Joe Biden is no friend of Britain.
Without Trump in the White House, I fear for the future of Brexit
In 2016, just after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, I was fortunate to spend some time with him in Trump Tower in New York. During this meeting, the depth of his affection for the United Kingdom was obvious. His team told me that a trade deal with Britain was a priority in order to show that he was not an isolationist but wanted sensible arrangements unlike, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement between America, Canada and Mexico.
Four years have been squandered since then, during which the British Government has dithered and a full Brexit has not been delivered. Now, the chance of a trade agreement with America has almost certainly evaporated if, as seems likely, Joe Biden is confirmed as the new president.
Who can forget in April 2016, just before the EU referendum, Barack Obama telling the British people that if we dared to vote for Brexit our country would be at “the back of the queue” in terms of a trade deal because America’s focus would be on negotiating with the EU? Well, Obama’s vice president at the time was Biden, and his personal dislike of Brexit has not changed since then. Indeed, Biden is an avid supporter of the EU and his priority will be to improve relations between his country and the bloc. Obama used to fly to mainland Europe first rather than the United Kingdom. Biden will do the same.
To complicate things further, Biden is a supporter of Irish nationalism and in the 1990s he lobbied hard for the then-Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to visit the USA. As recently as 2017, he met Adams to discuss a united Ireland. More astonishing still, at that meeting he was also photographed with one Rita O’Hare, an IRA fugitive who attempted to kill a British Army officer in the 1970s.
And, for good measure, Biden and Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has already swallowed the Dublin and Brussels line that a Brexit deal must not threaten the 1998 Belfast Agreement, even though that agreement doesn’t even mention trade.
If you are still in any doubt about Biden’s antipathy towards the UK, just look at his response to the BBC journalist Nick Bryant who asked him on Saturday if he had anything to say to the British state broadcaster. “The BBC? I’m Irish,” he replied as he walked off. He might just as well have stuck two fingers up.
Some Conservative commentators in recent days have said that Boris Johnson will get on well with Biden and will be less embarrassed dealing with him than he was under the presidency of Donald Trump. It is true that when it comes to climate change and taking a softer line against China, Johnson and Biden will be more aligned. But the same cannot be said of the issue that took Johnson to power and which will define his legacy, Brexit.
The omens are not good. Anthony Gardner, the former US Ambassador to the European Union and a close confidant of Biden’s, has already said that future relations between the UK and America will depend on our final deal with the EU.
After years of failure, Britain is now caught in a trap between Brussels and Washington. Stranded in the mid-Atlantic, we have played ourselves into a form of checkmate. Brexit talks have stalled and this time the clock is genuinely running down. Johnson now faces a simple choice. He can either strike a deal with which both Washington and Brussels are happy, or he can go it alone and be criticised for looking friendless in the world.
So, the Northern Irish protocol, a fisheries deal that suits the EU, and some form of regulatory alignment will be put to the British government in the next few days on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I am sorry to say that Johnson, who already looks beleaguered and who is struggling with unity in his party and plummeting popularity levels, is now far more likely to do the deal that Brussels wants. In this, he will be cheered on by the global corporations and by most of our mainstream media. We will be told that a sensible compromise has been reached and that Boris has acted like a statesman, but of course Britain will come off second best.
In the next few months, I predict there will be a reappraisal of Donald Trump’s presidency. While his New York outspokenness never went down well with the British electorate, these negative views may well have to be revised. In Trump, Britain has lost a true ally and friend. Furthermore, a final Brexit deal that holds our nation back, that doesn’t genuinely make us free, and that doesn’t deliver on the promises made both in 2016 and the general election in 2019 is now looking like a certainty.
If all of this comes to pass, to say that it would be a disappointment would be the biggest understatement of my career.
