Well, what was it exactly? Rishi Sunak had been adamant that his morning meeting with Joe Biden was a proper bilat. A wide-ranging discussion with full diplomatic status. The US side? Not so much. They saw it as a quick cup of coffee. Two world leaders who happened to be in the same city at the same time with half an hour to spare. A chance for a quick catchup and to shoot the breeze. So let’s split the difference. Call it a bi-flat white. Between two old Mochas.
Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to amount to much. Just a chance for Biden to fill in time before his lunchtime speech. The US president seemed more interested in the view from the hotel window than in the UK prime minister. There’s a grudging respect between the two men, but not a natural connection. Sunak just looked vaguely uncomfortable as he sipped a cup of coffee. There was no way he could spin this as a triumph of statecraft. It wasn’t even as if he and Biden had a great deal to talk about with Stormont still out of action. So they just had to ad lib awkwardly.
Biden: Have you ever been to Carlingford Castle?
Sunak: No.
Biden: I’m going there this afternoon.
Sunak: Er … I hope you have fun. By the way, congratulations on announcing that you’re running for re-election even though you have yet to make that announcement.
Biden: Thank you. It’s not true, you know. I don’t hate the British …
Sunak: Of course you don’t. That was just Arlene going off on one. She does it the whole time. You get used to it after a while.
Biden: It’s just that I prefer the Irish.
Sunak: My wife feels the same. That’s why she was a non-dom. Do you mind if I ask … our countries are still good together, aren’t they?
Biden: Sure. Though don’t get any ideas about a trade agreement. We’re light years away from that.
Sunak: Oh …
Biden: Don’t be too down-hearted. Someone had to come bottom of the IMF’s forecast for worst performing economy in the G7. Has there been any progress on reconvening the Stormont assembly since you negotiated the Windsor framework?
Sunak: Er, no. Still the same old, same old. The DUP just can’t get used to not being the majority party. They are also some of the only people in the entire UK who think being in effect in the single market is a bad idea. Everyone else would kill for that. They do my head in. Still, it’s good to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.
Biden: Mmm. You couldn’t imagine any of the current crop of politicians having the vision to negotiate something similar.
Sunak: Present company excepted!
Biden: Er … Another coffee? And are you planning to come to my speech?
Sunak: Um. I’m afraid my staff booked me a non-transferable ticket back to London and I still have to see the shot policeman. So I’m going to have to give it a miss. But I have seen quite a lot of you recently and we will be meeting again at the G7 in Japan next month. Besides it’s not as if you’re going to be saying anything I don’t already know.
Biden: Sure. Thanks for the support.
Just over an hour later the president was doing a five-minute meet and greet with the leaders of the five main parties in a side room at Ulster University. If it all felt a bit perfunctory, then it was.
This was not quite the occasion Biden and Northern Ireland had been hoping for. It was meant to be a celebration not only of the GFA but of the resumption of the Northern Ireland assembly. But with the DUP unwilling to return, Stormont lies empty. If Biden had given his speech where he had intended, he would have been talking to himself. For the last year or so, it’s been the civil servants running the country.
After brief speeches from Joe Kennedy III, the US envoy to Northern Ireland, and Gabrielle Feenan, a young entrepreneur born after the GFA was signed, Biden took to the podium in the vast atrium of the university seven minutes before schedule. Almost as if he had places to go to, people to see. As if this wasn’t one of the centrepieces of his Irish trip.
It took a while for him to find his rhythm. At first he sounded distracted. Disconnected even. As if the effort was too much as he laboured though a long anecdote about how one of his ancestors had been the British naval officer, Capt George Biden, who in 1828 – or was it 1842, he couldn’t quite remember exactly – had drawn up the rules concerning mutiny. It was meant to be a riposte to Arlene Foster – an assertion of English as much as Irish heritage – but somehow it didn’t quite land.
Biden did better when he stuck to the teleprompter. Then he was in command of his audience, taking them with him every step of the way. Never seeking to take credit for achievements that weren’t his. Just imagine if this had been Donald Trump. The GFA had never been an inevitability. It had been a delicate construction wrought out of hard-won compromise.
People should remember its fragility. Not take anything for granted. Above all, they should think of the young people who have enjoyed its benefits. To give up on this now would be a disaster. He was not here to lecture Northern Ireland politicians. It was up to them to decide the country’s future. But if they were to take the opportunities on offer and reconvene the assembly, then there were billions of pounds of US dollars waiting to be invested. Come the end, the audience was almost totally hushed. It was almost like a prayer. An article of faith.
Biden did a quick victory lap, stopping to chat to members of the audience and pose for selfies. Even the DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, joined the throng around the president. Though within minutes he was saying that this speech changed nothing. We shouldn’t have expected anything different.
By then Sleepy Joe was long gone. Off to Dublin, where his real holiday could begin. The Northern Ireland leg had been a duty call. He had barely spent more than 12 hours in Belfast and half of that time he’d been in bed. Now for three days R & R.
