Liz Truss faces a meeting with a close ally of US President Joe Biden on Saturday amid international efforts to prevent the British government from repealing the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Foreign Minister and International Trade Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan is due to hold talks in London with Congressman Richard Neal, who is calling on British ministers against any unilateral “breach” of the Brexit treaty.
This follows a warning from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said the US Congress would not agree to any trade deal if Britain took a plan to “reject” the protocol.
Mr Neil, who arrived in Brussels on Friday as part of a nine-member congressional delegation, also said Boris Johnson must abide by all parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement he signed in 2020.
“It simply came to our notice then. “They are talking about violating it, so part of my job is to convince them not to violate it,” the senior Democrat told The Guardian.
“The broader event here is that the protocol has been duly agreed by the British prime minister,” he told Politico. “This is an international agreement that must be respected.”
“These will not be the words of the United Kingdom – these will be their actions,” he added. “I do not think that Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement and the elections in the north [of Ireland] the United Kingdom’s differences with the European Union must be held hostage.
This comes after a senior US State Department official said the Biden administration did not want to see any “unilateral action” with the protocol – warning that the dispute risks undermining Western unity during the war in Ukraine.
Adviser to the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Derek Cholet, told the BBC that “the great battle between the United Kingdom and the EU” is “the last thing” Washington wants. “We want to see this problem solved and we want to see a drop in temperature and no unilateral action,” he said.
Mr Neil and his colleagues in the US Congress are also due to meet with Labor leader Sir Keira Starmer and shadow trade secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds on Saturday to discuss the Brexit dispute and the political stalemate in Northern Ireland.
The US delegation is also expected to go to Belfast to meet with Sinn Fein and DUP leaders, as well as visit Dublin for talks with the Irish government in the coming days.
Mr Johnson and Mrs Truss insisted that they did not plan to break the protocol completely, but sought to unilaterally “fix” it with new legislation repealing parts of the agreement with Brussels.
The foreign minister said earlier this week that the legislation would create a “green channel” for goods traveling from Britain to Northern Ireland. Only goods destined for the Republic of Ireland will be subject to customs controls.
Ms Pelosi said on Thursday that she had previously warned Mr Johnson and Ms Truss that if they chose to “undermine” the Good Friday Agreement, Congress could not and would not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the United Nations. the kingdom ”.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said Ms Pelosi’s intervention in the protocol dispute was “useless” – but Sinn Féin Vice President Michel O’Neill “very much welcomed” the senior American’s remarks.
Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin spoke to the media after talks with Sinn Fein and the DUP
(PA)
Both leaders met with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland, Michael Martin, for talks in Belfast on Friday, as the stalemate over power-sharing agreements in Stormont continued.
Mr Martin called on the DUP to help form the executive branch of Northern Ireland as soon as possible, even if the Unionist Party wants to take part in “parallel discussions” on the protocol.
The Irish prime minister said it was “unheard of” for parliament not to convene after democratic elections, adding: “We cannot have a situation where one political party determines that other political parties cannot gather in parliament.”
Mr Martin also accused the UK government of moving “too far unilaterally” on the protocol. Calling for new negotiations between the United Kingdom and the EU, he said it would mean “entering the tunnel and negotiating in a serious way”.
He told the BBC: “I spoke to Boris Johnson and I have to deal with it. This idea that the European Union is somehow inflexible about this is simply not true – it does not work. “
However, Sir Jeffrey said he had told the Irish Prime Minister that he was not interested in the “sticky plaster” approach to resolving border control issues.
“This must be a fundamental change that respects Northern Ireland’s place in the UK’s internal market, and nothing less than that will be enough,” the DUP chief said.
British Ambassador to Ireland Paul Johnston has allayed fears that the United Kingdom will never be satisfied with the changes to the protocol.
He said the government wanted something that was “sustainable, has more support and does not make the protocol a wedge problem in Northern Ireland’s policy”, adding: “We want to reach a sustainable end date”.
Add Comment