Brexit LIVE: Liz Truss plays second fiddle to the EU as ‘interfering’ US arrive for talks

Richard Madeley and Liz Truss argue over lack of government help

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The Foreign Secretary and International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan are expected to hold meetings with a bipartisan congressional delegation led by Richard Neal, who heads up the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the US House of Representatives. It comes after Ms Pelosi described Government plans to axe parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol as “deeply concerning”.

She said there would be no chance of Congress supporting a free trade deal between the US and UK if the Good Friday Agreement is undermined.

But Mr Neal and members of the delegation have already met with European Commission Vice-Presidents Maroš Šefčovič and Valdis Dombrovskis.

The Congressman tweeted early on Saturday: “This morning our delegation met with Maros Sefcovic and Valdis Dombrovskis where they made it clear: The greatest strength between the United States and the EU Commission is our unity.”

The ongoing row over the treaty has created an impasse in efforts to form a devolved government administration in Belfast, with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refusing to join an executive unless its concerns are addressed.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson lashed out on Friday saying Ms Pelosi’s intervention was “entirely unhelpful”.

He said: “You cannot have powersharing without consensus in Northern Ireland so the bipartisanship or the consensus that is required is not won in the US congress, it’s won in the Northern Ireland Assembly and I would urge Speaker Pelosi to understand that because I think that her contributions are entirely unhelpful, offer no solution, offer no help and merely repeat a mantra that frankly is hopelessly out of date.”

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Lord Frost accuses Nancy Pelosi of being ‘ignorant’ of Northern Ireland ‘realities’

NANCY PELOSI’S intervention in the row over trade arrangements in Northern Ireland has been met with scorn from former Brexit minister Lord Frost.

He called Ms Pelosi’s statement “ignorant” of “the realities in Northern Ireland”.

Lord Frost told the BBC: “There is no plan to put in place a physical border.

“Nobody has ever suggested that, so I don’t know why she is suggesting that in her statement.”

Derek Chollet, a senior adviser to the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said on Friday that a “big fight” between the UK and the EU was the “last thing” the US wanted.

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