Johnson gets a diplomatic slap from US over Brexit
President Joe Biden ordered US officials to rebuke Prime Minister Boris Johnson for jeopardising the peace process in Northern Ireland due to its stand-off with the European Union, it emerged yesterday.
In a significant diplomatic intervention which now threatens to overshadow the G7 summit in Cornwall, America’s most senior diplomat in Britain told the Brexit minister Lord Frost that the UK’s stance on the Northern Ireland Protocol was ‘‘inflaming’’ tensions in Ireland and Europe.
Yael Lempert is said to have issued Lord Frost with a demarche – a formal diplomatic reprimand – at a meeting on June 3 in London, during which she relayed to him the US President’s ‘‘great concern’’ over the UK’s approach to the protocol, which was established to prevent a hard Irish border.
A demarche is an official communication or protest to a foreign government that is more commonly lodged with adversaries than a close ally.
The details emerged after Biden’s national security adviser warned ahead of his bilateral meeting with Johnson today that resolving problems with the protocol was ‘‘critical’’ to protecting the Good Friday Agreement and not imperilling the peace process in the province.
According to a leaked Government memo, obtained by The Times, Lempert said that the dispute over the implementation of post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland was ‘‘commanding the attention’’ of Biden, who is a proud Irish American.
It reportedly went on to state that the US had urged the UK to come to a ‘‘negotiated settlement’’ with the EU, even if that meant making ‘‘unpopular compromises’’.
‘‘Lempert implied that the UK had been inflaming the rhetoric, by asking if we would keep it ‘cool’.’’
However, in a move that is likely to provoke significant anger from Tory
Brexiteers, the US suggested that if the UK signed up to EU rules on agricultural standards to ease problems with the protocol Biden would ensure it did not ‘‘negatively affect the chances of reaching a US/UK trade deal’’.
The UK has repeatedly ruled out aligning with the EU’s food safety and animal health rules, arguing that to do so would bind it to laws set in Brussels and enforced by the European courts.
Earlier, UK sources confirmed the details of the meeting, but insisted that the UK and US were united in their determination to maintain peace in Northern Ireland.