Boris’s border tirade

Former UK minister compares backstop to ‘suicide vest’

DAYS after splitting from his wife, Boris Johnson has emerged defiant, putting the Irish border at the centre of his critique of UK leader Theresa May’s Brexit plans.

His comments - in today’s Mail on Sunday - are set to spark a fresh political storm by accusing Mrs May of wrapping a ‘suicide vest’ around the UK – and handing the detonator to Brussels.

Putting aside his personal troubles, the former UK foreign secretary writes: ‘We have been so mad as to agree, last December, that if we can’t find ways of producing frictionless trade between Northern Ireland and

‘We look like a weakling being bent by a gorilla’

the Republic of Ireland, then Northern Ireland must remain in the customs union and the single market: in other words, part of the EU. And that would mean a border down the Irish sea.

‘That outcome is completely unacceptable, as the PM has said, to the majority in Northern Ireland and to the UK Government; and yet that is the threat – to the integrity of the UK – that we have allowed our partners to wield. That is why Barnier seems so confident. And we are now trying to sort it out, with a solution that is if anything even more pathetic.

‘It is a humiliation. We look like a seven-stone weakling being comically bent out of shape by a 500lb gorilla.’

Mr Johnson complains that instead of striking a ‘giant and generous free trade deal’, Mrs May says ‘yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir’ to the EU.