Washington weighs in on Northern Ireland dispute

Washington has turned up the heat on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the dispute with the European Union regarding the post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland.

On Wednesday, Ireland's prime minister Micheal Martin has a virtual meeting with United States President Joe Biden, who is very vocal about his ancestral roots in Ireland, and the number of other US citizens who claim Irish heritage means that the Irish lobby carries significant political weight and influence.

The EU claims Johnson's action in unilaterally changing the rules regarding trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which are now separated by a virtual border for trade purposes as part of the Brexit deal, undermines the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, which ended years of violent civil conflict in Northern Ireland, which often spilled over into the United Kingdom mainland.

A free trade deal with the US has long been one of the promised benefits of Brexit, but having failed to secure one in the latter days of former president Donald Trump's reign, the Biden regime has yet to show any more enthusiasm, and has made it clear that any actions that threaten the Good Friday agreement will automatically rule out any chance of a trade deal.

Ireland's former ambassador to both the UK and the EU, Bobby McDonagh, told US broadcaster CBS News that the continued US political interest in the situation was "both welcome and important".

"President Biden has, of course, always taken a particularly supportive interest in Irish issues," he continued. "Brexit inevitably impacts on the delicate situation in Northern Ireland. The UK and the EU(including Ireland) have therefore negotiated a legally binding Northern Ireland Protocol to ensure that the balances of the Good Friday Agreement are respected insofar as possible in the new circumstances. It is essential that the protocol is implemented effectively and in good faith."

Former Conservative Party chairman Chris Patten has accused the UK's minister for EU relations, David Frost, of a heavy-handed approach to the matter which has made the situation worse. "This requires diplomacy which doesn't assume that the best way to do origami is with a blowtorch," he added.

Earlier this week, the EU began legal proceedings against the UK over the issue, and former British ambassador to Washington and Brussels John Kerr told the Financial Times he thought Biden would try to make his position clear to London, but not in a public way, because of the potential for the Northern Ireland issue to lead to more general disagreement and tension between the UK and the EU.

"I would expect the private message to be: 'Don't you think this is rather dangerous?'" he said, saying that otherwise the matter could be "the leading edge" for a more general "tit-for-tat" dispute.

When questioned about the issue last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden's support for the deal remained "unequivocal".