Varadkar congratulates Johnson on 'enormous victory'

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has congratulated Boris Johnson on his “enormous victory” in the UK General Election.

Speaking in Brussels on his arrival for the second day of the EU leaders' summit, Mr Varadkar said it was a positive thing that the election delivered a clear and decisive outcome.

“First of all, I want to congratulate Mr Johnson. It's an enormous victory for him on a personal level, and also very clear result for his party,” he said.

“I think it's a positive thing that we have the decisive outcome in Britain in their elections,” Mr Varadkar added.

“We had for a few years of Parliament stuff wasn't able to form a majority around anything. We now clearly have a majority in the House of Commons to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement,” the Taoiseach told reporters.

Mr Varadkar said the next step is to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement which guarantees no hard border between North and South. It guarantees the protection of the common travel area, and also the fact that British and Irish citizens' rights will be protected, he said.

Mr Varadkar said he is “keen to work very hard” with Prime Minister Johnson on getting the executive assembly up and running again in Northern Ireland.

“I think that's absolutely crucial now...That has to be a key priority for the next couple of weeks. And then we go on to the next phase of Brexit which is negotiating a mighty new future economic partnership between the EU and the UK, and I think that can be done,” he said.