Boris Johnson faces third day of jeers as UK tour reaches Northern Ireland

Boris Johnson has faced a third day of jeers and protests as his tour of the UK regions reached Northern Ireland.

It follows a similarly hostile welcome to Edinburgh and Cardiff as part of his tour of the ‘Awesome Foursome’ of nations.

In Scotland on Monday Mr Johnson was greeted with shouts of ‘lying a***hole’.

He was later booed as he arrived for a meeting with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at Bute House in Edinburgh.

On Tuesday he was booed as he arrived in the Welsh capital for a meeting with the Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford.

He then jetted to Northern Ireland where he had dinner with coalition partners the DUP angering

The PM promised to be “impartial” in fresh talks to restore powersharing in Northern Ireland, despite enjoying a cosy dinner with DUP leaders the night before.

On Tuesday night, the Prime Minister dined with the leaders of the DUP, the hardline Northern Irish party on whose MPs Johnson will rely to prop up his fragile grip on the House of Commons.

Asked on arriving at Stormont how impartial he could be, he said: “It’s all there in the Good Friday Agreement. We believe in complete impartiality and that’s what we are going to observe.”

During talks with the five main parties in the region, Mr Johnson restated his commitment to leave the EU on October 31 with or without a deal.

was accused of undermining the Government’s stated impartiality in the region after holding a private dinner with senior DUP figures on the eve of his first substantive intervention in the powersharing impasse at Stormont.

The Conservative leader, who relies on the support of the DUP’s 10 MPS for a Commons majority, met with all the main Stormont parties in Belfast on Wednesday to discuss a governance crisis that has left the region shorn of a devolved executive for two and half years.

Brexit was also high on the agenda during his bilateral engagements with the main parties.

Some of the politicians used the encounters to raise concerns about his Government’s confidence and supply deal with the DUP, accusing him of compromising his obligation to act impartially in the region.

Mr Johnson denied a conflict of interest as he was asked on Wednesday morning about the previous night’s dinner at a luxury hotel on the outskirts of Belfast.

“It’s all there in the Good Friday Agreement, we believe in complete impartiality and that’s what we are going to observe,” he said.

“But the crucial thing is to get this Stormont government up and running again.”

A Number 10 spokesman said: “He said that in all scenarios, the government is steadfast in its commitment to the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement and that in no circumstances would there be physical checks or infrastructure on the border.”

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said Mr Johnson’s stated claim of impartiality was “laughable”.

“He tells us he will act with absolute impartiality, we have told him that nobody believes that,” she said.

“Nobody believes that because there are no grounds to believe there is any kind of impartiality, much less strict impartiality.”

The republican leader said the confidence and supply deal with the DUP had “poisoned the groundwater” at Stormont.

“He asked for our advice and we have strongly advised him that to make progress here he needs to ensure that he is not the DUP’s gopher, he needs to stop mollycoddling them, he needs to spell out the realities of life to them and put pressure on his unionist colleagues to ensure we can land on an equitable and sustainable agreement,” she said.

The SDLP’s deputy leader Nichola Mallon claimed Mr Johnson’s “wining and dining” of the DUP had set the wrong tone for the visit.

“It sends a message that he has a cosy relationship with one party here in Northern Ireland and that’s damaging to our peace process,” she said.

DUP leader Arlene Foster, who attended the dinner along with deputy leader Nigel Dodds and party whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, robustly rejected criticism of the confidence and supply deal.

The DUP’s 10 MPs have propped up the minority Government since the 2017 general election – an arrangement that delivered a £1 billion boost in public spending in Northern Ireland.

“The confidence and supply agreement has been good for the people of Northern Ireland,” she said.

“You would think to hear some people that it was some bad thing that had been visited upon the people of Northern Ireland. We have delivered an extra billion pounds for the people of Northern Ireland, which they wouldn’t otherwise have if it were not for the relationship between ourselves and the current government”

Mrs Foster was particularly critical of Sinn Fein’s remarks.

“I don’t feel mollycoddled at all,” she said.

“I think it is highly pejorative and actually quite offensive when the Prime Minister of the UK comes to this country and that is the sort of reaction he gets from Sinn Fein.”