Joe Biden has issued a stinging rebuke of Boris Johnson’s Brexit policy ahead of their meeting at the G7 in Cornwall today.
The US President instructed his senior diplomat in London to deliver an official dressing down of UK’s Brexit Minister Lord Frost in a rare diplomatic move between allies.
Yael Lempert, a senior official at the US Embassy in London, reportedly told Brexit chief Lord Frost that the UK government was “inflaming” tensions in Northern Ireland by disregarding the customs protocol agreed with the EU.
The extraordinary diplomatic row threatens to overshadow Boris Johnson ’s first face-to-face meeting with President Biden today in Cornwall ahead of the G7 summit.
The two leaders are due to agree a new Atlantic Charter, echoing the one signed almost 80 years ago by Churchill and Roosevelt, to “build back better” on post-Covid relations and the climate.
But President Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish roots looks set to use Thursday afternoon’s historic meeting to press his case over Northern Ireland.
In a meeting with Frost Biden’s senior diplomat reportedly spoke of the President’s “great concern” over the customs checks dispute between the UK and the EU.
According to The Times newspaper: “Lempert implied that the UK had been inflaming the rhetoric, by asking if he would keep it ‘cool’.”
Johnson agreed to put Northern Ireland under EU customs rules as part of his Brexit deal which would mean checks on goods coming from the UK mainland to the province.
But the UK has delayed implementation of checks, including those for chilled meat, leading to a so-called “sausage wars” over trade across the Irish Sea.
The tensions have already contributed to threats against port staff and the resignation of First Minister Arlene Foster.
President Biden touched down in the UK for the first time on Wednesday night, visiting US troops at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk before flying to Newquay in Cornwall for the three-day G7 summit.
