Former Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster has said that Joe Biden “hates the UK” as he visits Belfast.
Biden is currently on a four day trip to both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, marking 25 years since the signing of the Belfast Agreement, also known as the Good Friday Agreement, which ended the decades-long violent conflict known as The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
However, leaders in the Unionist community in Northern Ireland, who identify as British, have slammed Biden for his viewed obvious partisanship towards the Nationalist communities, due to his Irish Catholic background, and his supposed antipathy to the United Kingdom as a whole.
Speaking to Dan Wootton on GB News, Arlene Foster, the former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and First Minister of Northern Ireland, said that Biden was the “most partisan president there has ever been when dealing with Northern Ireland.
Foster cited Biden’s past action in the Senate in the 1980s, where he fought against the extradition of suspected terrorists from the USA to the UK, along with him being photographed with attempted murder suspect Rita O’ Hare in 2017.
“The Belfast Agreement is very clear that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, until such times that people in Northern Ireland decide otherwise,” Foster said, adding that Biden has repeatedly engaged in “dismissal” against the British community in Northern Ireland. “He hates the United Kingdom. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” she added.
'Joe Biden hates the UK, I don't think there's any doubt about that.'
Former First Minister of Northern Ireland Dame Arlene Foster says that Joe Biden's visit to Northern Ireland 'won't put any pressure on the DUP because he's seen by so many people as simply pro-republic'. pic.twitter.com/uE6qrLVuoc
— GB News (@GBNEWS) April 11, 2023
Despite Biden’s aims to talk with Northern Irish leaders, Foster argued that because he was seen as “anything but balanced” on the conflict, his visit wouldn’t put “any pressure” on Unionist politicians to return to governing after the Northern Irish executive collapsed over Brexit arrangements last year.
Sammy Wilson, an MP for the DUP in Westminster, appeared to agree with Foster, slamming Biden as “anti-British,” adding that he has made his “antipathy towards Protestants” well known. “He has fully backed the EU in this whole Protocol process,” he added. “He’s refusing to come to the Coronation. I don’t think any of us are rushing through the door to greet him.”
Following the comments, the White House was forced to deny that Biden hates the UK, with Amanda Sloat, the Senior Director for the National Security Council in Europe, said that Biden’s “track record… shows he’s not anti-British”:
“The fact that the president is going to be engaging for the third time in three months, and then again next month and then again in June, with the Prime Minister of the UK shows how close our co-operation is with the UK. And before that, the president had numerous calls and meeting with Prime Minister Johnson, and Prime Minister Truss as well. President Biden obviously is a very proud Irish-American, he is proud of those Irish roots, but he is also a strong supporter of our bilateral partnership with the UK, and not only on a bilateral basis within Nato, the G7, on the UN Security Council, and we truly are working in lockstep with the British Government on all of the pressing global challenges that our countries are facing.”
Following the statement, Wootton slammed the comments as “rubbish” on Twitter. “Indeed, his track record shows he hates the English, Britain and our Royal Family because of his family’s ‘Irish grudges’,” he concluded.
The White House has just responded to my interview with Dame Arlene Foster, claiming Biden’s “track record shows he is not anti-British”.
Rubbish!
Indeed, his track record shows he hates the English, Britain and our Royal Family because of his family’s “Irish grudges”. https://t.co/Zpjim1g8Sr— Dan Wootton (@danwootton) April 12, 2023
