I asked @JunckerEU if he’d rather have Parliament ratify new Brexit deal or approve holding another referendum. He gave the stock EU response that the choice was a domestic one for the UK. But he said he didn’t think there would be a second referendum /1 
Mr Juncker appeared to contradict Boris Johnson’s claim that he’d managed what his predecessor failed to do: get EU to blink and “bin the backstop”. Instead, Juncker said they’d found a new way in #Brexit renegotiations to come up with the same result as the original backstop /2
In practical terms, if not legally-speaking, in Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal Northern Ireland will remain part of EU’s customs union after Brexit. This is the border in Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and rest of the UK that the PM initially said he would never, ever allow /3
Despite complaining about the protracted #Brexit process, Mr Juncker refused to accept EU might share some blame. In his opinion there’s no point pontificating whether Brexit could have been done ages ago if Irish border issue had not been front and centre of divorce talks.. /4
Juncker said Ireland demanded the post-Brexit status of border between Northern Ireland and the Republic be a key focus at every stage of negotiations and EU did its best to support a member state. His implication: the EU couldn’t and wouldn’t have done it any other way /5
President Juncker said negotiating with UK had been difficult bc he says “it took time for our British friends to find their line” ie decide what UK wanted in negotiations. He says he sometimes got feeling UK was “concentrating on tactics not strategy” in negotiations /6
Juncker said during political career he’s got to know 5 UK prime ministers starting with Tony Blair. He said all seemed to want to do what was best for their country. Juncker said he sometimes disagreed what wld be best for UK but added “that was their responsibility not mine” /7
Jean Claude Juncker is often associated with the dream of a ‘united states of Europe’ but he told me he was not ready for that and that “the people of Europe are not ready for that. We are who we are. Nations are important,” he insisted /8
Juncker says he reads the British papers and that journalists don’t listen to the content of his speeches because, he says, he does not advocate federalism. He said of the press: “they are lying when they call me an archaic, blind, stubborn European federalist. I’m not.” /7
