Brexit: Any EU country that vetoes Article 50 delay 'wouldn't be forgiven', Irish premier Leo Varadkar says

Taoiseach says any attempt to block extension is 'extremely unlikely'

Any country that vetoes a delay to Brexit at next week's European Council meeting "wouldn't be forgiven", Irish premier Leo Varadkar has said.

The taoiseach said he thought it was "extremely unlikely" that any EU member state would seek to block an extension to the Article 50 period.

The European Council will hold an emergency meeting next Wednesday to discuss the UK's request to delay Brexit until 30 June.

Donald Tusk, the council president, is expected to instead propose a delay of one year with the option of the UK leaving the EU earlier if parliament ratifies a withdrawal agreement.

Any extension will need to be approved by all 27 other EU member states.

Mr Varadkar said Ireland wanted a longer extension than is being proposed by the UK government.

He admitted that some EU countries were frustrated at the UK's failure to ratify a Brexit deal but said he had asked other states to show "patience and solidarity".

He told RTE: "Today we have got that and I think that will continue."

The taoiseach also said it was unlikely that the UK will leave the EU without a deal on 12 April – the date it is currently due to exit the bloc.

He said: "Because nobody wants no deal I think the likelihood is an extension.

"But what we want to avoid is an extension that just allows for more indecision and more uncertainty.

"So I'd prefer to see a longer extension during which the United Kingdom has more time to decide really what future relationship it wants to have with the European Union, rather than the alternative, which could be rolling extensions every couple of weeks, every couple of months."

Asked about the prospect of one member state vetoing the extension, he said: "To wield the veto is something that is rarely done. I'm nearly two years now representing Ireland at the European Council and I have never seen the veto used once.

"We tend to operate by consensus and certainly that can take time and sometimes it is messy but it's actually how the European Union works and it's why it works, and if one country was to veto an extension and, as a result, impose hardship on us, real problems for the Dutch and Belgians and French as neighbouring countries.

"They wouldn't be forgiven for it and they would know they might find themselves on the other end of that veto power in the future – so it is extremely unlikely that I could see any country vetoing it."

Mr Varadkar also said the Irish government would ask the UK to implement the controversial Northern Ireland backstop element of the withdrawal agreement even if there is a no-deal Brexit.

He said: "The reason we came up with the backstop is because it is the solution and, even in the event of a no deal we will be saying to the UK 'You still have obligations under the Good Friday agreement, you still committed to full regulatory alignment back in December 2017 and we still want the arrangements that are in the backstop to apply'."