BORIS JOHNSON has repeatedly claimed that delaying Brexit will cost a billion pounds a month.

This is not true. Whenever we leave the EU, we will remain in a “transition period” until the end of 2020, during which time we will continue to pay into the EU budget anyway, so extending the date of departure for a few months will cost us not a penny extra – the payments we make during the transition period will be taken off the final “divorce bill” when we leave.

There are some who imagine that if we leave without a deal, we can avoid paying the £39bn financial settlement altogether.

However, even the most hardened Brexiteers, including Nigel Farage, have promised a “simple free trade deal” with the EU after Brexit, and the EU has made it crystal clear that any trade deal would be conditional on Britain honouring its financial obligations.

Mr Johnson has also accused Parliament of blocking his Brexit deal.

This isn’t true either – his Withdrawal Bill was passed at the second reading. Parliament only made the perfectly reasonable demand for a few more days to debate the Bill, and consider amendments. It was Mr Johnson’s decision to withdraw the Bill instead, thus blocking his own deal.

He has also falsely claimed that, under his deal, there would be no customs checks “of any kind” on goods moving from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK, prompting one Dutch MEP to accuse him of “deceiving the public repeatedly on Brexit.”

Can we trust a word Boris Johnson says?

Pete Winstanley, Durham.