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Politics

09th Sep 2019

Boris Johnson asked twice if he’s visited the border… twice he does the same thing

Alan Loughnane

Boris Johnson border

Johnson was speaking at the doors of Government Buildings.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in Dublin for a meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

The pair made speeches to the media before fielding a handful of questions from those assembled.

The juxtaposition between the two leaders was clear as Varadkar pointedly began many of his answers with “to answer your question.”

It’s safe to say that Boris pulled a Boris when asked about whether he’d visited the Irish border since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, either when he was Foreign Secretary or as Prime Minister.

Johnson was full of bluster without actually answering the question posed from RTÉ’s Tommie Gorman.

He stated that he’d “seen the new arrangements” but deliberately kept it vague, much in the same vein of the technological solutions for the border problem he has continually touted (although he straight up ignored a question about the technological solutions today).

Johnson was asked again to clarify if he’d visited the border but he again chose to ignore that part of the question stating that he believes a solution can be found.

One point which was emphasised on more than one occasion by the Prime Minister was that the UK will “never institute checks on the border” and he said he hoped the European Union would do the same. This leaves Johnson some wiggle room to launch blame game at the EU should Johnson’s strategy fail.

However, Johnson was at pains to point that it won’t come to that as he has “an abundance of proposals” to resolve the backstop.

But his comments about wanting to preserve the all-Ireland economy while avoiding border checks and still taking the UK out of the EU at best seem to be ambitious and at worst, delusional.

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