British government realises Brexit is a mistake, says Irish official

Last Updated: April 14, 2017By

Interesting intervention here from John Callinan, a leading official in the Irish government.

He isn’t saying anything we didn’t already suspect – but he’s saying it for everybody to hear.

Undoubtedly it will embarrass Theresa May and her three stooges Brexiteers – but that’s their fault, isn’t it? They should have come out and admitted the facts.

The British government is slowly realising Brexit is “an act of great self-harm” and that upcoming EU-UK negotiations must seek to limit the damage, the State’s top Brexit official has said.

The official, John Callinan, said on Thursday: “I see signs in the contacts that we’re having, both at EU level and with the UK, of a gradual realisation that Brexit in many ways is an act of great self-harm, and that the focus now is on minimising that self-harm.”

The remarks by Mr Callinan, the second secretary-general at the Department of the Taoiseach, were delivered at a Brexit seminar organised by the trade unions Impact and Siptu.

Mr Callinan also highlighted the existence of internal divisions on the British side just weeks out from the start of formal withdrawal negotiations with the EU, saying it was clear there was “no single, settled position” on Brexit in London.

“Even within the British government, there are very different views,” he said.

Source: British government realises Brexit is a mistake, official says

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9 Comments

  1. NMac April 14, 2017 at 12:14 pm - Reply

    I feel that the spineless May is a puppet of the ultra-nasty hard-line right-wingers, Duncan-Smith, Fox, Davis et al. They are in a real mess and won’t come out and admit it.

  2. Roy Beiley April 14, 2017 at 1:15 pm - Reply

    Theresa May gone by May? Maybe!

  3. Walter Murray April 14, 2017 at 3:20 pm - Reply

    a lot more people need to be informed and speak out its the only way

  4. Barry Davies April 14, 2017 at 7:10 pm - Reply

    May is a relentless remainer so it won’t bother her that some Irish bloke is pretending to have the inside track, we have heard it all before from many different so called experts but the bottom line is the project fear failed before the referendum it isn’t going to work now.

  5. PJB April 14, 2017 at 8:57 pm - Reply

    This Tory wannabe despot government of ours are so very pathetic. Do they actually know what they are doing and the mess they leave behind them.

  6. Zippi April 15, 2017 at 1:16 am - Reply

    Again, people with crystal balls. We don’t yet know how this thing will pan out. Nobody has done it before. It could well be bad but we’ll have to make it good. A mistake? A decision, aye but a mistake? A mistake is doing something that you didn’t mean to do. We chose this path and we have to make it work. Granted, things would be different with another government, another cabinet but we have this one. Blame Call-Me-Dave for that!

    • Mike Sivier April 15, 2017 at 1:48 am - Reply

      A mistake can also be something we intended to do that turned out to be misguided or just plain wrong.
      Regarding Brexit, I think we may all find that nothing we do will make it pay for us to leave the EU. Time will tell.

      • Zippi April 15, 2017 at 10:58 am - Reply

        Is that not just life? That’s why people’s fortunes are different. We simply cannot know what the future holds. If Britain had been so cautious in the past, it wold not be the country that it is today. Aye, time will tell but we have to have a positive outlook, or it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    • Dez April 15, 2017 at 12:52 pm - Reply

      A mistake for exactly who? The elite and business interests or for all the rest of those scraping to make a living…..no matter which way the benefits come in as sure as hell little will be passed down the food chain.

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