Irish commentators have condemned Sajid Javid for describing Ireland as “the tail that wags the dog” on Brexit.

The home secretary made the comments as he continued to expand on his Tory leadership pitch, setting out how his Brexit plan hinged on coming up with an alternative to the Irish backstop.

“I will focus on the one Brexit deal that has already got through parliament – that was the withdrawal agreement with a change to the backstop,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. “[Ireland] is the tail that wags the dog on this and we need to make sure we can do more to build that goodwill in Ireland and build their confidence.”

The comments were seen by many in Ireland as a diplomatic faux pas. “Using a term like that is very unfortunate and I would be appealing to representatives in the UK to be mindful of their rhetoric,” said Neale Richmond, a senator from the governing Fine Gael party who chairs the Irish parliament’s Brexit committee.

“We saw that as well in December with [the Tory MP] Priti Patel talking about Britain preventing food imports to Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit, in ignorance that we had a major famine here. It also feeds into the misconception that somehow Ireland and the EU are separate or we are taking order from masters. We are and have been unified in this process, even if that appears to have taken some people in the UK by surprise.”

Richmond took issue with Javid’s call for the UK to “make a grand gesture to Ireland” by covering all of the costs of creating a “modern, digitised border” between the two countries.

“It’s not about cost. It’s about upholding the legal responsibility as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement by maintaining a seamless border. No realistic digital or technological solutions have been proposed,” Richmond said.

He also criticised another Tory leadership contender, Andrea Leadsom, for describing her Brexit plan as a “managed exit”.

Other commentators also criticised Javid’s comments. “Sajid seems to be proposing a reverse Trump: we are not going to build a wall and Ireland’s not going to pay for it … Hmm,” tweeted Matthew O’Toole, a former civil servant who worked at No 10 under David Cameron.