Don’t focus on border, Boris tells PM

BORIS Johnson has seemingly betrayed the UK’s Brexit promises to Ireland with a letter to Theresa May urging her not to focus on the border issue.

In a leaked letter seen by Sky News, the UK foreign secretary told the prime minister: ‘It is wrong to see the task as maintaining “no border” on the island of Ireland after Brexit.’

He instead argues that the UK government’s task will be to ‘stop this border becoming significantly harder’ and claims the importance of checks has been ‘exaggerated’. Mr Johnson even claims that a hard border could be tolerated, despite the UK government’s promised to the contrary. ‘If a hard border is reintroduced, we would expect to see 95%+ of goods pass the border [without] checks,’ he wrote.

Last night, the Irish Government was refusing to comment. But Labour leader Brendan Howlin rejected Mr Johnson’s views as ‘deluded’. ‘It’s clear Boris Johnson has no concept of how a hard border would impact on the island of Ireland,’ he told the Irish Daily Mail.

It appears that Mr Johnson is attempting to downplay the importance of the border in a bid to ensure that the UK can still leave the Customs Union and Single Market.

The draft Withdrawal Agreement to be published today is expected to make clear that such a move is incompatible with avoiding a hard border. As recently as November of last year, Johnson had told the House of Commons: ‘There can be no return to a hard border.’

Last night a spokeswoman for Downing Street told the Mail: ‘We don’t want a hard border or any infrastructure at the border.’