All living former prime ministers, including two leaders accused of wrecking Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, have been invited to a gala dinner in Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.
It is understood Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have both accepted the invitation to the event on Wednesday night.
Also invited are David Cameron, Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Theresa May, all of whom are expected to attend.
The event is to celebrate the extraordinary efforts made by Bill Clinton, the former chair of the peace talks, the former US senator George Mitchell, Blair and the former taoiseach Bertie Ahern to end decades of bombing and bloodshed. All four spoke about the importance of the landmark agreement at the opening of a conference at Queen’s University on Monday.
Leaders of the parties attending the conference were unaware of the VIP invites, but they are expected to be divisive.
Johnson’s record on Northern Ireland is controversial. He sealed the deal on the Northern Ireland protocol to get a hard Brexit over the line, but he claimed it did not mean checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea – part of the agreed Brexit trading arrangements – and its existence has led to the Democratic Unionist party boycott of the devolved government created by the 1998 pact.
The protocol led to the collapse of the Stormont government after the Democratic Unionist party decided to boycott power sharing more than a year ago.
Truss’s record is also contentious. As foreign secretary she introduced the Northern Ireland protocol bill, a move supported by the unionists but which would have meant breaking international law if it made it to the statute books.
It pushed relations with Brussels and Dublin to a new low and led to the suspension of meaningful talks with the EU on a compromise.
Truss tried to repair relations when she became prime minister but she lasted just 44 days in Downing Street, leaving her successor, Rishi Sunak, to restart negotiations with the EU, which led to the Windsor framework.
The extraordinary invitation list to seven former prime ministers will mean awkward seating arrangements, as Major once said Brexiters “will never be forgotten nor forgiven”.
Ahern and the current taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, are confirmed as attending, as is the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.
The heavy policing around the conference area at Queen’s University is expected to remain in place for the gala dinner.
