Mark Rutte Quotes

The decision to trigger Article 50 is in the hands of the next prime minister. If that is me, I will make a judgement as to when is right for Britain, and I won't be hurried or hassled by anyone into pressing that button or triggering that article until I believe it is right for this country.

Brexit can be stopped.

I want to stop Brexit.

I never doubted that our parliamentarians would vote to trigger article 50 but I expected a detailed, pragmatic debate around the options of how to execute Brexit and the processes involved.

I would like a UK fully engaged in Europe, but I can't decide in place of the British. I see that for the moment they want to be more in retreat.

Let me be absolutely clear: I think it is defeatist to sort of say we want to leave the European Union. We're going to try and change the rules and change the way it works and change the objectives that it has in order to make it something that works for Britain.

We had been told that it was not possible to leave the E.U., and the U.K. has just demonstrated that, when the people want it, we can set up the conditions to exit the E.U.

We did it! Britain is no longer a member of the European Union. By 'we' I mean the 17.4 million Britons who voted Leave, Nigel Farage who fought for the cause for 25 years, Brexit Party MEPs, Tory Party members who were brave enough to desert their party in droves at the Euro-elections and, of course, the Daily Express.

If I am prime minister, we will come out of the European Union, and part of that will be control of free movement.

I think that what is happening now in terms of the Brexit vote does represent a serious undermining of the Good Friday Agreement.

Only the U.K. can trigger Article 50. And in my judgement, we should only do that when there is a clear view about what new arrangements we are seeking with our European neighbours.

I worry about the direction of the U.K. and U.K. politics and governance in the event of a Brexit.

As far as I am concerned this referendum should settle the matter. I believe it will one way or another be decisive. Britain will not want to go through this again. On the other hand if we vote to leave, this really is irreversible.

Whilst there are problems with Article 50, it is the statement of intent that is important.

There must be no attempts to remain inside the E.U., no attempts to rejoin it through the back door, and no second referendum.

Because Scotland and Northern Ireland want to remain part of the E.U., there is the quite real possibility that Scotland and even Northern Ireland might now choose to go their own way on membership within the E.U. and the 'United Kingdom' would suddenly effectively be only England and Wales.

We must stand up for the principle of parliamentary democracy and not allow the government's failure in the Brexit process to be a licence for the U.K. to crash out of the E.U. without an agreement.

Just when we need a strong government, what do we see? Division. Chaos. And failure. No credible plan for Brexit, no solution to prevent a hard border in Ireland and no majority in Parliament for the Chequers proposals.

Brexit is a self-inflicted wound; the people of this country hold the knife, and they don't have to use it if they don't want to. The people, not the hardline Brexiteers, are in charge.

Of course, the E.U. were never going to welcome Brexit. Some sour grapes were inevitable. That's why we worked hard to leave on positive terms, extending the arm of friendship.

The treaties of the European Union say that, once a country has decided to leave, then they are excluded from the treaty after two years, unless there is unanimous agreement to extend that period.

Notice of leaving the E.U. under Article 50, for which most of us voted, provides a mechanism for extending the negotiating period by agreement if this is necessary. It is not to undermine Brexit to insist it is carried out correctly.

We cannot allow Brexit to be driven by narrow and divisive Tory ideology.

Article 50 is very poorly written and raises more questions more answers.

We need to underline the need for Britain to depart from the European Union in an orderly fashion.