Joe Biden greeted by Sunak as he arrives in Northern Ireland
Top Tories have slammed a senior Joe Biden foreign affairs adviser over articles she wrote prior to her current job said that the UK could fall apart thanks to Brexit. The adviser, Amanda Sloat, was front and centre of the President’s trip to Ireland this week, having to publicly deny he is “anti-British”. Ms Sloat also previously shared an article predicting a united Ireland thanks to demographic changes.
Ms Sloat, President Biden’s Special Assistant and Senior Director for Europe in the National Security Council, delivered an on-the-record press briefing this week, denying allegations from former Northern Ireland First Minister that the President is anti-UK.
However senior Tories have questioned advice the President is receiving about the UK after it emerged Ms Sloat wrote extensively about the future of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland following the Brexit vote.
In one opinion piece from 2016, entitled “Here’s how the U.K. could fall apart post-Brexit”, Amanda Sloat argued “many are angry over the perceived failure of the English to take into account the peace dividend brought by EU membership”, despite 45% of Northern Ireland voters backing Brexit.
She also stated: “The general consensus is that Scotland will leave the U.K.”
Ms Sloat claimed that for Northern Ireland, Brexit could be “psychologically devastating” and warned it may trigger “memories of the painful past” unless the movement of residents between Northern Ireland and the Republic could continue.
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Yesterday, President Biden was seen describing Amanda Sloat as “the saving grace of our foreign policy operation”.
However in 2019, she shared an article from the Irish Times on her Twitter profile, which said “there is unmistakable demographic change that down the line could lead to some form of unity or agreed Ireland”.
Today top Tories have reacted with astonishment to the evidence of Ms Sloat’s previous views.
Lord Frost told the Express: “Everything she has written suggests she has a very partial, and slanted, understanding of the UK’s history and politics”.
“It’s hardly surprising that President Biden shows so little sympathy for unionism in Northern Ireland, or for Britain more generally, when his instincts are being reinforced by an adviser with such tendentious views.”
Tory MP David Jones, a senior member of the European Research Group, accused Ms Sloat of appearing “to want to break up the UK altogether”.
“While President Biden’s fondness for the land of his ancestors is well known and understandable, it is extraordinary to discover that the adviser he describes as his ‘saving grace’ on foreign policy appears to want to break up the UK altogether.
“This would probably account for many of the surprising remarks the President has made during his visit.
Mr Jones warned that Rishi Sunak “should bear this in mind when considering the unsolicited advice he has received” from the President over the last week.
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Another paper written by Mrs Sloat in 2018, called “Divided Kingdom: How Brexit is Remaking the UK’s constitutional order”, argued that Brexit will “alter” the union of the UK.
It quoted an “observer” who warned “Brexit is unionism restricting its own life expectancy by not being pragmatic’”.
She added: “The fog of Brexit hangs heavy over the Irish Sea, Hadrian’s Wall, and the English Channel”.
Mr Biden has been repeatedly criticised by unionists during his visit this week to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Speaking in a pub in Ireland, he confused the rugby team The All Blacks for the UK auxiliary military force that fought in the Irish War of Independence, The Black and Tans.
Yesterday a DUP MP told The Express: “The gaffe-prone President is so deeply embedded with his mother’s bigotry that even in his senior moments his anti-Britishness reveals itself”.
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