‘No one knows’ what UK wants out of Brexit, Joseph Muscat protests

Prime Minister adamant that the United Kingdom’s deal with the European Union must be ‘inferior to membership’

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was yesterday interviewed on Sky News Tonight
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was yesterday interviewed on Sky News Tonight

British Prime Minister Theresa May may trigger the Brexit negotiations next year, during Malta’s Presidency of the European Council. But with the limited information on what the United Kingdom is be going after in its deal, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is adamant that the UK “can’t have the cake and eat it”.

Currently in New York for United Nations General Assembly, Muscat spared a few minutes to talk to Sky News on Brexit, during which he reiterated that EU leaders were simply after “a fair deal”.

“Most of my colleagues want a fair deal for both the UK and Europe, but it has to be a deal that is inferior to membership, so you can't have the cake and eat it,” he told Sky News political editor Faisal Islam.

Muscat, who has met May on the margins of the UN general assembly, also complained over the lack of information of what the UK wants.

"One of the problems is that in order to negotiate you have to know what the other side wants … right now, we don't know what the UK side wants.

"Can you tell me if the UK government wants access to the single market? Because I don't know. What does Brexit mean at the end of the day?"

Muscat, who opposed a Brexit, has been among the EU leaders urging the EU to start talking about the “bread and butter issues” that affect the daily lives of EU citizens. He had warned that the reasons which prompted the Brexit were not singular to the United Kingdom.

The EU leaders, less the UK Prime Minister, have been meeting informally to discuss both a way forward in the negotiations with Downing Street, but also how the EU can once again meet the expectations of its citizens.

EU leaders are expected to meet in Malta next year “to increase momentum for new idea of Europe”, as Muscat has put it.