Joe Biden's failing hopes of reworking Northern Ireland's tangled politics

Chances of the visit restoring the region's collapsed government are considered low but US leader hopes for some impetus

Joe Biden’s short time with the five political leaders of Northern Ireland’s main parties on Wednesday could well prove the most testing period of his trip.

In his public speech at Ulster University, the US President said he believed in the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and called for the suspended assembly to be back up and running.

“I hope the assembly and the executive will soon be restored,” Mr Biden said. “That’s a judgment for you to make, not me."

Before the backslapping bonhomie the US President will receive south of the border, he is expected to face caustic demands for investment and political impartiality in the north.

“I will ask him to kick-start our economy with some serious foreign direct investment,” one of those leaders, Doug Beatie, told The National.

The head of the Ulster Unionists will also be among those seeking to see if Mr Biden can bring impetus to restore Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government, which, because of Brexit disagreements, has been suspended for a year.

Despite Mr Biden being the world’s most powerful political figure, expectations that the American leader can remedy Northern Ireland’s factional politics are low.

However, his country's deep ties with the island — an estimated 32 million Americans claim to have Irish heritage — give it a unique position to influence its affairs.

Crowds outside Ulster University before a keynote speech by US President Joe Biden

It was the heft of former president Bill Clinton that provided the decisive impetus to get David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist’s former leader, to agree to a power-sharing arrangement with former foes that sealed the Good Friday Agreement 25 years ago.

As a result, the province is certainly more at ease with itself, enjoying some prosperity after three decades of violence during the Troubles that led to more than 3,600 deaths.

The scene outside the Grand Central Hotel in Belfast ahead of US President Joe Biden's meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. EPA

But there is frustration that Northern Ireland has yet to embrace greater riches — political and material — and a concern that the fissures caused by Brexit will fracture it further.

Mr Biden will, at best, hope he can gently nudge its politicians towards reconciliation.

Political limbo

The president’s meeting with the five political party leaders, from Sinn Fein, the political wing of Irish republicanism to the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), will in itself be a symbolic moment that may help edge people back to power-sharing.

Currently, the DUP remain opposed to taking their seats alongside Sinn Fein and others over their anger over the fallout from Brexit’s Northern Ireland Protocol.

The onerous bureaucracy that was stifling trade and stoking loyalist violence appears to have been largely resolved by the Windsor framework, which gave Northern Ireland greater business freedoms within the EU.

While the DUP has somewhat condemned Windsor, Mr Biden may provide some encouragement of rewards from America if a compromise is accepted.

Irish American bias

As a rule, Northern Ireland’s pro-British politicians are unfazed by the presence of American presidents, along with their entourage of Air Force One, bullet-proof limousines and granite-jawed Secret Service personnel.

There is a view that US leaders tend to favour the pro-Irish unification elements and Mr Biden’s visit to his roots in Ballina, County Mayo and elsewhere is unlikely to diminish this.

“The DUP certainly won’t be rushed back into Stormont by Biden, who has continually demonstrated his pro-nationalist views and sympathies, which he's done purely because of the Irish American vote,” said Bill Duff, a terrorism expert and former Northern Ireland police officer.

“Biden's visit is purely for Biden’s domestic American politics, for those people who have some Irish blood in them, whose affinity runs deep for Ireland.”

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson, right, outside Stormont Castle. PA

That perceived bias is such that the American delegation felt it necessary to emphasise that Irish unification would come about only under the mechanisms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Under some robust questioning from journalists over Mr Biden favouring a united Ireland, Amanda Sloat, of the US National Security Council, said he supported the Good Friday Agreement and that “the people of Northern Ireland can make that decision for themselves”.

But Dr Duff suggested that the US President’s presence would be “totally irrelevant” to the dissident republican terrorists of the New IRA faction and their foes in the loyalist gangs who are more intent on criminal activity.

“Really the implications of his visit for Northern Ireland are zero and it'll be forgotten about as soon he sails off,” Dr Duff said.

Never, never

The DUP’s truculence over a return to power-sharing is, in part, caused by a fear that its power base will erode if it enters government with political foes.

The DUP previously heavily criticised Mr Trimble’s Ulster Unionists for power-sharing and the Ulster Unionists subsequently lost supporters.

“The reality is that the DUP are so worried about haemorrhaging votes to their right, to the Traditional Unionist Voice, that they will find any excuse they can, not to go back into government,” said Alan Mendoza, of the Henry Jackson Society think tank.

“Unfortunately for them, they wrote the playbook on this — from how they destroyed David Trimble’s leadership. They're now facing their own challenge and don't really seem to know how to handle it.”

Police officers patrol around the Grand Central Hotel in Belfast. EPA

Furthermore, two decades on, Sinn Fein has built a powerful electoral machine north and south of the border in Ireland while the DUP has lost ground.

The DUP will also not give the American leader an easy political win, with some less than complimentary sniping at the “gaffe prone” American leader from its politicians.

But Ian Paisley Jnr, MP, said his party would “welcome him” and “it's good to see him here”.

Mr Mendoza said it was important that Mr Biden encourage American companies to continue to invest in Northern Ireland "for the right reasons”.

“I don't think these US president visits necessarily achieve very much. The DUP have proven remarkably resistant to any outside influences for a long, long time, about their decision-making processes.”

Goody bag

Given American politicians’ partiality to Ireland, there may well be the possibility that Mr Biden comes with some presents that will help sweeten the deal to restore devolved government.

With a well-educated population and the unique post-Brexit trading position with access to the UK and EU markets gives the province great potential.

“I do think his visit is hugely significant and we're hoping that President Biden will shine a light for investment into Northern Ireland to help build our economy,” said Ulster Unionist Mr Beattie.

Sinn Fein Party leader Mary Lou McDonald and Vice President Michelle O'Neill. Reuters

“Showing that there is a willingness for US companies to invest will certainly help. I think when President Biden gives his speech [at] Ulster University, he will talk about those opportunities of scaling our economy up. I think that's where the momentum is.”

Mr Biden’s influence could provide impetus for major companies to invest, which would lead to better infrastructure, education, health and a good economy.

In his brief meeting with the US President on Wednesday Mr Beattie said he would make the argument for American investments improving lives.

“Once people have that good standard of living, then they will be more content with what they have,” Mr Beattie said.

“So, I think Biden will bring along a package in regards to investment and that's the important piece about this.”

The next president

Some believe that the DUP will reluctantly return to power-sharing some time after the local elections next month, possibly after knocking out some compromise in the Windsor framework that it can sell as “wins”.

If Mr Biden can edge the party towards that, then he can claim some success, burnishing his credibility among the Irish American voters.

Among the five leaders he meets will be Naomi Long from Alliance, a non-sectarian party that has steadily increased its votes as the population moves farther from the Troubles and the province’s traditional republican and unionist, Catholic and Protestant groupings.

“Alliance suggests that there might be another way for moderates, that both sides can work together and, realistically, that does offer the best chance for Northern Ireland because, unfortunately, when you keep a sectarian legacy, you're always in danger of being outflanked,” Dr Mendoza said.

While Mr Biden certainly will not be the last US president to court the Irish vote, it is possible he may plant seeds that, in time, will lead to his successors visiting a Northern Ireland that has largely buried its difficult past and begun a journey towards prosperity.

Good Friday Agreement — in pictures

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  Former British prime minister Tony Blair and former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern sign the Good Friday agreement on April 10, 1998. This year marks 25 years since the signing of the historic agreement. PA

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  The original Good Friday agreement. PA

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  Mr Ahern speaking at University College Dublin at an event organised by the Fianna Fail party to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in Dublin. PA

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  RTE television presenter Miriam O'Callaghan with former US president Bill Clinton, who appeared on Prime Time in April to mark 25 years of the agreement. PA

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  Erin McArdle, left, who was born on April 10, 1998, and her mother Caroline, hold The Telegraph which was published on the same day, at her home in Ballymena in Northern Ireland. EPA

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  Attendees of the 63rd Plenary of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly pose together in March on the steps of Parliament Buildings in Stormont in Belfast, to mark the 25th anniversary of the agreement. PA

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  Mr Blair and Mr Clinton hold hands an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on April 10, 2018. Reuters

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  British army soldiers from 2nd Battalion, The Prince of Wales Royal Regiment, leave Bessbrook British army base for the last time in South Armagh in Northern Ireland, on June 25, 2007. AP

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  Mr Blair, former US Senator George Mitchell and Mr Ahern, at Downing Street, London, to announce a review of the Northern Ireland peace process in July 1999. PA

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  Royal Ulster Constabulary Police officers stand on Market Street after a car bombing in the centre of Omagh in Northern Ireland, in August 1998. AP

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  Mr Blair argues his case for the Yes vote in the peace referendum at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland in May 1998. PA

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  Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, U2 singer Bono, and SDLP leader John Hume on stage for the 'YES' concert at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast in May 1998. PA

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  Mr Blair and Mr Ahern sign the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998. PA

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  Mr Blair, former US senator George Mitchell, and Mr Ahern pose after signing the agreement. AP

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  Mr Blair greets Mr Ahern at Downing Street, London, in July 1997. PA

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  Mr Blair and a Belfast schoolgirl, Margaret Gibney, inside 10 Downing Street in June 1997. Ms Gibney had become popular around the world after she asked Mr Blair to bring peace to Northern Ireland. PA

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  The Sinn Fein's deputy leader, Martin McGuinness, and leader Gerry Adams at a rally in Belfast in December 1994. AP

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  People gather at the scene of a car bomb explosion outside the Sinn Fein headquarters in West Belfast in Northern Ireland in September 1994. AP

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  British troops with armoured vehicles surround a blazing barricade near the Andersonstown Police Station in Belfast in 1979. AP

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  British troops look on as members of the Ulster Defence Association march through Belfast in 1972. AP