OF PROTEST
Johnson sparks anger over border comparison
BORIS Johnson has been blasted for claiming that crossing the Irish border after Brexit would be like entering the London congestion charge zone. The Brexit-supporting Foreign Secretary came in for fierce criticism after comparing the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic to the boundary between the London boroughs of Camden and Westminster. Johnson suggested yesterday that a “smart border” solution would mean no need for checkpoints.
He said: “We think we can have very efficient facilitation systems to make sure there is no need for a hard border, excessive checks at the frontier between Northern Ireland and the Republic.”
He added: “There’s no border between Camden and Westminster 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.”
Johnson’s remarks were met with disbelief from Remainbacking rivals.
Labour MP Chuka Umunna tweeted: “So, London’s borough boundaries can be compared to the border between two sovereign states central to a conflict in which more than 3000 people died between 1969 and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement? This man is simply not fit for office.”
SNP MP Stephen Gethins said: “The Irish border is one of the most serious and fundamental issues surrounding the UK’s plans for leaving the EU.
“For the Foreign Secretary to address it so flippantly is beneath the office he holds – or he doesn’t have a clue what it means to leave an organisation of independent sovereign member states.”