Portugal’s President welcomes ‘clarification’ offered by UK election result

Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, on Friday said that the general election in the UK had brought “a clarifying result” that is positive for Portugal because it allows the country to leave the European Union on the basis of an agreement.

In a note published on the website of the office of the president, de Sousa states that the “clarifying result, which has occurred in the UK legislative elections, is positive for Portugal, as it will allow an agreement on an orderly exit from the European Union by our ally of so many centuries.”

According to de Sousa, this will protect the interests of Portuguese nationals resident in the UK and British citizens living in Portugal, as well as those of companies from both countries and of the European Union, “for a future relationship and in the common interest.”

Following the Conservative Party’s victory, with an absolute majority in parliament, in Thursday’s general election the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, on Friday promised that Brexit would go ahead as planned on 31 January, after what he condemned as three years of dithering since the referendum on the subject.

He told supporters he would now “put an end to all that nonsense” and “get Brexit done on time by January 31, no ifs, no buts”.

With 648 of the 650 seats in parliament already allocated, the Conservatives have secured 363, against 203 for the Labour Party, which lost 59, and 48 for the Scottish Nationalist Party.

Some 46 million people voted on Thursday in the UK’s general elections – the third in less than five years – which were called by the government to try to unlock the impasse created in parliament around the question of the country leaving the EU.

A total of 3,322 candidates stood for the 650 seats in the House of Commons, the lower house of the British parliament.

On Thursday, even before the results of the elections were known, Portugal’s president was asked about this election act and, while declining to “comment on what is happening in other countries”, reiterated his position on Brexit.

“I can say what I’ve always said: anything that allows for a deal to emerge is reasonable news and a thousand times preferable to a no-deal exit,” he said. “Anything that means that tomorrow the UK is in a position to go to the European Union and say ‘we have this agreement, it will be according to this agreement’, is very positive news.”