THE Northern Ireland secretary has insisted there will be no new cameras on the Irish border after Brexit.

Karen Bradley’s promise to the Westminster European scrutiny select committee will cause headaches for her cabinet colleagues who are furiously debating the shape of the Britain’s future relationship with the European Union.

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No cameras and no infrastructures would almost certainly kill-off any possibility of the “max fac” customs arrangement model favoured by Brexiteers.

The “maximum facilitation” plan would involve automated technology being installed along the border to help police it.

But Bradley told MPs: “We are committed to no new physical infrastructure at the border, no new checks or controls at the border.”

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“We have said there will be no ANPR [automatic number plate recognition] cameras, no new cameras, we have been clear that there will be no new physical infrastructure.”

That promise came as Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar described max-fac as less useful than deodorant, and suggested the other options being discussed by Cabinet and the customs partnership, could be “made workable”.

That option, thought to be preferred by Theresa May, would see the UK collect taxes on behalf of the EU.

Cabinet Brexiteers, led by Boris Johnson, David Davis and Michael Gove have blocked this, saying it will leave the UK too close to Brussels, and forced to accept some form of regulatory alignment.

Speaking in the Dáil, the Taoiseach said: “I believe the customs partnership is closer to being made workable than the maximum-facilitation proposal or max-fac which ... I had thought was some form of make-up or deodorant.”

“I have certainly not seen to date any detail that indicates that such a solution would be as functional as make-up or a deodorant. We are not drawing up any plan for a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, full stop.

“There is not going to be one. I have made it very clear to my counterpart in the United Kingdom and the other EU prime ministers that under no circumstances will there be a border.”

David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, and May’s defacto deputy, had earlier said the cabinet may need many more weeks more before it could come to a decision on the two customs options that have divided ministers.

He told the BBC that there had been “serious criticisms made about the technical details of both the models on the table” and said more work needed to be done by ministers in two working groups “over the next days and weeks”.

Meanwhile, May was told she should “step aside” is if she cannot negotiate a good deal for Britain in the Brexit talks, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said.

He claimed the Government is now “so busy negotiating with itself it cannot negotiate with anybody else”.

Speaking in the Commons, Corbyn said Tory divisions over what relationship the UK should have with the EU after Brexit meant there had “been no progress in negotiations for five months”.

May replied: “We want to ensure that we are able to continue to trade in as frictionless a way as possible.”