On historic visit to N. Ireland, Biden seeks 'to woo the DUP back to power-sharing'
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00:00 for more we can speak now to Thomas Leahy who is a senior lecturer in British and Irish
00:04 politics at Cardiff University. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. What was
00:09 the goal of this visit to Northern Ireland would you say?
00:13 I think a good evening to everyone as well. I think the key part of the visit for Joe
00:17 Biden and the US government is very much to, as your report was saying, get back power
00:23 sharing in Northern Ireland, particularly post the Brexit deal with Rishi Sunak and
00:28 the European Union with the Windsor Agreement taking place. And I think being particularly
00:33 more specific than that, I thought it was really an attempt to woo the Democratic Unionist
00:38 Party, the main representatives of British Protestant Unionism in Northern Ireland, back
00:42 to power sharing. That was the kind of impression I was picking up.
00:44 I mean it's quite a big thing to have the President of the United States come to Belfast
00:49 and twist a few arms and ask those politicians to end their squabbling and get back to power
00:55 sharing. I mean do you think it's likely to have the desired effect?
00:59 That's a really good question. I suspect not in the short term. And we partly saw this
01:06 in the build up to Biden's visit, but also from some of the reception from certainly
01:11 the Democratic Unionist Party, the leading British Protestant Unionist Party there. And
01:16 their opinion was very much that, you know, whilst it's useful that present America wants
01:21 the peace agreements get solidified up and running again, but they also said that for
01:26 them very much is entailing what happens with the Windsor Agreement and what's happened
01:31 with the European Union and the UK government's discussions over Brexit and obviously the
01:36 new agreement under Rishi Sunak. So the reason I don't actually think this is going to work
01:39 for the Democratic Unionist Party, there's two key reasons I think at the moment they
01:44 don't want to come back into government. One is obviously the Brexit deal, that included
01:47 Boris Johnson's one with the European Union, but also Rishi Sunak's. And the reason that
01:51 is, is because they don't like there being any kind of separate checks at all, separate
01:56 economic actions that are taking place that's different from Northern Ireland to England,
02:00 Scotland, Wales, because they fear if there's that kind of economic border in the sea, as
02:05 they see it between the European Union and UK mainland, it threatens Northern Ireland's
02:08 place in the union. The second point as well is that, you know, last May 2022, the elections
02:14 in Northern Ireland for the first time ever saw the Irish Republican Party's shim fame,
02:18 which people may know, obviously in the 90s and 70s and 80s used to be linked to the Irish
02:23 Republican Army. They won the elections last year. They had the largest percentage of the
02:28 vote and seats overall. And I think that with the decline in the Protestant Unionist population
02:33 as well, and the figures for the census last year in 2021, it seems very much at the moment
02:38 that DUP is going to hold out and play kind of hardball really over this Brexit business
02:42 because they're concerned about shim faming the power sharing government and also any
02:47 distance between the UK mainland and Northern Ireland.
02:51 I mean, the president had a bit of a few carrots with him on this trip, and he alluded to Northern
02:58 Ireland's economic potential and the implication seemed to be that this political deadlock
03:03 and squabbling was really holding the region back, economically speaking. Do you think
03:08 that's true? And do you think his promise of future US investment, which he made today
03:14 in Northern Ireland is likely to perhaps have any additional effect? Or again, do you think
03:19 that's just perhaps going to be secondary in the minds of the DUP and the other parties
03:25 that are squabbling at this moment?
03:27 Yeah, very good questions. And I'd say on the first part, I think overall, I'm really
03:35 kind of getting to the central part of your question that I don't necessarily think the
03:39 US's influence is going to be decisive here. And partly again, because for the Democratic
03:44 Unionist Party and the other parties in Northern Ireland, particularly the Liberal Alliance
03:49 Party and the two nationalist parties, the STLP and the shim faming, are very much saying,
03:53 you know, and the UK government, this is the best of both worlds, really, for the DUP.
03:56 They have a connection to the UK market. They've also got economically benefits in Northern
04:00 Ireland, still being within the European Union, as well in terms of economic trade. And the
04:06 difficulty I think is that the DUP's backing of Brexit and the way they viewed Brexit was
04:12 very much not about economics, in my opinion, it was very much about protecting as they
04:17 saw kind of British Protestant Northern Ireland identity, which open borders and open trade,
04:22 they see as potentially a threat, because it starts to create a distance between Northern
04:27 Ireland and the rest of the UK, and opens up perhaps Irish Republic influence into the
04:32 Northern states. So yeah, there was some kind of encouragement about further investment.
04:37 And yeah, there have been problems with power sharing being down because certain projects
04:41 can't go forward because ministers aren't there to make decisions. But I don't think
04:45 coming back to that central point is going to sway the Democratic Unionist Party. The
04:49 question is, and I think eventually they seem that they want to hold out, they're not a
04:53 majority, they're quite keen to make sure that other people can't get what they want
04:56 in terms of Irish nationalists. But yeah, you do wonder where that's going to go in
05:00 the long run for the DUP, because they're going to run out of roads where they're not
05:03 majority party anymore.
05:05 And just lastly, I mean, there's a bit of speculation in the British media and other
05:10 medias as well, that this trip by President Biden's a little bit of a snub to the British
05:15 government, not least the fact that President Biden's spending quite a lot longer in the
05:20 Republic of Ireland, he's spending three days there, he was barely in Northern Ireland for
05:25 four hours. Do you think there's anything to be, would you give that speculation any
05:30 credit at all?
05:32 That's an interesting question. I think we certainly heard this afternoon that the British
05:37 Conservative government and Rishi Sunak themselves say, look, it's just the itinerary of the
05:41 trip, I'm seeing Joe Biden again soon at numerous events. I do think what we've seen over the
05:46 last couple of years, particularly when Joe Biden has been in power in the United States,
05:50 they weren't very happy with what was going on with Brexit, particularly under Boris Johnson
05:54 and the impact that would have on the Northern Ireland peace agreement, they felt. They also
05:58 haven't been very happy on another matter, which is about how the UK government has attempted
06:04 to pass an essentially an amnesty act related to Northern Ireland conflict incidents that
06:08 was still under investigation. They spoke out against that. So there's certainly background
06:13 that could say that it's not a coincidence that maybe Joe Biden didn't spend so much
06:18 time in the UK and Northern Ireland and talking to Rishi Sunak. But nonetheless, I think he
06:23 certainly does back this Windsor agreement that's come through because it's stabilised
06:28 the situation in Northern Ireland. So it's difficult to tell. But as I said, there is
06:31 this background incidences about Brexit, also about dealing with conflict legacy that suggests
06:36 the worst slightly frosty relations. Rishi Sunak has probably stabilised that to a bit
06:40 because of the recent deal.
06:41 Well, perhaps President Biden just wanted to spend a bit more time with those distant
06:44 cousins of his in the Republic of Ireland. Perhaps that's the explanation. Thank you
06:48 very much indeed. Thomas Lee, he's Senior Lecturer in British and Irish politics at
06:52 Cardiff University. Thank you. Thank you.