Boris Johnson mocked for comparing Irish border to the London congestion charge zone

Boris Johnson has been mocked for comparing travel over the Irish border to crossing London boroughs.

The foreign secretary was trying to dismiss concerns that leaving the European customs union after Brexit could lead to a hard Irish border.

He appeared to suggest that a congestion zone charge system could be applied between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “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.

“There’s no border between Islington or Camden and Westminster, 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.

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“It’s a very relevant comparison because there’s all sorts of scope for pre-booking, electronic checks, all sorts of things that you can do to obviate the need for a hard border to allow us to come out of the customs union, take back control of our trade policy and do trade deals.”

But Mr Johnson’s comments were mocked and attacked by politicians on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Labour MP and shadow Northern Ireland secretary Owen Smith said Mr Johnson’s comments risked disrupting the terms laid down in the Good Friday Agreement.

He tweeted: “What a crass and thoughtless statement by our Foreign Secretary. Dismissing and insulting all who are worrying about how to resolve the Brexit / Irish border issue and to preserve the GFA.

Tottenham Labour MP David Lammy teased him on Twitter by saying: “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.”

Sheffield Labour MP Paul Blomfield said: “Stumbling, bumbling @borisjohnson compares north & south of Ireland with Islington & Camden on @r4Today while trying to explain his frictionless border without a Customs Union. Unbelievable!”

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And Walthamstow Labour MP Stella Creasy wrote: “A foreign secretary who literally has no conception of what foreign actually means – that is what brexit has brought us to as a nation. Please, please JUST MAKE IT STOP….”

Stephen Donnelly, the Brexit spokesman for the opposition Fianna Fail party, recalled his years working in London after hearing Mr Johnson’s remarks.

“I lived in Camden for several years, and was never stopped crossing the ‘border’ to Islington,” he said.

“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.”

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said he wanted to educate the foreign secretary about the border issues.

“When Boris Johnson decides to come down from the other planet that he clearly inhabits, he should visit the Irish border and see the scale of the challenge we’re facing with his own eyes before making further pronouncements,” the nationalist leader said.

The SDLP said it sent a memo to the foreign office detailing the difficulties with a hard border and the realities faced by people, businesses and communities.

“Trivialising the very serious concerns relating to Ireland displays a dangerous ignorance that must be challenged,” Mr Eastwood said.

Sinn Fein’s Brexit spokesman David Cullinane branded the foreign secretary’s intervention as “silly” and “ignorant”.

“It is not surprising that Boris Johnson would make those kind of silly comparisons because he and the hard Brexiteers simply do not want to face up to the reality that any type of Brexit or any type of exit from the customs union and the single market for Britain and the north will mean a hardening of the border,” he said.

“I do not think it will be a surprise for many people that Boris Johnson would make an ignorant observation when it comes to Ireland.”