DUBLIN — Joe Biden said he traveled to Northern Ireland last month “to make sure the Brits didn’t screw around” with the region’s peace process — a blunt take that drew gasps from U.K. and unionist politicians.
The remarks, contained in a White House transcript of the U.S. president’s remarks at a Democratic Party fundraiser, clash with his carefully worded speech April 12 in Belfast marking the 25th anniversary of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord. Biden started his four-day visit throughout the island of Ireland in the Northern Irish capital, where tensions over post-Brexit trade rules have torn apart the region’s unity government.
According to the transcript, Biden told party supporters at a private New York residence that he had visited Belfast “to make sure they weren’t — the Brits didn’t screw around and Northern Ireland didn’t walk away from their commitments.”
Those words drew predictable fire from the Democratic Unionists, the main pro-British party in Northern Ireland. The DUP has spent the past year blocking the revival of a cross-community government with the Irish republican Sinn Féin party in protest against trade rules that make it easier for Northern Ireland to trade with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, than with the rest of the U.K. Power-sharing between British unionists and Irish nationalists was the central objective of the Good Friday deal.
“It’s unbelievable and frightening to think this man is the leader of the free world,” said Sammy Wilson, who criticized Biden’s remarks as both hostile to unionists and politically incoherent. “If you believe that there should be a special relationship between the U.S. and U.K., then at least show us some respect.”
Even the leader of Northern Ireland’s middle-ground Alliance Party, Naomi Long, was taken aback when told of Biden’s remarks.
“Oh dear,” she said, before drawing a distinction between such “Brit-bashing” rhetoric versus Biden’s practical help, particularly his appointment of an economic envoy, Joe Kennedy III, to promote increased U.S. investment in Northern Ireland.
“Joe [Biden] has always been slightly gaffe-prone, I don’t think that’s news to anybody. But what really matters is what he does rather than what he says,” Long said. “I’ll judge him on the basis of what he does and overlook the gaffes.”
‘Deeply regrettable’
In London, MPs in the governing Conservative Party expressed diverging views that reflected internal divisions over the wisdom of Brexit.
Shailesh Vara, a Brexiteer MP who served briefly as Northern Ireland secretary in the dying days of Boris Johnson’s administration, called it “deeply regrettable that President Biden has to use such language to further his reelection chances in the U.S.”
But Simon Hoare, chairman of the Northern Ireland affairs committee and a prominent Conservative critic of Brexit, said Biden’s remarks reflected the reality that the U.K. government, under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, had demonstrated a willingness to break its internationally binding Withdrawal Treaty with the EU. It laid down special rules for Northern Ireland subsequently modified in February’s Windsor Framework agreement.
“If you start to give the impression that there is a flippancy towards that,” Hoare said, referring to the rule of law, “we should not be surprised if people — including our closest geopolitical ally — feel the need to check in to make sure all is well.”
