London: British politicians Wednesday reacted angrily to European Union leader Donald Tusk after he said “what special place in Hell” awaited those who advocated Brexit without a clear plan, calling him a “devilish Euro maniac”.
“Donald Tusk once again shows his contempt for the 17.4 million people who voted to escape the corruption of the EU,” said Sammy Wilson, Brexit spokesman for Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.
“This devilish Euro maniac is doing his best to keep the United Kingdom bound by the chains of EU bureaucracy and control,” he added.
Tusk made the comments at a news conference in Brussels, where he was flanked by Irish leader Leo Varadkar.
Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom and prominent Leave supporter demanded an apology, calling Tusks’s comments “spiteful”.
“I think what he has said is pretty unacceptable and pretty disgraceful,” she told BBC Radio 4.
But anti-Brexit MPs were supportive of Tusks’s comments.
“Sometimes the truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Joanna Cherry, an MP from the Scottish National Party, said in Parliament.
Campaign group For our Futures’ Sake said Tusk was “entirely correct”.
The outburst dominated the online editions of Britain’s newspapers, with Brexit-supporting tabloid The Sun leading with the headline “EU’VE LOST IT”, adding that “sneering Donald Tusk has taken an extraordinary dig at Brexiteers”.