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Conservative MPs have reacted angrily to an intervention by Joe Biden, the US Democratic presidential candidate, in the Brexit talks in the UK, accusing him of ignoring the Northern Ireland peace process.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Biden warned the United Kingdom that there will be no free trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom if the Brexit talks end with the undermining of the Good Friday agreement. He tweeted: “We cannot allow the Good Friday agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a victim of Brexit.
“Any trade agreement between the US and the UK must depend on respecting the agreement and preventing the return of a firm border. Period.”
His speech was well received by Richard Neal, Chairman of the Congressional Forms and Means Committee.
Biden tweeted after UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Washington in an attempt to reassure her that the British government was not seeking a firm border in the island of Ireland through measures in its internal market bill. a move that is seen by the pro-Irish US lobby as potentially fatal to the peace process.
Questions and answers
What is the UK Internal Market Law?
The Internal Market Bill aims to enforce compatible rules and regulations regarding trade in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Some rules, for example around food safety or air quality, which were previously established by EU agreements, will now be controlled by decentralized administrations or Westminster. The internal market bill insists that decentralized administrations must accept goods and services from all nations of the UK, even if their standards differ locally.
This, the government says, is in part to ensure international traders have access to the UK as a whole, relying on the standards and rules to be consistent.
The Scottish government has criticized it as a Westminster “takeover”, and the Welsh government has expressed fear that it will lead to a race to the bottom. If one of the countries that make up the United Kingdom lowers its standards, for example on the importation of chlorinated chicken, the other three nations will have to accept chlorinated chicken as well.
It has become even more controversial because one of its main goals is to empower ministers to pass regulations even if they are contrary to the withdrawal agreement reached with the EU under the Northern Ireland protocol.
The text does not disguise its intention, stating that the powers contained in the bill “have effect without prejudice to any relevant international or national law with which they may be incompatible or incompatible.”
Martin Belam and Owen bowcott
Raab has argued that the measures in the UK internal market bill are proportionate, precautionary and necessary due to the EU’s politicization of the stuttering talks on a trade deal between the UK and the EU.
However, the EU responded on Thursday, saying that an agreement on a trade and security deal remained conditional on the government withdrawing contentious clauses from the domestic market bill.
European Commission Vice President for Economics Valdis Dombrovskis said: “If the UK does not comply with the exit agreement, there will no longer be a basis for a free trade agreement between the EU and the UK. The UK government must correct this before we continue to negotiate our political and economic relations.
The dispute between Biden and Downing Street poses a broader threat to UK interests if Biden, a pro-European Union and pro-Irish politician, decides to turn against Boris Johnson, who has made a virtue of his close relations with the administration. Trump.
Former UK Trade Minister Conor Burns tweeted: “Hi @JoeBiden, would you like to talk about the Good Friday deal? It is also called the Belfast Agreement, so it does not offend both traditions. Did you really know? I was born in NI and am a Catholic and a Unionist. Here if you need help. “
Conservative Beaconsfield MP Joy Morrissey responded: “I guarantee you I didn’t know about that. Many Americans know next to nothing about the problems, the bombings and the terrorist attacks in the UK. Biden is blatantly pandering to the vote of the Irish Americans while refusing to engage with the UK government or UK diplomatic channels. Nice.”
He later deleted his tweet, but added: “This is clearly about the Irish American vote.”
Burns added: “The mistake those of us who support Brexit made was to assume that the EU would behave rationally in pursuing a Free Trade Agreement with a big trading partner like the UK. After years in which the EU was negotiating effectively on both sides of the table, they now see that we are taking our sovereignty seriously ”.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy commented: “This shows the extent of the damage the government has done to Britain’s position in the world. They have lost trust and undermined cooperation when we need it most, and all to break an agreement they negotiated. Reckless, incompetent, and utterly self-defeating. “
Daniel Mulhall, Ireland’s ambassador to the United States, has been working in the corridors of Washington for the past fortnight, pushing to lessen the threat that the Irish perceive to the Good Friday deal posed by the British proposals. He has been tweeting his thanks to those representatives who are supporting the Good Friday deal.
You cannot reach a free trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States unless you have the support of two-thirds of Congress.
In a sign of the Trump administration’s concern over the dispute, Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s former acting chief of staff, will shortly be making his first trip to the UK in his new role as the US special envoy for Northern Ireland.
The Foreign Office, criticized by some for not anticipating a likely US reaction, will argue that Raab’s visit to Washington may have sparked a predictable backlash in some corners, but was necessary to reassure and counter Irish propaganda.
But UK diplomats will be anxious that the UK is not considered taking a partisan stance in the US elections, especially as Biden currently has a fragile lead in the polls.
