'Brexit is lose-lose': Michel Barnier tells LBC it's time to stop blaming Brussels for UK's problems
The former chief Brexit negotiator said it had been a "lose-lose" game on its tenth anniversary of the referendum
Michel Barnier has described Brexit as a "lose-lose game" and said the "door is open" for Britain to rejoin the European Union.
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Mr Barnier, who was the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, also slammed Nigel Farage for using Brussels as a "scapegoat" to explain Britain's problems.
Speaking to LBC's James O'Brien ten years on from the 2016 referendum, the former French prime minister said he had "tried to understand why 52% of the British people wanted to leave Europe and why Farage and some others succeeded in scapegoating Brussels to explain all the British difficulties which is not true."
He added that anti-EU sentiment had not diminished in France either, but stressed that the UK's problems provided "proof" that casting blame on Brussels was "a lie".
"Brussels is not responsible for everything," he said.
Today marks a decade since Britain narrowly voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum - but the debate over Britain's relationship with the bloc remains politically febrile.
The subject was a point of difference between Labour leadership hopefuls Wes Streeting - who said he would seek to rejoin the EU if elected Prime Minister - and Andy Burnham, who promised not to "re-run" the Brexit debate while campaigning in Makerfield.
Asked about his relationship with Burnham, who looks set to become Britain's next Prime Minister after Sir Keir Starmer resigned and Streeting agreed to abandon his leadership bid, Mr Barnier said he did not know the newly-elected Makerfield MP "personally".
He went on: "I am told that he's friendly with Europe, and I think he will be on the same line as Keir Starmer to increase our relation."
Mr Barnier also stressed the "common interest separate from Brexit" between the UK and the EU, and went so far as to leave the door open for the UK to rejoin the bloc without signing up to the Euro.
“If the UK in the future, far from now, were to rejoin, the door is open. And in that case, we will open a new negotiation.But I think we have to take into account the fact that it will be a very exceptional and very particular case," he said.
However he added there could be "no cherry-picking" in the single market.
"If this clear line is understood by everybody, I think we have a lot to do, a lot to do to increase our cooperation for defence, security, and external policy.”
Touching on affairs beyond Europe, Mr Barnier said Donald Trump's presidency along with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East had underlined the importance of European "independence" over its energy and security.
"It is the very first time in 60 years that a US president does not support the European project. So we have to accept this new situation and to draw the lesson, which is in any case to be independent...we need to be less dependent for our energy, for our security, for our food."