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Irish foreign min @simoncoveney says a Tory leadership challenge will have little impact on the Brexit impasse. “The issues don’t change and the arithmetic in Westminster won’t change. For us this isn’t about personalities, it’s about the facts and complexities of Brexit...
“The UK needs to make its mind up now as to how it approaches the Brexit process, but I think changing personalities doesn’t change very much, because the issue are still as complex as they always have been.”
Mr Coveney described the UK as a “desperately divided country”. He said there were “purists” who did not want to compromise on Brexit. Conservative and Labour negotiators were trying to find a middle ground that could bring the country together and command a majority in the HoC
He contrasted the divisions in London with the agreed approach on Brexit between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail in Ireland. “The opposite has happened in the UK. The two main parties left it very late in the process to talk to each other. They are now, though...
"We want that process to result in some certainty.” Without any agreement, he said it was “anybody’s guess” as to where the Brexit process goes. “This is about trying to find a way forward that everyone can live with.
"It’s in Ireland’s interests for Britain to be happy, and to be more united than they are now on the Brexit question. But we have issues we have advocated for for three years now. The EU’s position is very clear and the Irish issue is very clear.
“What we have in the WA is an accommodation of both [sets of] concerns to the greatest extent possible, and of course the EU is still open to a changed text to the Pol Decl on the Future Relationship to try to accommodate further the UK if they ask for that...
