Johnson criticised for remarks over frontier
BORIS Johnson was accused of showing “a dangerous ignorance” after he compared the Irish border to divisions between London boroughs.
The Foreign Secretary was apparently trying to dismiss concerns over a hard border as he reportedly referred to traffic congestion charge technology in London which does not require physical road checks.
“We think we can have very efficient facilitation systems to make sure that there’s no need for a hard border, excessive checks at the frontier between Northern Ireland and the Republic,” he said.
“There’s no border between Islington or Camden and Westminster, there’s no border between Camden and West- minster, but when I was mayor of London we anaesthetically and invisibly took hundreds of millions of pounds from the accounts of people travelling between those two boroughs without any need for border checks whatsoever,” Mr Johnson told BBC
Radio 4’s Today programme.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said: “Trivialising the very serious concerns relating to Ireland displays a dangerous ignorance that must be challenged.”
Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Smith commented: “Boris Johnson’s comparison of the Irish border with that between two London boroughs is typically facile and thoughtless of the man.”
Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson denounced Mr Johnson’s comments as “frankly ridiculous”.