Strong words from Bertie Ahern regarding Britain’s Foreign Secretary, and his approach to the Irish border during Brexit negotiations.
Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has labelled Boris Johnson a ‘buffoon’ who will ruin Ireland if given the opportunity.
Speaking last Friday at a commemoration in Athboy, marking the 20th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement, Ahern said that Theresa May needs to face down the Brexit hardliners in her own party if she is to survive as Prime Minister and save the UK from a devastating economic crisis.
“If she has 350 members and 70 of them are rebels something you have to say, what do we do with the 280, and she has to do that. If she keeps going from crisis to crisis, and listening to that buffoon, Boris – he’ll ruin us, never mind ruin them – she has to face up to that.
“If she doesn’t she can’t survive,” The Meath Chronicle reports Ahern as saying.
Ahern warned that the Irish government needs to move quickly in order to avoid disaster at October’s EU summit, having seen certain ‘guarantees’ regarding the border with Northern Ireland become far more tenuous since last December.
“We had a deal on 15th December which people believed was cast iron. By 15th March it was a “ridiculous deal which no British prime minister could implement.”
“Now it’s a backstop if nothing else. They have no intention of doing that.
“We have been dragged through the December summit with little or nothing. Then there was the March summit, and what have we got and now when she couldn’t get the customs partnership through, she’s looking at another thing.”
He believes current Taoiseach Leo Varadkar needs to be decisive.
“I’m not saying we can finish it all by June, but if we are to drag it out until the end, the British could come in the last few days with their €50 billion cheque and say, “We’re going to do this and we’re going to do that, and going to do the other.”
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