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He has warned Boris Johnson that if Brexit undermines the Good Friday Agreement, there will be no trade deal with the United States.
But as Joe Biden moved a little closer to the White House last night, his own much-touted Irish roots came under the spotlight.
It came after a photograph emerged in which his arm encircles an IRA fugitive with the couple flanked by Gerry Adams, who, in a potentially incendiary claim, said he discussed a united Ireland with the former vice president.
Taken just three years ago, the image prompted warnings from UK politicians that Biden must be more cautious about who he associates with when he becomes president.
As Joe Biden crept closer to the White House last night, his own much-touted Irish roots came under the spotlight. He is pictured above with Gerry Adams and IRA fugitive Rita O’Hare.
Biden has previously spoken proudly about his Irish Catholic roots at his birthplace in Pennsylvania, and traveled to County Mayo in 2016 to visit distant relatives.
However, the notoriously error-prone former senator sparked fury the previous year when he joked with an Irish delegation that no one “ dressed in orange ” was welcome at his home on St. Patrick’s Day, a comment seen as an insult against the Protestants.
Biden was photographed alongside former Sinn Fein president Adams and with his arm around then-party representative in the United States, Rita O’Hare, in 2017.
In 1972 she was arrested in Northern Ireland for the attempted murder of a British Army officer in Belfast the previous year.
Released on bail, she fled to Dublin, where the High Court of Ireland ruled that she should not be extradited to the UK because her alleged crime was “political”. He is believed to be among the nearly 200 IRA suspects who were told they would not face prosecution by the Tony Blair government as part of the Northern Ireland peace process.
He has warned Boris Johnson that if Brexit undermines the Good Friday Agreement, there will be no trade deal with the US.
Sharing the photo to Twitter in September 2017, Adams wrote that they had had a ‘good conversation’ with Biden about the ‘northern conversations, UI [United Ireland] and Brexit ‘.
Speaking after the meeting, Adams said he had “lobbied” to help him ask the Trump administration to appoint a “special envoy for the peace process.”
“We also discussed the potentially very damaging effect of Brexit on the island of Ireland, and in particular the implications for the border and for the Good Friday Agreement,” he added.
Republican supporters in the strong Irish-American lobby are understood to see the prospect of a Biden presidency as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Irish unity, and Adams said at a rally in the summer that it was now a ‘feasible project’ . .
The 72-year-old has faced accusations that he was a member of the IRA’s ruling military council for years, but has always denied being involved with the terror group. Ms. O’Hare spent two decades as Sinn Fein’s representative in North America before returning to Ireland last year.
In 2008, President-elect Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice president for two terms, was charged by unionists with “an error in judgment” after a photo was taken with the same couple.
Last night, the image of Biden with the Sinn Fein figures generated similar warnings.
“I’m sure this is an association that Mr Biden regrets,” said Conservative Peterborough MP Paul Bristow, the son of an army officer.
‘If confirmed as president-elect, the British government and the people of Northern Ireland will hope that he is non-partisan in his approach to Northern Ireland affairs.
“ Being photographed with someone like Rita O’Hare is something people with the right mindset should want to avoid.
‘Cause pain to the families of the victims of the IRA terror attacks.
“It would be especially bad for the president-elect of the United States and it would not be something that should be repeated.”
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Westminster Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, added: “ With Joe Biden’s Irish connections, it is important that you recognize that protecting the peace process is about engaging with both parties and upholding the rights of unionists and the Irish Republicans.
“We need a White House that takes a balanced approach to Northern Ireland, while appreciating the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom as a whole.”
No one from Biden’s campaign team responded to a request for comment. Biden’s maternal grandfather, Ambrose Finnegan, came to New York at the end of the Great Irish Famine in 1850 at the age of seven after his family emigrated from County Louth, north of Dublin.
Their ancestors had sold rotten seaweed to neighboring farms as fertilizer to lift themselves out of poverty.
According to Laurita Blewitt, a fourth cousin who met Biden during her 2016 visit, Biden “ always said that his mother raised him with such Irish values. ”
But he unleashed a storm on St. Patrick’s Day in 2015 as he spoke at the front door of his residence to a delegation led by then-Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny that ‘if you’re dressed in orange, you’re not welcome here’ before adding that he was just joking.
Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who represents Biden’s home state of Delaware and sits on the Senate foreign relations committee, said yesterday that Biden would be “ concerned ” if the UK’s post-Brexit deals undermine the peace process. in Northern Ireland.
He told the BBC: ‘I suppose you will be concerned about ensuring that the Good Friday agreements are respected and protected, and the way the terms are negotiated between the UK and the EU does not put the stability of the border terms at risk in Northern Ireland. ‘
Boris Johnson’s controversial internal market bill nullifies parts of the Brexit deal with the EU related to Northern Ireland in a way that critics say could undermine the Good Friday Agreement.
But ministers insist the opposite is true, saying the legislation is necessary to avoid imposing a destabilizing trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Mr Coons said that, as President, Mr Biden would “re-engage, reinvigorate and reinvent our alliances and relationships, in particular our special relationship with the UK”.
A spokesperson for No. 10 said yesterday: ‘The United States is our closest ally. We are confident that the relationship will go from strength to strength. ‘
