Tory leader visits a hospital in Cornwall yesterday

Boris Johnson's demand that the EU agree to scrap the Northern Ireland backstop has been dismissed by European leaders.

European Council president Donald Tusk responded to a letter from the prime minister by suggesting that Mr Johnson was “not proposing realistic alternatives” to the backstop, while one French diplomat called his plan “a joke”. German chancellor Angela Merkel also insisted that the current Brexit deal could not be renegotiated. Labour said Mr Johnson’s letter was a “fantasyland wish list”.

It came as Donald Trump claimed the US and UK could move “rapidly” to a trade deal – but Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer vowed to “oppose” any trade deal if there was a hard border enforced in Ireland.