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It's " the elephant in the room, " the phrase is British. Theresa May says she is conducting talks to amend the exit agreement negotiated with the European Union. It's just too late, everyone knows it but no one says it except the chief Brexit negotiator. A private conversation in Brussels of the British negotiator went back to the ears of a journalist.
" The real Minister of Brexit ", this nickname was given to him in a report of the BBC. Olly Robbins is a senior official and negotiator for Britain in Brussels.
Monday evening, after a meeting of work, he will have a drink at the bar of a hotel. He is visible, he is the tallest man in the UK, according to the press. He speaks loudly, too.
It is the journalist of ITV, in the same place, who tells it. With two colleagues, Olly Robbins "gets loose," according to him.
Nigel Farage asks Olly Robbins' head
The deputies, he says, will have only one choice, to accept the withdrawal agreement that they overwhelmingly rejected mid-January or to accept a long delay of the date of the divorce. One way to put pressure on them. To force them to validate the agreement.
Never had this tactic leaked. But it is exactly the intention lent to Theresa May by opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday.
Total denial of the government this Wednesday. But the trouble is there. The Brexiter leader even asked for Olly Robbins' head. Nigel Farage spoke of "a mixture of betrayal and incompetence ".
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