Joe Biden accuses Johnson of ‘inflaming’ Irish tensions

America’s most senior diplomat in Britain read her instruction out allowed during a meeting with Brexit Minister David Frost.

Colonel Edward Bolitho, Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall,, left, and Yael Lempert meet Joe and Jill Biden after they land in Newquay on Wednesday night. Picture: AFP

President Joe Biden ordered US officials to issue British Prime Minister Boris Johnson with an extraordinary diplomatic rebuke for imperilling the Northern Ireland peace process over Brexit.

Yael Lempert, America’s most senior diplomat in Britain, told Brexit Minister David Frost at a meeting that the government was “inflaming” tensions in Ireland and Europe with its opposition to checks at ports in the province.

In a move without recent precedent, Ms Lempert said she had been told to take the step of issuing London with a demarche, a formal diplomatic reprimand seldom exchanged between allies.

The emergence of the memo comes before the first meeting ­between Mr Biden and Mr Johnson late on Thursday.

Government minutes of the June 3 meeting reveal that Lord Frost was told of Mr Biden’s “great concern” over his stance in a tense encounter at which Ms Lempert was said to have “slowly and gravely read her instructions aloud”. She warned that the dispute between Britain and the EU over the protocol was “commanding the attention” of Mr Biden.

A demarche is a formal diplomatic communication or protest lodged with a government, more commonly an adversary than a close ally. They are often issued along with a summons for a country’s ambassador to attend the Foreign Office.

The memo said that the US “strongly urged” Britain to come to a “negotiated settlement”, even if that meant “unpopular compromises”. It added: “Lempert said the US was increasingly concerned about the stalemate on ­implementing the protocol. This was undermining the trust of our two main allies. The US strongly urged the UK to achieve a negotiated settlement.”

It also stated: “Lempert ­implied that the UK had been ­inflaming the rhetoric, by asking if we would keep it ‘cool’.”

However, in an olive branch to boost the chance of an agreement, she said that if Britain accepted demands to follow EU rules on agricultural standards, Mr Biden would ensure that the matter “wouldn’t negatively affect the chances of reaching a US/UK free trade deal”. She also asked how the US could be “helpful” in brokering a deal.

Ms Lempert is charge ­d’affaires at the US embassy in London. Until Mr Biden appoints an ambassador she is his most senior diplomat in Britain.

She told Lord Frost that the President intended to raise his ­objections to Britain’s “increasingly heated rhetoric” and threats to unilaterally suspend the protocol in talks with Mr Johnson and in public at this weekend’s G7 summit in Cornwall. Washington’s decision formally to rebuke the government exposes the distrust between the White House and No 10, which fears that a dispute with Mr Biden over Northern Ireland could derail the G7.

Lord Frost told Ms Lempert that the EU had “prioritised the integrity of the single market over peace in Northern Ireland” and suggested that Mr Biden should tell European leaders to pursue a “less purist” approach.

THE TIMES