Fears of no deal grow, but bloc united in saying it won’t budge on withdrawal agreement

EU leaders are preparing for a “different breed” of Brexiter to replace Theresa May as Britain’s prime minister, but warned that nothing had changed in Brussels.

A dinner next week to discuss candidates for top EU jobs following the European elections looks likely to be hijacked by talks over the latest Brexit twist as concerns grow that May’s resignation has increased the risk of a no-deal withdrawal.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for urgent clarity from London shortly after May’s Downing Street statement.

“It is too early to speculate on the consequences of this decision,” the Élysée Palace said in a statement. “The principles of the European Union will continue to apply, including the priority to preserve the smooth functioning of the EU, which requires a quick clarification.”

Tory leadership race: the favourites to replace May Read more

A spokeswoman for Angela Merkel, who disclosed Berlin’s plans to hold talks on the “next steps” at the meeting in Brussels on Tuesday evening, said the German chancellor had noted May’s planned departure with respect and that the repercussions would depend on developments in British domestic politics. A spokesman for the European council president, Donald Tusk, said Brexit was not currently on the agenda.

In the US meanwhile, Donald Trump expressed sympathy for May, telling reporters: “I feel badly for Theresa. I like her very much.”

Shortly after May’s announcement that she was to resign as party leader on 7 June, European leaders spoke as one in reasserting their refusal to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement.

The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said the EU would never reopen negotiations on the Brexit divorce deal, whoever succeeded May.

“The withdrawal agreement is not up for renegotiation,” Rutte told a press conference in The Hague hours after May’s announcement, which followed her failure three times to have her deal approved by the Commons.

Rutte said uncertainty had “increased rather than decreased” but that “the problem was not Theresa May” rather that she was “bogged down in that Brexit swamp”.

“I phoned her at once this morning. I told her that I thought what she did in the past years was brave and that she worked under incredibly difficult circumstances to deliver a Brexit,” he said. “I am not going to comment on Boris Johnson or any of the other candidates – we have to await the outcome and at the end of the day you have to work with everyone.”

A spokeswoman for Jean-Claude Juncker said the European commission president had followed May’s tearful statement “without personal joy”, and described her as a “very courageous woman”.

She added that Juncker would treat any new prime minister with the respect shown to May but added that Brussels’ “position on the withdrawal agreement and everything has been set out, there is no change to that”.

Who should be the next Tory leader? Our panel responds | Polly Toynbee and others Read more

Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said May had been a “principled and headstrong” prime minister and spoke of his hope that “reason will prevail in the UK and that her successor will see to an orderly Brexit”.

In Ireland, the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, expressed his concerns about the danger to his country from a Brexiter prime minister in Downing Street.

He said: “Obviously, as anyone can see, British politics is consumed by Brexit and will be consumed by Brexit for a very long time. It now means we enter a new phase when it comes to Brexit and a phase that may be a very dangerous one for Ireland.

“In the next couple of months we may see the election of a Eurosceptic prime minister who wants to repudiate the withdrawal agreement and go for a no deal, or we may even see a new British government that wants a close relationship with the EU and goes for a second referendum. Whatever happens we are going to hold our nerve.”

The Spanish government described May’s decision to resign as bad news that would significantly raise the prospect of a hard Brexit.

“A hard Brexit in these circumstance seems an almost unstoppable reality,” the government’s spokewoman, Isabel Celaá, said at a press conference.

An EU official said the “almost consensus analysis” was that May would be replaced by a hard Brexiter. “Mentally we have to prepare for a different breed on the other side of the table,” one senior official said. “The Tory party will be in survival mode and in order to survive it will have to regain credibility as the party of Brexit.”

Exit Theresa May. Stand by for a summer of Tory fratricide and country-shafting | Marina Hyde Read more

It was feared that a departure without a deal was more likely because a new prime minister’s room for manoeuvre would be “exhausted or close to exhausted”, the source said. “The Tory party will want to realise Brexit before the next general election and that’s why the prospect of a no-deal Brexit is again gaining more importance, even if the Westminster parliament wants to prevent no deal.

The official said of the prospect of renegotiating with Boris Johnson, the favourite to win the Conservative party leadership: “We would be really stupid if we had refused the reasonable negotiators and now suddenly reopen the door,” before adding: “I don’t think so.”

A senior EU diplomat also said it was unthinkable that leaders such as Macron would offer Johnson more than they offered May. “It is fundamental question of our credibility at a time when the EU needs to hold the line, against populists, Donald Trump on trade and Russia. Will we throw it all away just to help a Brexiter like Boris Johnson? Can you see President Macron doing that?”

The continuing political instability in London instead risks pushing EU capitals towards taking Macron’s tough position that a further Brexit extension beyond 31 October threatens to “poison” the bloc’s institutions.

Those willing to countenance rejecting a further extension request are not yet, however, believed to be in the majority. “It really depends a lot on Britain, but I don’t think the large majority [of EU member states] will fundamentally oppose an extension,” a source said. “As long as Britain works constructively in order not to disrupt the work of the European Union, I don’t really see the balance of opinion changing in the council.”

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said: “What could happen now just let me clearly say here, in Brussels, that it’s for the UK to decide, nobody else.”

The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, said he backed a second referendum to break the impasse. “I still hope that [Britain] will hold a snap election and at the end they will have one more referendum,” Babiš said. “That the [British] people finally understand that the misinformation that that they received [about Brexit] is not true and Britain will stay in the European Union.”



