While Dublin woos Pelosi, London should woo Bolton

Well what a surprise.
News Letter editorialNews Letter editorial
News Letter editorial

Nancy Pelosi in Dublin is warning about Brexit and the Belfast Agreement.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives in the US says there will be no post-Brexit trade deal between Britain and America if ‘harm’ comes to the 1998 deal.

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Ms Pelosi, who is very much on the left wing of the Democratic Party, gave every impression of taking a balanced approach to Brexit. Days ago in London she met leading Brexiteers such as Jacob-Rees Mogg.

Then, in Dublin, to the delight of Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney, she is issuing barely veiled threats to the UK.

It is true, as she says, that it is hard to pass trade deals in the United States congress. That is a by-product of America’s fine system of checks and balances, which some leading Scots Irish men played a part in drawing up.

But what chance does Britain have if it does not woo American figures of influence who like the UK, of whom there are so many?

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Is this government wooing John Bolton, one of the most influential members of the Trump administration, who says the UK will be at the top of queue when it comes to Brexit? If not, why not?

President Trump himself is proud of his Scottish origins.

While Leo Varadkar is relentlessly courting powerful Americans, and then declaring their support for the backstop, and talking up the horrors of a hard border which last was in place due to Irish republican terrorism rather than due to British nastiness, London simply stays silent.

Nothing it ever says contradicts Mr Varadkar, no matter what the Taoiseach claims.

The most likely way that this approach will change is that coming MEP elections bring about a Tory internal revolt that leads to the sort of leader who will try to counter such rhetoric.

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