Donald Tusk's comment about a "special place in hell" was not "the most brilliant diplomacy," David Lidington, the U.K.'s de facto deputy prime minister, said Thursday.
Lidington was asked on the BBC's Today program if the European Council president should apologize to Theresa May when he meets the prime minister in Brussels later Thursday. On Wednesday, Tusk said in a press conference and a tweet: "I've been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted #Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely."
"I don’t think that Donald Tusk was criticizing the prime minister at all," said Lidington, who is on the pro-EU wing of the Cabinet. But he added that politicians should choose their words carefully. "If he were to ask me I’d say it probably wasn’t the most brilliant diplomacy."
He added that he thought Tusk was "venting" and that anyone listening to MPs in the House of Commons knows that "intemperate and exaggerated language doesn’t only come out of Brussels."