UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told a public in the United States three years ago that the impact of Brexit without a deal on Ireland would “affect only a few turnip farmers in the back of their trucks”, said a former British diplomat.
Alexandra Hall Hall, a former Brexit counselor at the UK embassy in the United States, revealed on Twitter on Tuesday night that Ms. Truss had made remarks to a public in the United States three years ago.
The former career diplomat revealed in an article in an American academic journal last year that a UK government minister had made the remarks, but she had not identified the minister at the time.
Last night, Ms. Hall Hall retweeted Ms. Truss’s tweet, in which the Foreign Minister said that “the first priority of the UK government is to maintain the Belfast Agreement” – the 1998 agreement that underpins the peace process. in Northern Ireland. Ms Trus shared a link to her speech in the House of Commons, outlining plans to introduce legislation to repeal the Brexit agreement for Northern Ireland.
Returning the message, Ms. Hall Hall said: “I am so excited to see Liz Truss become a true expert on Irish issues. After all, she was the minister who told the American public three years ago that Brexit would not have a serious impact in Ireland. . . it would simply “affect several farmers with turnips in the back of their trucks.”
‘under pressure’
Ms Truss told the UK parliament that the protocol had put the Belfast agreement “under pressure” due to resistance from union parties, citing plans to plan new legislation in the coming weeks to remove parts of the deal. for Brexit for Northern Ireland.
Ms. Hall Hall wrote in the Texas National Security Review last year that during her time as a diplomat in Washington, D.C., that the Boris Johnson government downplayed the impact of Brexit on the peace process in Northern Ireland in statements addressed to the U.S. audience.
She resigned at the end of 2019 because she said she did not want to “sell half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust,” she said in her resignation letter.
In her article last autumn, she described the remarks about the “turnip” – without mentioning Mrs Trus’s name at the time – as a “low point” from her time in Washington, when the UK minister “openly and insultingly” to a public The United States has rejected the impact of Brexit without a deal on Irish business.
Ms. Trass, then the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for International Trade, was visiting Washington at the time to meet with then-US Secretary of Commerce Wilber Ross and US Trade Representative Robert Leitheimer, both members of the administration. of US President Donald Trump and other politicians.
“More and more scared”
In an academic paper, she said he had become “increasingly frightened by the way our political leaders are trying to secure Brexit, unwilling to deal honestly, even with our own citizens, with the challenges and compromises that Brexit involves.” .
She challenged the article, entitled “Should I stay or go?” The Conflict Civil Service Dilemma – with “the use by the UK government of misleading or dishonest arguments about the consequences of different options” with Brexit.
The Irish Times sought comment from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London on Mrs Truss’s remarks. A source said they did not recognize the comments.
Ms. Hall Hall joined the UK Foreign Office in 1986 and has held various positions around the world, including Bangkok, New Delhi and Bogota, before serving as British Ambassador to Georgia.
Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan, chairman of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, said the comments attributed to Mrs Truss were “rude and stupid” and revealed “breathtaking ignorance of Ireland and Irish affairs”. He called on the British Foreign Secretary to withdraw his remarks.
“Mrs Truss needs to organize a visit to Ireland, engage meaningfully with her British counterparts on British-Irish affairs and thus become more informed,” the former foreign minister tweeted.
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