TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said the suggestion by new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that a new Brexit deal can be negotiated was “totally not in the real world”. 

Speaking to RTÉ’s Six One, Varadkar said Johnson’s ideas are “clear cut but certainly not detailed”. 

Varadkar said he wants to hear Johnson put some “flesh on the bones” of the comments he made during his speech earlier today, adding that ”confidence and enthusiasm were not a substitute for a European policy or a foreign policy”.

“Listening to what he said today, I got the impression that he was not just talking about deleting the backstop, he was talking about a whole new deal, a better deal for Britain,” Varadkar said. 

“That is not going to happen. The EU Council doesn’t meet until 12 October. We have no plans to meet any earlier,” he said.

Any suggestion that there would be a whole new deal negotiated in weeks or months is totally not in the real world. 

In his first speech as Prime Minister earlier today, Johnson pledged to leave the EU by the Brexit deadline of 31 October.

“The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts,” Johnson said.

The doubters, the doomsters are going to get it wrong again…We are going to come out of the EU on October 31 – no ifs, no buts. We will do a new deal, a better deal that will maximise the opportunities.

“I have every confidence that in 99 days time, we will have cracked it. But do you know what, we’re not going to wait 99 days because the British people have had enough of waiting.”

Varadkar also congratulated Johnson this evening on his new position as Prime Minister, saying it is an “enormous privilege and honour to be able to lead your party”.

The Taoiseach said he is looking forward to an “early engagement” with Johnson to discuss Brexit, Northern Ireland and bilateral relations between the UK and Ireland.

“I look forward to having the opportunity to sit down with him one to one and also for our teams to meet together and really see if he can put a little bit of detail behind some of those slogans and statements because we haven’t got that yet,” Varadkar said. 

Speaking of the possibility of a no-deal Brexit outcome, Varadkar said he believes that scenario is unlikely. 

However, he noted that “it is a very unstable political situation in the UK”, adding that Ireland is in a stable situation with solid support from other EU states.