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Boris Johnson has told Conservative Party members the Irish border backstop is a "terrible moral blackmail" and represents the "incoherence" of the UK's Brexit strategy.

The overwhelming favourite to be elected the next Tory leader - and succeed Theresa May as prime minister - hit out at the "absolutely unacceptable choice" presented by the controversial arrangement.

Speaking at the latest Conservative leadership hustings event in Belfast, both Mr Johnson and his rival Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, reiterated their plans to ditch the current backstop should they enter Number 10.

The backstop is designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit, but has been heavily criticised by Conservative Brexiteers and Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Mr Johnson said: "The backstop presents a prime minister of the UK with an absolutely unacceptable choice between abandoning our ability to govern ourselves - in the sense that the UK would have to submit to EU law on tariffs and EU law on regulations, with no say on those rules.

"Or, alternatively, to give up control of the government of Northern Ireland. That is clearly unacceptable and that's a choice I totally reject."

Vowing to never allow the return of a hard border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, the former foreign secretary repeated his claim the "solutions" to the Irish border issue should be found in discussions with the EU over a future trade deal.

Mr Johnson described Mrs May's withdrawal agreement a "dead letter" as he suggested the backstop was "partly" devised "because there are many who conceive the relationship that they wanted with the EU was one where we stayed in the customs union and in full regulatory alignment, even though that made a nonsense of Brexit".

He added: "What the backstop really represents is, I'm afraid, the incoherence at the heart of the strategy we've been pursuing over the last few years."

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Mr Johnson also promised "under no circumstances" would he "allow the EU or anyone else to create any kind of division down the Irish Sea or attenuate our union".

He said: "That is why I so bitterly opposed the withdrawal agreement.

"That is why I resigned over Chequers. It is a terrible moral blackmail it puts on the UK government. You can't have that. You can't have that approach."

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Meanwhile, Mr Hunt told Conservative members at the hustings event that the backstop needed to "change or it has to go".

He claimed the UK is "never going to have a deal to leave the EU with the backstop", revealing he was "one of the people who argued against accepting the backstop in the cabinet" but kept his concerns private as a means of remaining "loyal" to Mrs May.

Mr Hunt dismissed arguments by the EU that the technology that would be required to avoid a hard border in the island of Ireland did not yet exist.

"I think one of the reasons they tell us that is because frankly it would be easier for them and better for them if we stayed inside the customs union," he said.

Aside from Brexit, both candidates suggested they would not allow the UK parliament to legalise abortion and same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland over the heads of the Northern Ireland Assembly, despite the Stormont legislature not having sat since January 2017.

Mr Hunt accused Northern Irish politicians of an "abdication of responsibility" - with members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) failing to reach a power-sharing deal over the past two-and-a-half years.

He said: "It is totally unacceptable that politicians who are paid... are not turning up to work and doing their job."

Mr Johnson said he would "energise" the talks between the parties aimed at restoring the devolved legislature, while Mr Hunt vowed to "put in the time personally to get that assembly back up and running".