Ireland will have to pay for a post-Brexit border, says Labour's Kate Hoey

Brexit-backing Labour MP Kate Hoey has been mockingly compared to Donald Trump after saying Ireland will have to pay for a physical border with Northern Ireland if Britain leaves the EU with no deal.

She claimed “we won’t be putting up the border” to govern EU-UK business through Northern Ireland, even if Britain leaves without agreeing new trade rules with Brussels.

And her remark that “they’ll have to pay for it” drew immediate comparisons with the US president, who has pledged to build a “big beautiful wall” on the border with Mexico, with the latter country paying for it.

Ms Hoey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We’re not the ones who are gonna be putting up the physical border. You know, if this ends up with a no-deal we won’t be putting up the border, they’ll have to pay for it because, you know, it doesn’t need to happen.”

Reacting to the MP’s comments, Cambridge University classicist Mary Beard tweeted: “When Kate Hoey on @BBCr4today talks about the Irish having to pay for putting up the border between N and S Ireland if there is to be one, she sounds to me dangerously like Mr Trump and Mexico.”

When Kate Hoey on @BBCr4today talks about the Irish having to pay for putting up the border between N and S Ireland if there is to be one, she sounds to me dangerously like Mr Trump and Mexico.

— mary beard (@wmarybeard) November 27, 2017

The row over how to maintain a “soft” Irish border has become a key sticking point in Brexit negotiations because the government has committed to leaving the single market and customs union, which allow for frictionless trade among members.

Theresa May has just a week to meet a European deadline to make progress on the issue, along with the divorce bill and citizens’ rights, if she wants EU leaders to agree at the European Council summit on December 14-15 to move on to trade talks.

Ms Hoey said both sides should look to Switzerland and Norway, which are outside the EU but have close trade relationships with it, for solutions to the Irish border issue.

She said: “A lot of the technology, at the Swiss border and in Norway, is done actually away from the border – and of course the prime minister has said that she doesn’t want cameras at the border.

‘Why don’t the Irish government actually become more positive about this and start looking at solutions with their closest neighbour and closest partner?

‘After all, we are a friend of the Republic of Ireland and the relations have never been as good, and yet on this issue it seems they are more concerned to keep the rest of the EU satisfied than actually look at concrete positive proposals.”

Ms Hoey also claimed Ireland would look to quit the EU once it saw Britain making a success of Brexit.

“We joined the EU together, you joined when we joined, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we leave and when we’re very successful that you don’t start looking as well,” she said.