A clip of a 2018 Boris Johnson speech has been making the rounds on social media after he appeared to contradict his 2019 self.
The Prime Minister emphatically told a DUP conference that “no British Tory government could accept customs controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.
He said:
“If we wanted to do free trade deals, if we wanted to cut tariffs, if we wanted to vary our regulation then we would have to leave Northern Ireland behind as an economic semi-colony of the EU and we would be damaging the fabric of the union with regulatory checks and even customs controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland – on top of those extra regulatory checks down the Irish Sea that are already envisaged in the withdrawal agreement.
“Now I have to tell you, no British Conservative government could or should sign up to any such arrangement.”
The clip resurfaced after Johnson closed in on a deal with the EU after making major concessions to EU demands over the Irish border.
It is understood that the negotiating teams have agreed in principle that there will be a customs border down the Irish Sea, something that his 2018 self would be incandescent at the idea of.
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