May says she and Taoiseach ‘on a single page’ on Border

Theresa May has said that she and the Taoiseach are "on a single page" about future arrangements for the Border after Britain leaves the European Union.

The prime minister was answering MPs’ questions in the House of Commons a day after she announced that Britain would leave the European single market and the customs union after Brexit.

In response to a question from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn about her hope that British goods would have "frictionless" access across EU borders, Ms May said it was "a very important issue" for the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

“The Taoiseach and I, and all parties, are absolutely on a single page about this. We want to ensure that we have the best possible arrangement that does not lead to the borders of the past for Northern Ireland,” she said.

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The prime minister declined to repeat her threat to walk away from the negotiations and take retaliatory action against the EU if Britain is unhappy with the Brexit deal on offer. But other ministers stepped up the aggressive rhetoric, with foreign secretary Boris Johnson comparing French president François Hollande to a POW camp guard in a second World War film.

Speaking in Delhi, Mr Johnson criticised comments by an advisor to the French president, who suggested that Britain could not expect better terms outside the EU than those it enjoys as a member-state.

“If Hollande wants to administer punishment beatings to anybody who seeks to escape, in the manner of some World War two movie, I don’t think that is the way forward. It’s not in the interests of our friends and partners,” the foreign secretary said.

Outburst condemned

Opposition MPs condemned Mr Johnson's outburst, with former Labour leader Ed Miliband suggesting that he was unfit to be foreign secretary.

Downing Street sought to play down the remarks, however, with the prime minister’s official spokeswoman insisting that Mr Johnson “did not call anyone a Nazi” and claiming that the story had been hyped up in the media.

“He was making a theatrical comparison to some of those evocative World War two movies people will have seen,” she said.

Brexit secretary David Davis also invoked the second World War on Wednesday, quoting a former cabinet secretary who said that, if the British civil service could cope with the war, it could cope with Brexit. Mr Davis defended the prime minister's threat to walk away from the EU with no deal as a sensible approach to any negotiation.

“If you go to buy a house, and you tell the person you’re buying from, ‘this is the only house I am going to buy’, does the price go up or down?” he told the BBC. “Of course we have all options open to us. That is only responsible in a negotiation.”

Mr Davis dismissed fears that a beneficial deal for Britain might encourage other countries to leave the EU, suggesting that they were more wedded to EU membership because they lacked Britain’s deep, democratic roots.

"For most of the countries in Europe, Europe's not just about economics, it's about democracy, it's about the rule of law," he said. "These are countries that have come from difficult histories into what, for them, is the exemplar of modern politics, you know, freedom, rule of law, democracy. They're not going to be tempted by this."

The prime minister's speech outlining her approach to the Brexit talks has been well received in Britain, but London mayor Sadiq Khan warned that her hardline stance could rip the country apart.

“If we continue on this path – towards a ‘hard Brexit’ – we risk having to explain to future generations why we knowingly put their economy, their prosperity and their place on the world stage in such peril,” he said.