Irish Taoiseach says UK could trigger Brexit next month

By Michael Sercan Daventry

LONDON

Britain could start the process of leaving the EU within weeks, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Wednesday, according to local media.

The prime minister, or Taoiseach, also warned Europe against “losing the plot” over Brexit, the Belfast Telegraph reported.

Kenny said the forthcoming negotiations on Britain leaving the EU were likely to be “quite vicious” because of European leaders’ anger at the U.K.’s decision to leave.

He was speaking at a Dublin forum held to discuss the implications of Brexit for Ireland and the British territory of Northern Ireland.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has said her country would trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the formal mechanism for exiting the EU, by March.

However, Kenny said the process could begin as early as next month.

“The other side of this argument may well get quite vicious after a while because there are those around the European table that take a very poor view of the fact that Britain has decided to leave,” he said, according to the Telegraph.

“That argument will be fought very toughly in a really difficult negotiating sense.”

He added: “If it becomes obsessed with what the United Kingdom might or might not get, Europe itself will lose the plot.”

Some Irish politicians fear the fragile peace settlement in Northern Ireland could be destabilized by the process and there are concerns that controls may be introduced on the Ireland-Northern Ireland frontier.

Kenny said Brexit was the biggest challenge facing Ireland in 50 years but added: “Neither I, nor the prime minister [Theresa May] desire to limit the freedom of people on both sides of the Irish Sea to trade, live, work and travel freely across these islands.”