Boris Johnson has been lobbying for an audience with Joe Biden. The prime minister is visiting the US this month for the UN general assembly.
The trip has generated a palpable air of desperation in Downing Street. No other postwar prime minister has waited so long for that precious White House photo call with a new US president. And Johnson is scarcely awash with invitations from other world leaders.
After the UK’s sidelining during the US pullout from Afghanistan, this week’s deal on a new defence pact between the US, UK and Australia has struck a positive note. As host of November’s COP 26 climate conference, Johnson is also seeking stronger US commitments to cut carbon emissions.
What Biden gains from a summit is less obvious. He does not much like Johnson. He is unapologetic about Afghanistan and, anyway, Johnson showed no interest until things went wrong. As for global warming, any deal in November will be cut between the US, China and the EU.
For all that, it’s good to talk and the president can add his own agenda items. They should start and end with Northern Ireland. Beyond the damage being done to the UK’s international standing, Johnson’s effort to renege on the Irish trade arrangements set out in his Brexit deal with the EU27 is now threatening the fabric of peace in the province.
Johnson’s demand that the EU rewrite the agreement has spurred the Democratic Unionist party to threaten to collapse Belfast’s cross-community administration. The dispute is sharpening divisions between unionists and nationalists, and undercutting the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
The Northern Ireland protocol is not perfect. In order to sustain an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic — a central plank of reconciliation between unionists and nationalists — it bestows a special status on the province within the ambit of the EU single market. This in turn requires checks on goods travelling to Northern Ireland from the British mainland in order to safeguard the single market. It also fair to say that the EU initially was over zealous in the application of checks.
The problem is that Johnson wants more than a measure of EU operational flexibility. He is challenging the basic structure of the protocol. In giving Northern Ireland privileged access to EU markets, it necessarily provides for a role for EU institutions. The prime minister knew this when he signed the accord. But he has now decided this is an affront to national sovereignty.
The fact that the deal treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK is the central complaint of unionists. Inexplicably, however, the DUP flatly rejected a formula that would have avoided this by keeping the whole of the UK closer to Brussels. For his part, Johnson decided that unionist sensitivities could be sacrificed to his goal of a hard Brexit.
That was then. Johnson is nothing if not inconstant. He now complains that he was acting under intense political pressure in the UK parliament. His Brexit negotiator Lord Frost has been encouraging the DUP in its opposition. This week Frost threatened to suspend the agreement unless Brussels agrees to expunge the role of EU institutions.
The Brexit deal does treat Northern Ireland differently but there is nothing new in this. Margaret Thatcher set the precedent when she gave a role in the province’s affairs to the Republic as part of the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985. This unique status was underscored by the Downing Street declaration of 1993 and then by the Belfast peace agreement. The DUP disliked all these accords but learned to live with them.
So what is Biden’s role? Most obviously, the prime minister needs to be told, as bluntly as these occasions allow, that Britain does itself great damage by breaking trust with its signature on international treaties. You cannot champion the rule of law if you flout it.
The president has an interest that reaches beyond his personal ancestry and the political weight exercised by the Irish diaspora in the Congress. Successive US administrations have played a pivotal role in nurturing reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Their help may well be needed again.
Both the EU and Dublin have signalled they are willing to make compromises to preserve the agreement — and lay the foundations for a restoration of good relations between the UK and its European neighbours. Biden’s message should be that of a candid friend, if not of Johnson then certainly of the UK: take the deal.
philip.stephens@ft.com
This column has been updated to reflect the new US, UK, Australia defence pact
Source: Economy - ft.com
