Foreign Secretary tries to backtrack in leaked letter after getting mocked for comparing Irish border checks with London’s congestion charge

IN a leaked letter to the Prime Minister the Foreign Secretary suggested that he meant to stop the Irish border from becoming "signifcantly harder".

This comes after being mocked for saying Northern Ireland could face electronic border checks, like London’s Congestion Charge.

Boris Johnson also said "it is wrong to see the task as maintaining 'no border'" and proposed that "even if a hard border is reintroduced, we would expect to see 95% + of goods pass the border (without) checks".

The letter was obtained by Sky News and it was entitled "The Northern Ireland/Ireland border - the Facilitated Solution", accompanies a "concept note" that "draws on Foreign Office expertise".

My Johnson told the BBC "there's no border between Camden and Westminster",  as he suggested that goods crossing between the Republic and Northern Ireland could be subject to electronic checks, like the congestion charge.

He added: "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.”

But remain supporters and Labour MPs savaged the comparison, with Chris Leslie accusing Mr Johnson of “staggering insensitivity and a stupefying ignorance of a conflict in which over 3,000 people died between 1969 and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

Tottenham Labour MP Mr Lammy said: "When I was a young boy we were told to stay away from the Troubles on the Caledonian Rd & marching bands in Regent's Park.

“The Chalk Farm Peace Agreement has brought peace in our time.

“People can get the tube from Camden Town to Finsbury Park without being searched at the border." And Irish politicians also tore into the comparison.

Stephen Donnelly, the Brexit spokesman for the opposition Fianna Fail party, recalled his years working in London, saying: "I lived in Camden for several years, and was never stopped crossing the 'border' to Islington.

"I have, however, had military rifles pointed at me when crossing into Northern Ireland in the 90s. Suggesting these borders are the same is extraordinary."

But last night No10 defended the Foreign Secretary, saying he “wasn’t offering a technical solution” to the Irish border question.

The PM’s spokesman said: “I thought the foreign secretary was making a comparison to demonstrate our overall approach that is some 110,000 people crossing the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland annually will continue living their lives as before - travelling freely, just as Londoners travel across boroughs each day. He wasn’t offering a technical solution.”

Boris spokesperson said: “As the Prime Minister has rightly said the Irish border needs to be as frictionless as possible and this paper was designed to outline how a highly facilitated border would work and help to make a successful Brexit.

“The letter points out there is a border now and the task the committee face is stopping this becoming significantly harder.

"It shows how we could manage a border without infrastructure or related checks and controls while protecting UK, NI, Irish, and EU interests.

"‘As the PM has previously stated, we will not accept any physical infrastructure at the border and will instead seek alternatives that allow us to leave the customs union and take back control of our money, borders, laws and trading policy.”

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