Richard Neal has accused the UK of starting to take the Good Friday Agreement “for granted”, as the influential Democratic lawmaker urged Britain to “find a solution” to the stand-off with the EU over Northern Ireland.
In an interview with the Financial Times before leading a congressional delegation to Brussels, London and Belfast, Neal urged the UK to return to talks with the EU and made it clear the “onus and spotlight” was on Britain to break through the impasse.
“[The UK] continues to say the right things about the Good Friday Agreement — I think we need now to have action to match the words,” said Neal, who has devoted much of his political career to Irish issues and whose views are closely aligned with the Biden administration’s.
The US and Ireland are co-guarantors of the peace deal and Ireland’s Taoiseach, Michéal Martin, told reporters in Belfast on Friday that there was “no substitute for a substantive series of negotiations” between the EU and UK to settle differences over post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland.
Neal said he feared that Britain’s dedication to the 1998 peace deal was waning despite its stated commitment to the accord and that Westminster was “beginning” to see it merely as a “cavalier achievement”.
“[The UK is] taking it for granted, taking it as though it just happened. It didn’t just happen. Long years were put into this, winning the confidence of some pretty disparate opinions,” he said.
Neal’s push for a deal comes after the UK pledged to introduce legislation enabling it to make unilateral changes to the trading arrangements, which put a customs border for goods in the Irish Sea.
Britain maintains that the amendments to the arrangements, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, are necessary to keep trade flowing within the UK, but the EU is outraged that Britain could break international law.
“If everybody is open to negotiation, why don’t they negotiate?” Neal asked in an interview at the US Capitol building, where he chairs the powerful House Ways and Means committee that has jurisdiction over tax and trade.
The US fears that if the UK moves ahead with the legislation, it could undermine the peace deal it helped broker 24 years ago.
“It’s gonna ruffle the feathers of a lot of people here in Washington, that’s for sure,” Neal said. “We don’t believe that Ireland should be held hostage to turbulence in the UK political structure.”
On Thursday, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, said it was “deeply concerning that the UK is now seeking to unilaterally discard the Northern Ireland Protocol”.
“If the United Kingdom chooses to undermine the Good Friday Accords, the Congress cannot & will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the UK,” she wrote on Twitter.
Neal also warned that any trade agreement between the US and the UK would not be approved by the US Congress if a “hard border” were to return on the island of Ireland.
Martin welcomed Pelosi’s intervention but Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, whose Democratic Unionist party has boycotted Northern Ireland’s institutions until the protocol is overhauled, called her comments “entirely unhelpful”.
The UK maintains that the protocol is putting the Good Friday Agreement under serious strain but Neal said there were some signs the UK might be looking to compromise. “I think that what they’re doing is maybe trying to convince the [European] Commission to make some concessions now”, he said.
However, Martin criticised London. “The goalposts keep on changing in respect of the Protocol,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.
After meeting Northern Irish political leaders on Friday, he told reporters: “We accept legitimate issues have been raised, but it is our view that they can be resolved.”
Neal said the US president, who is considering appointing a special envoy for Northern Ireland, had been “clear and firm as it relates to our position on the Good Friday Agreement”
Victory by the nationalist party Sinn Féin in recent elections should be respected, he urged. “This election was hugely symbolic . . . there’s a lot of room here to build an agreed Ireland.”
Neal shied away from suggesting broader repercussions for the US-UK relationship. During the Biden administration, London and Washington have bolstered their alliance in the Indo-Pacific through the Aukus submarine deal, and co-ordinated their response to the war in Ukraine.