Shadow Foreign Secretary referenced his infamous affair as she attacked the leaked document he wrote to the PM
LABOUR’S Emily Thornberry made another cruel jibe about Boris Johnson’s personal life today after the Foreign Secretary avoided answering her questions about his leaked memo on Northern Ireland.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary referenced his infamous love-child as she attacked the document he wrote to the Prime Minister about the Brexit border issue.
The former London mayor caused controversy after he appeared to suggest the Government should focus on preventing the frontier becoming "significantly" harder.
Ms Thornberry had secured an urgent question in the House of Commons on the subject – but just before it started Mr Johnson left the chamber.
Having sat on the front bench for Prime Minister’s Questions, the minister was heckled by labour MPs for not staying to hear Ms Thornberry – instead leaving it to the Cabinet Secretary David Lidington.
A visibly angry Shadow Foreign Secretary said: "It is an absolute disgrace and a huge discourtesy to this House that the Foreign Secretary is not here himself to answer the questions of his memo.
"What is he afraid of? Perhaps it's this; these questions go to the very heart of his credibility and the credibility of previous statements that's he's made in this House."
She went on to quote statements Mr Johnson had made from 2016 to the last few weeks in which he had said the border arrangements in Northern Ireland would remain "absolutely unchanged".
Adding: "Contrary to the Foreign Secretary's previous statements, he accepts that there will have to be changes to the current border arrangements, he accepts that there will need to be border controls that do not exist at present.
"The only debate is the degree of hardness, but surely the Foreign Secretary has learned by now that you can't just be a little bit pregnant, either there is a border or there is not."
Mr Lidington, who told MPs that as he had Cabinet responsibility for constitutional affairs it was "perfectly reasonable" he should be responding to the question, said Mr Johnson was “foursquare” behind preventing a hard border in Ireland.
He said: "We are now at the very start of a negotiating period during which we will be discussing with our partners in the European Union how to give practical effect to the commitments that were entered into then."
It was not the first time Ms Thornberry has made jibes about Mr Johnson’s private life before, after referencing his affair with Helen Macintyre, who have birth to his child in 2009,last year, saying: “I know Boris doesn’t like paternity tests, but we might need one for Brexit.”
