German Chancellor Angela Merkel reduced a secret gathering of journalists to “uproarious” laughter as she recounted the British prime minister’s clueless approach to Brexit negotiations during the Davos meetings last week, in claimed remarks that come shortly after President Trump also said he thought May was handling Brexit badly.
Merkel told journalists at what ITV politics editor Robert Peston described as a “secret briefing” at the globalist World Economic Forum Davos summit last week about May’s unusual approach to negotiating the Brexit deal — in which she apparently was content to allow Germany to dictate the terms of any future deal.
Peston wrote:
Merkel said that when she asks Mrs May what she wants the shape of the UK’s relationship with the EU to be, Mrs May says “make me an offer”.
To which Mrs Merkel says, “but you’re leaving – we don’t have to make you an offer. Come on what do you want?
To which Mrs May replies “make me an offer”.
And so, according to Mrs Merkel, the two find themselves trapped in a recurring loop of “what do you want?” and “make me an offer”.
Although the British journalist was not present at the secret meeting, he claimed to have been told by those who were there that after hearing the details from Merkel those in the room “laughed uproariously”.
Britain’s Times newspaper reports the remarks of a German government spokesman who said simply of the claims: “We do not comment on these reports.”
The claim that the German leader “poked fun” at May behind her back over her lack of grip over Brexit — perhaps the greatest political matter for a generation — comes among increasing reports of Eurosceptic Conservative MPs growing restless with the prime minister’s dithering.
Breitbart London reported Sunday that pro-Breixt members of parliament were characterising the prime minister as too “timid” to negotiate a clean break from Europe, and that the government’s direction was being pushed by pro-remain elements of the civil service — and not the other way around.
Angela Merkel is not the only global figure to have poked fun at Theresa May’s Brexit negotiations in the past week. U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with British television recorded at the Davos summit that he would take a “tougher stand in getting out”.
Asked for his take on May’s negotiating style, the President replied: “Would it be the way I negotiate? No, I wouldn’t negotiate it the way it’s [being] negotiated … I would have had a different attitude.”
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