Boris Johnson 'surprised' by level of Irish border checks.
Boris Johnson expressed surprise to his advisers during lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker as he was informed about the scale of checks still needed on the island of Ireland under his alternative plan for the Irish border.
During talks with Juncker and the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, the prime minister was shown in detail how allowing Northern Ireland to stick to common EU rules on food and livestock, known as sanitary and phytosanitary measures, would still fail to avoid checks on the vast majority of goods that cross the Irish border.