Theresa May insisted her Brexit settlement was "better" than the one Boris Johnson struck with the EU.

In a swipe at her successor, who successfully pressured her out of workplace, the previous prime minister stated he negotiated a "bad deal".

Mrs May stated Mr Johnson's withdrawal settlement made it "difficult" for Northern Ireland as a result of it needed to observe completely different guidelines to the remainder of the UK.

She instructed LBC's Tonight With Andrew Marr: "It was a bad deal, I think as we saw from all the problems we had on the Northern Ireland Protocol.

"And Rishi Sunak got here in and naturally agreed the Windsor Framework, which has eased that state of affairs and in some ways resolves these points.

"But we had that period of time when it was really very difficult for Northern Ireland and difficult for people, supermarkets and so forth in Great Britain who were sending food over to Northern Ireland, all the checks and stuff that came as a result of Boris Johnson's deal.

"So that's the reason I feel my deal wouldn't have been in that place and would have been higher."

Mrs May's deal would have stored the UK shackled to the EU's guidelines till each side could possibly be assured that Brexit measures wouldn't set up a tough border in Ireland, below a mechanism often known as the "backstop".

But the former prime minister failed to gain Parliament's support for the agreement.

Mrs May said her priority when she entered No 10 after the 2016 referendum was to negotiate a deal that could be supported by both Brexiteers and Remainers.

She told Nick Robinson’s Political Thinking BBC podcast: “It wouldn’t have given either side 100 percent of what they wanted but it would have given the country a better overall deal.

“I was trying to get people beyond that sense of only looking at what the past had been like.”

Mrs May, who's selling her new e-book The Abuse of Power, went on: “We had to recognise that the result was close: 48 percent voted remain.

“But what I saw in the House of Commons through that process of negotiation, the hardliners on either side were increasingly trying to find ways to thwart a deal that I think would have been better.”