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      Leo Varadkar meets Biden after apparent Clinton-Lewinsky joke

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      Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has apologised for making an apparent joke about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, during an event in Washington on the eve of St Patrick’s Day celebrations.Varadkar’s comment on Thursday risked overshadowing his meeting with Joe Biden at the White House on Friday for the traditional handing over of a bowl of shamrock to the US president, the most important day in the Irish-American political calendar.The taoiseach departed from a prepared script on Thursday when speaking to people involved in the Washington Ireland programme, which teaches career skills to young people. Reminiscing about his stint as a US House of Representatives intern in 2000, the last year of Clinton’s presidency, Varadkar said it was a time “when some parents would have had cause for concern about what would happen to interns in Washington”.The comment was widely viewed as a reference to Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky while she was a White House intern in the mid-1990s. Hours earlier, Varadkar had shared a stage with Hillary Clinton at a separate event.A spokesperson for Varadkar apologised on his behalf.“He made an ill-judged, off-the-cuff remark which he regrets. He apologises for any offence caused to anyone concerned,” they said.The taoiseach is to meet and share platforms with the Clintons when the couple visit Ireland next month to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Biden also plans to visit.Senior Democrats this week urged Democratic Unionist party (DUP) figures visiting Washington to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland in the wake of the Windsor framework, saying it had addressed the party’s concerns over post-Brexit trading arrangements.Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, expressed hope that the Stormont institutions would be swiftly revived. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said the DUP should “get to the people’s business, the business of power-sharing and self-governing”.The DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, rebuked Schumer, telling Sky: “I would urge the senator to read some history books. Maybe he’d learn a little bit more about what really happens and the reality of the situation.”Hillary Clinton increased the pressure on the DUP when she urged assembly members who opposed the Windsor framework to resign and allow others to revive Stormont.On Friday, Varadkar met Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, at her residence in Washington. Varadkar’s apparent gaffe over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was not mentioned but the Windsor framework was.The agreement, the taoiseach said, “has the potential to restore very good relations between Ireland and the UK and to restore the relations and institutions of the Good Friday agreement” while opening a new chapter in EU-UK relations.“We’re not quite there yet,” Varadkar said. “But I think with good faith on all sides, we’ll have that and the help of our … friends here in America.”Varadkar also thanked Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, for hosting him and his partner, Matthew Barrett. They had been “inspired”, he said, both as doctors and members of the LGBTQ+ community, by Harris’s advocacy for marriage equality as a California prosecutor and senator, and now as vice-president.Varadkar said: “From Stonewall [the riots in New York in 1969 that sparked the modern gay rights movement] to Sacramento to San Francisco, America has led the way when it comes to LGBTQ+ equality. I don’t think I would be here today were it not for what America did.”From there, the taoiseach went to the White House to meet Biden.Before the Oval Office meeting, the president sent out a St Patrick’s Day tweet in which he proudly introduced himself as “the great-great-grandson of the Blewitts of County Mayo and the Finnegans of County Louth who boarded a coffin ship to cross the Atlantic more than 165 years ago” and as “the proud son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden”.Coffin ships were vessels that took Irish immigrants to America during the Great Famine of the 1840s, so called, in the words of the writer Philip Hoare, “because so many of their human cargo died of disease or malnutrition en route, or shortly after arrival”.In front of the press on Friday, Biden referred to a recent meeting in San Diego with Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, saying: “I very much, very strongly supported the Windsor framework, which I know you do too.”Varadkar thanked Biden “for your help and support and understanding for our position on Brexit in recent years”, which he said “really made a difference.“And we’ve got to a good place now, I think, with the Windsor framework where we can have an agreement that lasts, which is important for Northern Ireland, and also important for British-Irish and European relations.” More

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      in Elections

      Northern Ireland Likely to Hold New Election After Failing to Form a Government

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      Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary is expected to announce on Friday that a new election would be held in December after six months of fruitless efforts to convene Parliament.LONDON — Voters in Northern Ireland made history in May when they turned the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, into the largest in the North. Now, they are likely to have to go back to the polls after the main pro-unionist party paralyzed the power-sharing government by refusing to take part in it.Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, is expected to announce on Friday that a new election would be held, possibly on Dec. 15, following six months of fruitless efforts to convene the assembly at the Stormont Parliament in Belfast. The deadline for forming a government expired at 12:01 a.m. Friday.It is not the first time that Northern Ireland’s experiment in power sharing has broken down. The assembly was suspended from 2002 to 2007, and again from 2017 to 2020. This time, the prospects for a swift resolution seem bleak, with Northern Ireland caught up in a larger standoff over trade between Britain and the European Union.Sinn Fein’s victory in May was a watershed in Northern Ireland’s politics, elevating a nationalist party that many still associate with paramilitary violence to leadership in the territory. It entitled Sinn Fein to name Michelle O’Neill, its leader, to the post of first minister in the government, reflecting its status as the party with the most seats in the assembly.But on Thursday, the parties failed in a last-gasp effort to elect a speaker of the assembly, which would have cleared the way to appoint ministers to run the government. Ms. O’Neill criticized the unionists for a “failure of leadership,” after they refused to nominate ministers or a speaker.A poster for Michelle O’Neill and Sinn Fein in April in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesPolitical analysts predicted that Sinn Fein could expand its two-seat advantage over its main rival — the Democratic Unionist Party, or D.U.P. — by drawing voters who are frustrated by the breakdown of the government and blame the D.U.P., which has refused to take part until Britain overhauls the trade arrangements for Northern Ireland.More on the Political Turmoil in BritainMaking History: Rishi Sunak is the first person of color and the first Hindu to become prime minister of Britain — a milestone for a nation that is more and more ethnically diverse but also roiled by occasional anti-immigrant fervor.A Breakthrough, With Privilege: While Mr. Sunak’s rise to prime minister is a significant moment for Britain’s Indian diaspora, his immense wealth has made him less relatable to many.Economic Challenges: Mr. Sunak already has experience steering Britain’s public finances as chancellor of the Exchequer. That won’t make tackling the current crisis any easier.Political Primaries: Are primary elections of British leaders driving Britain’s dysfunction? The rise and fall of Liz Truss offers some lessons.But the Democratic Unionists might pick up a seat or two as well by consolidating the unionist vote. These people favor the North remaining part of the United Kingdom but had split their votes between three competing unionist parties. The D.U.P.’s attacks on the trade rules, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, have united and hardened opposition to it within the unionist population.Adding to the anger, Sinn Fein officials have said that because of the changed political landscape, the Irish Republic should have a consultative role in running Northern Ireland, along with Britain, if the deadlock over a power-sharing government cannot be broken. The British government said it was not considering “joint authority” over the North, though it is wary of a return to direct rule.While the D.U.P. is unlikely to overtake Sinn Fein, analysts said, it may shore up what had been an eroding position. That would vindicate the party’s hard-line strategy, analysts said, and give it little incentive to return to government if Britain struck a compromise with the European Union on the protocol.“Strong unionists are very united on the idea that the protocol must be scrapped,” said Katy Hayward, a professor of political sociology at Queen’s University, Belfast. “My worry is that even if the U.K. and E.U. come up with an agreement on the protocol, it will be very difficult for that agreement to satisfy the unionists.Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, on Thursday at the Stormont Parliament in Belfast.Charles McQuillan/Getty ImagesMr. Heaton-Harris, who was reappointed Northern Ireland secretary this week by Britain’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said he would prefer to call a new election rather than try to delay it or pass legislation in the British Parliament.It was shaping up as an early foreign policy headache for Mr. Sunak, who has spoken of wanting to reset relations between Britain and the European Union. Tensions over trade in Northern Ireland have simmered since the Brexit referendum in 2016 and rose significantly in June after his predecessor, Liz Truss, who was foreign secretary at the time, introduced legislation that would unilaterally overturn parts of the protocol. Boris Johnson, who was then prime minister, regularly reinforced that position.Though Mr. Sunak said he was committed to getting that bill through Parliament, some analysts said they believed he would take a more pragmatic approach with Brussels, calculating that Britain cannot afford a trade war with the European Union at a time when its economy is grappling with double-digit inflation and a looming recession.The result of a painstaking negotiation between London and Brussels, the protocol was meant to account for the hybrid status of Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom but shares an open border with neighboring Ireland, a member of the European Union. To keep that border open, Mr. Johnson had accepted checks on goods flowing from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland.Unionists complain that the checks have added onerous layers of bureaucracy to trade and driven a wedge between the North and the rest of the United Kingdom. For months, Britain has tried to renegotiate the rules with European officials to make them less cumbersome. But unionists want the protocol essentially swept away, which Brussels is certain to reject on the grounds that it would threaten the single market.Belfast in April. Sinn Fein favors the unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.Andrew Testa for The New York Times“The D.U.P. and Sinn Fein should both gain seats” in the next election, said David Campbell, the chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council, which represents pro-union paramilitary groups that vehemently oppose the protocol. “Hard to tell which comes out on top. The real problem is how to resolve problems after.”For Sinn Fein, which favors the unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, the paralysis confronts it with a decision: whether to give up on power sharing, which was enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence, and focus its energies on uniting North and South.“If the sense is the D.U.P. is against the Good Friday Agreement,” Professor Hayward said, “there is a certain rationale for the Sinn Fein to go for their alternative.” More

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      in Elections

      Northern Ireland Turns to Sinn Fein

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      Election results reflected the demoralization of unionist voters, the disarray of their leaders and an electorate with new priorities — much of which can be traced to Brexit.LONDON — Six years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, no part of the United Kingdom has felt the sting in the tail more than Northern Ireland, where Brexit laid the groundwork for Sinn Fein’s remarkable rise in legislative elections this week.With more than half of the votes counted on Saturday, Sinn Fein, the main Irish nationalist party, was closing in on victory, racking up 21 seats, the most of any party in the territory. The Democratic Unionist Party, which represents those who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, slipped to second place, with 19 seats.Though Brexit was not on the ballot, it cast a long shadow over the campaign, particularly for the D.U.P., the flagship unionist party that has been at the helm of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government since it was created by the Good Friday peace agreement nearly a quarter-century ago.Brexit’s legacy rippled through local elections across the British Isles: In London, where anti-Brexit voters turned Conservative Party bastions over to the Labour Party, and in the “red wall,” England’s pro-Brexit rust belt regions, where the Conservatives held off Labour. But in Northern Ireland, Brexit’s effect was decisive.For all of the history of Sinn Fein’s victory — the first for a party that calls for a united Ireland and has vestigial ties to the Irish Republican Army — the election results are less a breakthrough for Irish nationalism than a marker of the demoralization of unionist voters, the disarray of their leaders, and an electorate that put more of a priority on economic issues than sectarian struggles.Much of that can be traced to Brexit.A Sinn Fein election poster in Belfast next to a mural expressing support for a united Ireland.Andrew Testa for The New York Times“Coming to terms with the loss of supremacy is an awful lot for unionism to process,” said Diarmaid Ferriter, a professor of modern Irish history at University College Dublin. “But the unionists really managed to shoot themselves in the foot.”The D.U.P. struggled to hold together voters who are divided and angry over the North’s altered status — it is the only member of the United Kingdom that shares a border with the Republic of Ireland, a member of the European Union.That hybrid status has complicated life in many ways, most notably in necessitating a complex trading arrangement, the Northern Ireland Protocol, which imposes border checks on goods flowing to Northern Ireland from mainland Britain. Many unionists complain that it has driven a wedge between them and the rest of the United Kingdom by effectively creating a border in the Irish Sea.The D.U.P. endorsed the protocol, only to turn against it later and pull out of the last Northern Ireland government in protest. Unionist voters punished it for that U-turn, with some voting for a more hard-line unionist party and others turning to a nonsectarian centrist party, the Alliance, which also scored major gains.The success of the Alliance, political analysts said, suggests that Northern Ireland may be moving beyond the sectarian furies of the past and a binary division between unionists and nationalists.Loyalists protested against the Northern Ireland Protocol, a measure that imposes border checks on goods flowing to Northern Ireland from mainland Britain, in Portadown last year.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesEven Sinn Fein, which for decades was associated with the bloodstained struggle for Irish unity, said little about the topic during the campaign, keeping the focus on bread-and-butter issues like jobs, the cost of living and the overburdened health care system.With the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday accord approaching, some analysts said it was time to revisit the North’s political structure.The agreement ended decades of sectarian strife by, among other things, creating an open border on the island. But it also balanced political power between the nationalists and unionists, at a time when the predominantly Protestant unionists were the majority and the predominantly Catholic nationalists were a restive minority.Demographic trends have changed that: The faster-growing Catholic population is poised to overtake the Protestants. While the link between religion and political identification is not automatic — there are some Catholics who favor staying in the United Kingdom — the trends favored the nationalists, even before Brexit.As the largest party, Sinn Fein will have the right to name a first minister, the symbolic top official in the government. But the final seat count between nationalists and unionists is likely to be close, since the two other unionist parties won a handful of seats, and the one other party that designates itself as nationalist, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, performed poorly.A deli in Belfast last year. Its manager said the shop was buying more supplies from the European Union, because of difficulties in bringing goods from mainland Britain.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesAs the runner-up, the D.U.P. is entitled to name a deputy first minister, who functions as a de facto equal. Even so, it has not committed to taking part in a government with a Sinn Fein first minister. And it has threatened to boycott until the protocol is scrapped, a position that draws scant support beyond its hard-core base.“There’s fragmentation within parties that are trying to reflect a more secular Northern Ireland,” said Katy Hayward, a professor of politics at Queen’s University in Belfast. “That fits uncomfortably with the architects of the peace agreement. There’s no dominant group now. We’re all minorities.”In this more complex landscape, Professor Hayward said, Sinn Fein was likely to govern much as it campaigned, by focusing on competent management and sound policies rather than mobilizing an urgent campaign for Irish unity.Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland who is set to be designated as the first minister, hailed what she called “the election of a generation.” But she said little about Irish unity. Sinn Fein’s overall leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said this week that she could foresee a referendum on Irish unification within a decade, and possibly “within a five-year time frame.”Mary Lou McDonald, center left, the president of Sinn Fein, speaking with potential voters and stall owners in April at St. George’s Market on a campaign visit in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesFor the unionists, the path out of the wilderness is harder to chart. Professor Hayward said the D.U.P. faced a difficult choice in whether to take part in the next government.If it refuses, it would be violating the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. It would also risk further alienating voters, particularly “soft unionists,” who have little patience for continued paralysis in the government.But if it joins the next government, that brings its own perils. The D.U.P. swung to the right during the campaign to fend off a challenge from the more hard-line Traditional Unionist Voice party. It has made its opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol an article of faith.“There may be serious talks now about unionist unity, but there will be no government unless the protocol goes,” said David Campbell, chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council, which represents a group of pro-union paramilitary groups that vehemently oppose the protocol.That puts the D.U.P.’s future out of its hands, since the decision to overhaul the protocol lies with the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has signaled that he is open to doing that — especially if it would facilitate a new Northern Ireland government — but he must weigh other considerations.The Good Friday Agreement established the open border line, which runs along the top of Cuilcagh Mountain, dividing the two Irelands.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesOverturning the protocol would raise tensions with the European Union and even risk igniting a trade war, a stark prospect at a time when Britain already faces soaring inflation and warnings that its economy might fall into recession later this year.It would also antagonize the United States, which has warned Mr. Johnson not to do anything that would jeopardize the Good Friday Agreement.“The Biden administration has made it very clear that the protocol is not a threat to the Good Friday Agreement,” said Bobby McDonagh, a former Irish ambassador to Britain. “It actually helps support the Good Friday Agreement. That will act as a sort of constraint on Johnson.” More

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      in Elections

      Sinn Fein Poised to Make Historic Gains in Northern Ireland Elections

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      But Sinn Fein, which is leading in polls ahead of next week’s elections, hasn’t focused its campaign on unification with Ireland.CARRICKFERGUS, Northern Ireland — The sun was setting over the tidy, red brick homes in a Protestant neighborhood outside Belfast when two candidates for Northern Ireland’s legislature came to knock on doors on a recent evening. It might as well have been setting on the pro-unionist dreams of the residents.“It’s changed times now,” said Brian Gow, 69, as he contemplated the growing odds that the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, would win the most seats in parliamentary elections on Thursday.That would represent an extraordinary coming-of-age for a political party that many outside Ireland still associate with years of paramilitary violence. It would also be a momentous shift in Northern Ireland, one that could upend the power-sharing arrangements that have kept a fragile peace for two decades.Yet for all of the freighted symbolism, Mr. Gow and his wife, Alison, greeted the prospect of a Sinn Fein victory with relative equanimity.“There’s no way I would vote Sinn Fein,” said Mrs. Gow, 66, who, like her husband, is a die-hard supporter of the Democratic Unionist Party, which favors Northern Ireland’s current status as part of the United Kingdom. “But if they’re committed to serving everyone equally, people will have to live with it.”Mary Lou McDonald, the president of Sinn Fein, center left, talking to voters and stall owners at St. George’s Market during a campaign stop this week in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBrian Gow talking to Danny Donnelly, a candidate for the Alliance Party, a centrist alternative to Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists, this week in Carrickfergus.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesThat would be music to the ears of Sinn Fein’s leaders. In polls this past week, they held a lead of two to six percentage points over the D.U.P., running a campaign that emphasizes kitchen-table concerns like the high cost of living and the need for better health care — and that plays down the party’s ideological commitment to Irish unification, a legacy of its ties to the Irish Republican Army.Irish unification, party leaders say, is an over-the-horizon issue, over which Sinn Fein has limited control. It is up to the British government to call a referendum on whether Northern Ireland should stay part of the United Kingdom or join the Republic of Ireland.The only immediate effect of a Sinn Fein victory would be the right to name the first minister in the next government. The unionists, who have splintered into three parties, could still end up with the largest bloc of votes, according to political analysts.“I hope that political unionism, when they meet this democratic test next week, will accept the vote from the people, no matter what that is,” said John Finucane, a Sinn Fein member of the British Parliament who is running the party’s campaign. “To paint this in an us-versus-them context, post election, is potentially dangerous.”A lawyer and rugby player, Mr. Finucane, 42, knows the horrors of Northern Ireland’s past firsthand. When he was 8, he watched from under a table while masked gunmen killed his father, Pat Finucane, a prominent Catholic lawyer. The murder, in which loyalist paramilitaries colluded with British security forces, was one of the most notorious of the 30 years of violence known as the Troubles.“I hope that political unionism, when they meet this democratic test next week, will accept the vote from the people, no matter what that is,” said John Finucane, a Sinn Fein member of the British Parliament.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesWalking near a “peace wall” that separates Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesPat Finucane’s photograph still hangs over his son’s desk — a poignant reminder of why a Sinn Fein victory would mean more than just better health care. In the United States, where many in the Irish diaspora embrace the nationalist cause, the party’s supporters frame the stakes more dramatically.Before St. Patrick’s Day, they took out ads in The New York Times and other newspapers that promised “Irish unity in our time” and called on the Irish government to “plan, prepare and advocate for Irish unity, as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement,” the 1998 peace accord that ended sectarian violence in the North.“If Sinn Fein are the largest party, the focus will immediately turn to their calls for a border poll” to determine whether a majority of people favor Irish unity, said Gordon Lyons, a Democratic Unionist who represents Carrickfergus. “What people want to avoid is the division, the arguments, and the rancor that would come from that.”But it is the Democratic Unionists who are laying the groundwork for the rancor. They have warned they will refuse to take part in a government with a Sinn Fein first minister. The party pulled its own first minister from the government in February in a dispute over the North’s trade status since Brexit, which is governed by a legal construct known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.Unionists complain that the protocol, which requires border checks on goods passing from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland, has driven a wedge between the North and the rest of the United Kingdom. They are pressuring Prime Minister Boris Johnson to overhaul the arrangement, which he negotiated with the European Union.Graffiti next to a supermarket pressing shoppers not to buy goods from the European Union or Ireland, but from Britain.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesUnion Jack bunting and flags celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, which will be celebrated in June in Britain, adorned a shop this month on Sandy Row in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Johnson seems poised to do so. His government is readying legislation, which could be introduced days after the election, that would throw out parts of the protocol. Critics warn it could prompt a clash with Brussels and jeopardize the hard-won peace of the Good Friday Agreement.But public opinion polls suggest the protocol is not a high priority for most voters in Northern Ireland, even many unionists. Some economists contend that the North’s hybrid trade status is an advantage, giving it dual access to markets in mainland Britain and the European Union.The issue did not come up much on a recent evening of canvassing by two candidates for the Alliance Party, which presents itself as a centrist alternative to Sinn Fein and the D.U.P. “People see it as the parties fighting over flags and the border, not the bread-and-butter issues that affect people’s everyday lives,” said one of them, Danny Donnelly.The D.U.P., opponents say, is exploiting the protocol — despite its numbingly complicated details — particularly in loyalist strongholds, where posters warn that residents will “NEVER accept a border in the Irish Sea!”“There’s no way you can tell me that a kid with a petrol bomb in his hand is aggrieved at the finer points of an international trade agreement between the E.U. and the British government,” Mr. Finucane said, referring to fiery clashes last year between young protesters and the police in Belfast.Still, even if the protocol has little tangible effect on daily lives, it does carry symbolic weight for those who have felt cast adrift from Britain since Brexit. Though Protestants remain a bare plurality of the population in the North, the Catholic population is growing faster and is poised to overtake them.“What people want to avoid is the division, the arguments, and the rancor that would come from” calls for a border poll, said Gordon Lyons, a Democratic Unionist.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesA Catholic neighborhood around Falls Road in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesWhile the connection between religion and national identification is not automatic — some Northern Ireland Catholics view themselves as British, not Irish — it has added to the belief among unionists that the North and South will inevitably move closer together, and that their links to London will inevitably fray.“We’re still part of the U.K.,” Mr. Gow said, “but we’re not being treated that way.”For that, he blames the D.U.P. rather than Sinn Fein. The party signed off on the deal that Mr. Johnson struck with Brussels and now wants to unravel. Then it pulled out of the government, which he viewed as a political stunt that betrayed its 50-year history as a responsible voice for unionists in Belfast and London.The divisions within the party, which also faces a challenge from a right-wing party, the Traditionalist Unionist Voice, are so deep that some say the entire unionist movement may need a reset.“There is a stream of thought in unionism that maybe everything needs to crash and burn before we can get a proper new unionist movement that unites everybody,” said David Campbell, the chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council, which represents a group of pro-union paramilitary groups.“There is a stream of thought in unionism that maybe everything needs to crash and burn before we can get a proper new unionist movement that unites everybody,” said David Campbell, chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesA view of Belfast from Black Mountain, which overlooks the city.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Lyons pointed out that the D.U.P. had managed to get the British government to commit to overhauling the protocol. He predicted that unionist voters — even those demoralized by Brexit — would return to the fold rather than risk letting Sinn Fein seize the mantle of the largest party.Whatever the result, history has moved on around Belfast. Kevin Mallon, 40, a shopkeeper on the bustling Falls Road, a Catholic stronghold, said nationalists were more interested in economic prosperity than in uniting with the South, even if that idea still holds atavistic appeal.Thomas Knox, 52, a house painter and decorator who is Catholic, nursed a pint in the Royal British Legion, a bar in the nearby town of Larne once frequented by British police and soldiers. A decade ago, he said, he would not have felt comfortable walking into the place.“Those days are long gone,” Mr. Knox said.Catholics and Protestants drinking together at the Station pub in the town of Larne.Andrew Testa for The New York Times More

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      in US Politics

      US ‘will not entertain’ UK trade deal that risks Good Friday agreement

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      US ‘will not entertain’ UK trade deal that risks Good Friday agreement US congressman Richard Neal says peace deal must not be held ‘hostage over domestic politics’ A bilateral trade deal between the US and the UK is “desirable” but will not progress while the Northern Ireland peace deal is being used for domestic political purposes, one of the most powerful American congressmen has warned.Richard Neal, the chairman of the ways and means committee, has told the Guardian: “We will not entertain a trade agreement if there is any jeopardy to the Good Friday agreement.TopicsNorthern IrelandBrexitEuropeIrelandForeign policyEuropean UnionUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      The Reality of Abortion in Northern Ireland

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      In April, the UK House of Commons formally approved a new directive requiring Northern Ireland’s Department of Health to take “concrete steps” to ensure full abortion services in the north before summer. The directive, which came after years of pressure from inside and outside the north, is the result of the Northern Ireland executive’s delay in commissioning services that were formally decriminalized in 2019.

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      It is time for Northern Ireland’s secretary of state, Brandon Lewis, to ensure that reproductive rights in the north are safe, legal and accessible to all who need them. The complicated politics of Northern Ireland have led to this dilemma of jurisdiction. The House of Commons was able to decriminalize abortion services in the north specifically because there was no sitting Northern Ireland executive in Stormont. However, now that there has been a sitting government in Stormont for over a year, many are calling for an end to the executive’s stall tactics.

      How Did We Get Here?

      Abortion services in the United Kingdom were legalized by the 1967 Abortion Act. Despite the fact that Unionists in the north of Ireland repeatedly call for increased recognition as part of the UK, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has refused to allow this to extend to reproductive rights. Northern Ireland remains home to one of the most restrictive abortion regimes in the world, forcing pregnant people to travel across the Irish Sea to access services.

      UN committees and the Human Rights Council have released numerous reports stating that the UK has been breaching the rights of pregnant people in the north by limiting their access to abortion services. These same reports were a driving force behind the 2018 referendum on abortion in the Republic of Ireland, which passed affirmatively with nearly 70% of civilians supporting wide-reaching abortion reform. Pregnant people in the north have been forced to travel either to the republic or to mainland UK, which presents an enormous barrier to access.

      Despite the majority of Northern Ireland’s citizens saying that they would like abortion to be legalized, consistent vetoes by the DUP have blocked the power-sharing government from passing abortion reform.

      Lack of Government: An Opportunity

      The legacy of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland requires a power-sharing government between the nationalist and unionist communities. This means that neither party can be in position without the other. While this has been the reality for the past two decades, the issue rose to prominence in January 2017, with the resignation of the nationalist Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister. This led to the collapse of the executive in Stormont, which continued until January 11, 2020.

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      During this period of three years, the country had no power-sharing assembly to carry it through Brexit negotiations with the European Union, deal with rising turmoil in the north over the impact of these talks, and no opportunity to potentially build on momentum around abortion rights coming from the Republic of Ireland.

      The collapse of the executive allowed the British Parliament to pass legislation legalizing gay marriage and abortion in the north, bringing it in line with mainland UK laws, the Republic of Ireland’s laws since 2018 and international human rights norms. The move — which is only possible due to the legacy of The Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement, which allows for direct rule from London — was cause for enormous celebration by abortion rights activists.

      The proposal from Labour MP Stella Creasy was supported by 332 votes to 99, which forced decriminalization on October 21, 2019, if the Northern Ireland government was not restored. Despite attempts by the DUP to form a government in order to avoid the decriminalization, Michelle O’Neill and Sinn Fein resisted efforts, allowing the laws to be passed. Notwithstanding arguments against direct intervention from Westminster, the decision was applauded by pro-choice activists across the island.

      The new directive requires the Department of Health to take “concrete steps” to ensure full abortion services in Northern Ireland before the summer. This comes after pressure from within and without, with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission recently issuing legal action against the Stormont executive over the delay in commissioning services.

      What Does the Decision Mean?

      Over a year and a half after the British Parliament decriminalized abortion, the UK government has formally reprimanded the Northern Ireland executive for “dragging its feet.” Parliament has formally approved regulations that enable Secretary Lewis to roll out abortion services across the north. This move is long overdue and is a response to stall tactics by the DUP government over the past year.

      The delays have meant that the burden has fallen on health trusts to carry out interim services for abortions up to 10 weeks, forcing pregnant people seeking terminations beyond 10 weeks to travel to mainland UK for services. Without adequate funding or resources from the Department of Health, these trusts have been had to either provide limited services or suspend them altogether.

      The Northern Irish executive must move, without delay, to create an abortion regime that adheres to international human rights norms and that is accessible to all those who need to access care. However, it appears unlikely that the two majority parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein, will be able to reach an agreement on the services after the resignation of First Minister Arlene Foster. Her successor, Edwin Poots, caters toward the hyper-Christian base of the DUP, publicly opposing adoption by gay couples, supporting conversion practices and restrictions on abortion.

      Through the rules that govern the Northern Ireland executive and power-sharing agreement, Lewis has both the legal authority and the financial abilities to “compel Stormont to commission full abortion services if there is no movement by the summer.” However, in the absence of clear decisions from Lewis, coupled with a Stormont executive that refuses to move forward with their own directives, the responsibility has fallen on community organizations such as the Alliance for Choice to provide access to abortion services across the north.

      The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the fact that health professionals are already stretched thin throughout the north. Many of them do not have the financial or staffing resources to continue to provide services for those seeking an abortion. While a truly free, safe and legal abortion regime will look different everywhere, it is clear that the current model in the north is not working. In the absence of appropriate action from the Northern Ireland executive, and to assume the burden from already-stretched-thin community organizations, Secretary Lewis must act now to create a government-financed and government-run centralized model for abortions without restrictions in the north.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Biden: 'We do not want a guarded border' between UK and Ireland – video

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      US President-elect Joe Biden says he would like to avoid a guarded border between the UK and Ireland as Brexit negotiations continue. Speaking to reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said “We do not want a guarded border. We want to make sure – we’ve worked too long to get Ireland worked out, and I talked with the British prime minister, I talked with the Taoiseach, I talked with others, I talked to the French. The idea of having a border north and south once again being closed is just not right, we’ve just got to keep the border open.”
      ‘America is back’: Biden and Harris announce first cabinet picks – live More

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      Angry Tory MPs reject Joe Biden's comments on UK-EU Brexit talks

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      Conservative MPs have reacted angrily to an intervention by Joe Biden, the US Democratic presidential candidate, in the UK Brexit talks, accusing him of ignorance of the Northern Ireland peace process.In a tweet on Wednesday, Biden warned the UK there would be no US-UK free trade agreement if the Brexit talks ended with the Good Friday agreement being undermined. He tweeted: “We can’t allow the Good Friday agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.“Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”His intervention was welcomed by Richard Neal, the chairman of Congress’s ways and means committee.The backlash was led by the former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith, who told the Times: “We don’t need lectures on the Northern Ireland peace deal from Mr Biden. If I were him I would worry more about the need for a peace deal in the US to stop the killing and rioting before lecturing other sovereign nations.”Donald Trump has made law and order a key theme of his re-election campaign after months of unrest triggered by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: “Perhaps Mr Biden should talk to the EU since the only threat of an invisible border in Ireland would be if they insisted on levying tariffs.”Biden spoke out after the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, met the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in Washington in a bid to reassure her that the British government was not seeking a hard border on the island of Ireland via measures in its internal market bill, a move that is seen by the US pro-Irish lobby as potentially fatal to the peace process.Q&AWhat is the UK internal market bill?ShowThe 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 formerly set by EU agreements, will now be controlled by the devolved administrations or Westminster. The internal market bill insists that devolved administrations  have to accept goods and services from all the nations of the UK – even if their standards differ locally.This, says the government, is in part to ensure international traders have access to the UK as a whole, confident that standards and rules are consistent.The Scottish government has criticised it as a Westminster “power grab”, and the Welsh government has expressed fears it will lead to a race to the bottom. If one of the countries that makes up the UK lowers their standards, over the importation of chlorinated chicken, for example, the other three nations will have to accept chlorinated chicken too.It has become even more controversial because one of its main aims 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 powers contained in the bill “have effect notwithstanding any relevant international or domestic law with which they may be incompatible or inconsistent”.Martin Belam and Owen BowcottRaab has argued that the measures in the UK internal market bill are proportionate, precautionary and necessary due to the EU’s politicising of the stuttering talks on a trade deal between the UK and the EU.However, the EU hit back on Thursday, saying an agreement on a trade and security deal remained conditional on the government pulling the contentious clauses in the internal market bill.The European commission’s vice-president for the economy, 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-EU and pro-Ireland politician, decides to turn against Boris Johnson, who has made a virtue of his close relations with the Trump administration.The former UK trade minister Conor Burns tweeted: “Hey JoeBiden would you like to discuss the Good Friday agreement? It is also called the Belfast agreement so it doesn’t offend both traditions. Did you actually know that? I was born in NI and I’m a Catholic and a Unionist. Here if you need help.”The Conservative MP for Beaconsfield, Joy Morrissey, replied that “Biden is shamelessly pandering to the American Irish vote while refusing to engage with the UK government or UK diplomatic channels. Nice.”She later deleted her tweet, but added: “Clearly it’s all about the Irish American vote.”Burns added: “The error those of us who supported Brexit was to assume the EU would behave rationally in seeking a free trade agreement with a large trading partner like the UK..”Alexander Stafford, the Conservative MP for Rother Valley, tweeted: “Is this the same JoeBiden who once described Britain’s position in Northern Ireland as ‘absolutely outrageous’. And who hit the headlines in the 1980s for his stand against the deportation of IRA suspects from the US to Britain?”John Redwood, a leading Brexiter, said: “Trade deals are nice to have but not essential. We did not have a trade deal with the US when we were in the EU. Getting back full control of our laws, our money and our borders is essential.”Theresa May’s former chief of staff Nick Timothy rejected the frenzy, dismissing “the sudden discovery that Democrats don’t like Brexit and prefer the Irish”.Other Tory MPs including Stewart Jackson tweeted articles claiming that two of the representatives criticising the UK over the Good Friday agreement were overt IRA sympathisers, and a third was a supporter of Martin McGuinness, the now deceased former deputy first minister for Northern Ireland.The shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy, said: “This shows the scale of the damage the government have done to Britain’s standing in the world. They’ve lost trust and undermined cooperation at the moment we most need it – and all to tear up an agreement they negotiated. Reckless, incompetent and utterly self-defeating.”Daniel Mulhall, the Irish ambassador to the US, has been working the corridors in Washington for the past fortnight, lobbying to lessen the threat the Irish perceive to the Good Friday agreement posed by the British proposals. He has been tweeting his gratitude to those representatives issuing support for the Good Friday agreement.No free trade deal between the UK and the US can be agreed unless it is supported by two-thirds of Congress.In a sign of Trump administration concern about the row, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former acting chief of staff, will shortly make his first trip to the the UK in his new role as the US special envoy for Northern Ireland.The Foreign Office, criticised by some for failing to anticipate the likely US backlash, will argue Raab’s visit to Washington may have drawn a predictable reaction from some corners, but was necessary to reassure and counter Irish propaganda.But UK diplomats will be anxious that the UK is not seen to adopt a partisan stance in the US elections, especially since Biden currently holds a fragile poll lead. More