BOURNEMOUTH West MP Conor Burns has claimed he was hacked after a series of Twitter messages were sent from his account to Brussels’ chief Brexit negotiator.

Mr Burns, who is parliamentary private secretary to foreign secretary Boris Johnson, appeared to send three messages to Michel Barnier.

The messages asked Mr Barnier him to publish how the EU is calculating the so-called divorce bill.

The tweets, since deleted, read: “@MichelBarnier why don’t you publish how you are calculating UK bill based on law: ie Treaty obligations and directives? Hard facts help.”

Another said: “@MichelBarnier Britain pays her obligations. Why don’t you publish them based on law ie Treaty obligations and directives. Legal facts help.”

The third read: “@MichelBarnier UK pays her obligations. Why don’t you publish what you think they are based on law ie Treaty obligations and directives?”

Mr Burns, who campaigned to leave the European Union, later tweeted: “Have been out on visits since 10am this morning. Home to find both twitter and email hacked. Passwords changed.”

Negotiations between the UK and the EU are continuing in Brussels after Mr Barnier said he was concerned about the lack of clarity from Britain and insisted “we must start negotiating seriously”.

Mr Burns’s response was derided by a number of Twitter users, with some of them asking whether he had taken the hacking allegation to the police.

David Allen Green, a legal commentator at the Financial Times, said in a series of tweets that “the hacker is either an expert on EU law and/or the Brexit budget issue or someone with access to exact same papers and briefings on Brexit which, say, a PPS to a foreign secretary would have”.

He added: “No doubt Foreign Office/police/parliament/information commissioner’s investigation(s) will get to bottom of how this could have happened.

“The hacking of the email (as well as Twitter account) of a Foreign Office parliamentary private secretary is not a trivial matter.

“But what rotten luck for @ConorBurnsUK.”