money they are going to lose from the UK, which is what they really mean..

    “When the EU is proposing to end all rebates, all opt-outs, all freedom to set our own fiscal policies”

    Hardly an enticement for the UK to change its mind.

    They were told by Cameron the objections that the UK had to existing EU practices, they ignored them, saying you can take Europe or leave it, and surprise surprise, we voted to leave.

    Ironically, one of the EU's purposes is supposedly to prevent WW2 happening, forgetting that of all the European countries in the EU zone, it was the UK who did most to beat Hitler.

    Jan 17th, 2018 - 02:49 pm +1
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