N IRELAND CASTS SHADOW OVER BIDEN’S MEETING WITH JOHNSON

Joe Biden and Boris Johnson hold their first face-to-face meeting on Thursday, with the visiting US president expected to deliver a stark warning to the British prime minister not to imperil the fragile peace in Northern Ireland.

The pair’s meeting on Biden’s first overseas tour as president is billed by Downing Street as a chance for the old allies to help shape the post-pandemic world, in areas from climate change to technology and trade.

They are expected to agree on a modern version of the 1941 charter signed by their predecessors Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt that determined the new world order after World War II. But while keen to reaffirm the strength of the two countries’ relationship, Biden has reportedly ordered US diplomats to scold Johnson over his handling of Brexit and its effects on peace in Northern Ireland.

The Times said Washington’s most senior diplomat in London, Yael Lempert, told Brexit minister David Frost that the UK government was “inflaming tensions in Ireland and Europe with its opposition to checks at ports in the province”.

Biden’s spokesman Jake Sullivan insisted the president - a proud Irish-american with distant family still in Ireland would not make “threats or ultimatums” to Johnson.