Yahoo Finance Irish foreign minister: Brexit deal is ‘only deal on the table’
Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said on Thursday that the Brexit deal agreed by prime minister Theresa May’s cabinet is “the only deal on the table.”
“This is what Brexit looks like,” Coveney told Irish broadcaster RTÉ. “It’s a compromise all round. We have always said that Brexit was not going to look attractive. For us, Brexit is a lose for everybody. It’s a lose for Britain, it’s a lose for Ireland, it’s a lose for the EU.”
May, he said, will need to show “mettle” and use her “power of persuasion” to convince hardline Brexiteers “to support what is the only deal on the table—let’s just be clear.” Coveney was speaking before Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigned.
READ MORE: Pound sinks after Brexit minister resigns
“We have a politics of Brexit in Westminster that is incredibly divisive and difficult. When the British prime minister says ‘there are difficult days ahead,’ she means it,” Coveney warned.
He praised May, however, for following through on her previous commitments, saying it showed “the kind of person she is.”
Though May’s cabinet approved the deal at an hours-long meeting on Wednesday, around a third of her ministers are thought to have spoken out against the Brexit deal that was agreed with EU negotiators earlier in the week.
