Johnson under fire for border comparison

Boris Johnson has been condemned for comparing the problem of the Northern Irish border after Brexit to the London congestion charge.

The Foreign Secretary, who served two terms as Mayor of London, was accused of being on “another planet” after drawing a link between the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland and the boundary between the boroughs of Camden and Westminster.

The government has said it will prevent a hard border being created after the UK leaves the EU single market and customs union by using technology, including remotely operated cameras, to perform customs checks.

London’s congestion charge operates on similar technology, which photographs vehicle number plates.

Mr Johnson said: “We think that 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.

“For people listening, 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 whatever.”

Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Smith said the comparison was “typically facile and thoughtless”, and it was condemned by politicians at Westminster and in Northern Ireland.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood tweeted: “When @ Borisjohnson decides to come down from the other planet that he clearly inhabits he’s welcome to come and actually visit the Irish border.”

Liberal Democrat Northern Ireland spokesman Alistair Carmichael said the comments show “this country is not in safe hands.”