LONDON — The day before Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain was expected in Brussels to try to rescue her blueprint for leaving the European Union, one of the bloc’s leaders said on Wednesday that there was a “special place in hell” for those who had promoted British withdrawal without a credible plan.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, made the comment in Brussels after meeting with the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar — and then went on to repeat it in a Twitter post.

The remark is not a direct criticism of Mrs. May — who did not campaign for British withdrawal, or Brexit, in a referendum in 2016 — but it reflects a growing irritation at the rising risk that Britain could leave the 28-nation bloc on March 29 without any agreement.

After years of studious denial, European leaders are now facing the fact that a disorderly and possibly chaotic rupture could damage continental economies as well as Britain’s.

“I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely,” Mr. Tusk said at a joint news conference in Brussels with the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar.

The reaction from some Brexit supporters in Britain was no less forthright. “After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you. Sounds like heaven to me,” wrote Nigel Farage, former leader of the far-right U.K. Independence Party, on Twitter.

The intervention comes at a sensitive time. Last month, Mrs. May’s plan for Brexit suffered a crushing 230-vote defeat in Britain’s 650-seat Parliament, leaving the entire process in limbo.

Mrs. May was subsequently given a mandate by British lawmakers to seek changes to the so-called Irish backstop plan that is designed to prevent the creation of new checks on the border with Northern Ireland. The backstop is loathed by hard-line supporters of Brexit because it could keep the United Kingdom tied, indefinitely, to some European Union rules.

During a visit to Northern Ireland on Tuesday, Mrs. May said she was seeking to change the backstop, but disappointed some hard-line Brexit supporters at home who want it removed completely from a legally binding withdrawal treaty. Mrs. May was holding more talks with politicians in Northern Ireland on Wednesday ahead of her planned visit to Brussels on Thursday.

Though European leaders want to avoid a no-deal Brexit, Mr. Tusk showed few signs that he was ready to make the kind of retreat over the backstop that would be likely to satisfy Mrs. May’s hard-line Conservative lawmakers and those from the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, which props up her government.

He said the bloc would “insist” on the Irish backstop in any withdrawal deal to preserve the Irish peace treaty, but also said that he and Mr. Varadkar were preparing for the “possible fiasco” of a no-deal Brexit.

Next week Mrs. May faces another series of votes in Parliament, giving British lawmakers another opportunity to take control of the process and try to stop a disorderly Brexit. Many analysts doubt that Mrs. May will be ready with a new plan by then, and might again ask legislators to hold back.

Mr. Tusk’s comments appeared to be aimed at the main figureheads of the Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum, including the former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson.

It is not the first time Mr. Tusk has expressed his exasperation about the referendum. In a recent BBC documentary, “Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil,” he said that the former prime minister, David Cameron, had never expected to have to hold the referendum because he was not expecting to win the 2015 general election with an outright majority. Had Mr. Cameron been forced to take on a coalition partner, that may well have headed off the vote.

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