European Council President Donald Tusk has spoken of a “special place in hell” for “those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely”.

He was speaking after talks with Irish premier Leo Varadkar in Brussels.

Brexit-backing MPs reacted with anger to the comments, accusing Mr Tusk of “arrogance”.

Downing Street said it was a question for Mr Tusk “whether he considers the use of that kind of language helpful”.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “We had a robust and lively referendum campaign in this country. In what was the largest democratic exercise in our history people voted to leave the EU.”

He added that everyone should now focus on delivering that.

Mr Tusk’s Twitter account tweeted his comments immediately afterwards:

And at the end of their press conference, Mr Varadkar was picked up by the microphones telling Mr Tusk: “They’ll give you terrible trouble in the British press for that.”

Mr Tusk nodded at the comment and both laughed.

Former UKIP leader, and now an independent MEP, Nigel Farage, tweeted back at Mr Tusk: “After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you and run our own country. Sounds more like heaven to me.”

Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, who also campaigned for Britain’s exit from the EU, said Mr Tusk should apologise for his “disgraceful” and “spiteful” comments.

“I’m sure that when he reflects on it he may well wish he hadn’t done it,” she told BBC Radio 4’s World at One.

The Democratic Unionist Party’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said: “This devilish Euro maniac is doing his best to keep the United Kingdom bound by the chains of EU bureaucracy and control.

“It is Tusk and his arrogant EU negotiators who have fanned the flames of fear in an attempt to try and overturn the result of the referendum.”

But Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald backed Mr Tusk, arguing that it was the position of “hardline” Brexit-supporting MPs like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg that was “intemperate” and “untenable”. Read more

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