Combative Airline Boss O’Leary Predicts Britain Will go Crawling Back to EU Once Brexiteers Die of Old Age

Michael O'Leary, chief executive officer of Ryanair Holdings Plc, speaks at the Bloom
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Oliver JJ Lane

Pugilistic airline boss Michael O’Leary, one of the most bullishly dedicated cheerleaders for the European Union in the British Isles has confidently predicted the United Kingdom will end up gravitating back towards the European Union.

The United Kingdom will sign a Norway-like deal with the European Union in 10 to 15 years, so says Michael O’Leary, the Irish CEO of budget airline Ryanair known for his brusque and at times venomous comments on Brexit, and his absolute enthusiasm for the European Union.

The reasons for this, O’Leary claimed, was because on one hand the Brexiteer public had been “sold a tissue of lies” by politicians and, in any case, many of those who supported it in the first place will soon be dead. The callous remarks echo controversial earlier comments that emerged after the 2016 Brexit referendum, which also demonstrated a certain fixation for some on the deaths of voters whose views they disagreed with.

Adding his voice to that chorus, O’Leary said in comments reported by the Daily Telegraph: “In the next five to 10 years, quite a number of the Brexiteers will die, as the average age of them is about over 70. Younger people coming through are much more pro-European.”

The return to the European Union would see the United Kingdom having a relationship to the bloc like Norway or Switzerland, he said, and that this would emerge within 15 years. “I think they will pay into a European budget, I think they will have no choice… The fundamental strength of the single market, is something that is too attractive for the UK economy to be excluded from”, he said, The Guardian reported.

The remarks by the airline boss are not by far the first time O’Leary has spoken out on the European Union, Brexit, or even tried to throw his weight around to influence British politics. In 2018, O’Leary threatened to ground all flights to make Brexit voters “rethink” their decision by demonstrating what a future where there are no foreign holidays would be like, as if Brexit prevents people from leaving the United Kingdom.

O’Leary also has an outsized idea of his own importance to the European Union, expressing his view how his budget airline cements the bonds of European solidarity with access to easy sex with foreigners for young people. He said in 2011: “Ryanair is responsible for the integration of Europe by bringing lots of different cultures to the beaches of Spain, Greece and Italy, where they couple and copulate in the interests of pan-European peace… There hasn’t been a war in Europe for 50 years because they’re all too busy flying on Ryanair. I should get the Nobel peace prize – screw Bono.”

Yet it is not just Brexiteers that feel O’Leary’s wrath, as in reality anyone who damaged to threaten the profitability of the airline that has made him one of Ireland’s richest men can expect his disgust. In 2020, it was the turn of lonely Muslim men taking flights, who O’Leary said were more likely to be carrying bombs.

He said: “Who are the bombers? They are going to be single males travelling on their own… If you are travelling with a family of kids, on you go; the chances you are going to blow them all up is zero… You can’t say stuff, because it’s racism, but it will generally be males of a Muslim persuasion.” While Muslim groups reacted with understandable anger at the comments at the time, they seem to have been since forgotten, a privilege that not many expressing “islamophobia” could hope for.

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