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Joe Biden has made no secret of his opposition to the flagship policy that defines Boris Johnson’s career: Brexit.
Biden claims, wrongly, according to the prime minister, that the Good Friday Agreement it is threatened by the Internal Market Law, currently pending in the House of Lords.
Boris Johnson hopes to have a good relationship with the new regime in the United States
It is a dispute that has the potential to cause problems for the so-called “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States, a deal that worries UK prime ministers far more than American presidents.
That was much alluded to in Johnson’s statement congratulating the president-elect.
He wrote, “The United States is our most important ally and I look forward to working closely on our shared priorities, from climate change to trade and security.”
In September Downing Street got into something of a unseemly clash with the Democrats that soured John Major’s initial relationship with Bill Clinton after the Conservatives lent their aid to their Republican opponent George Bush Sr.
The dispute began when Mr Biden tweeted: “Any trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom must depend on respecting the Good Friday Agreement and preventing the return of a firm border. Period.
“We cannot allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a victim of Brexit.”
It was a move that angered Johnson and his inner circle of Brexiters in Downing Street. But in a slap that would not have made the prime minister love Biden, Downing Street seemed to suggest that the Democratic candidate for the White House did not know what he was talking about.
“We will continue to work with our American partners to make sure our position is understood,” said Number 10. And the prime minister’s Brexit cheerleader, Iain Duncan Smith, scoffed: “We don’t need lectures on the Northern Ireland peace deal. from Mr. Biden “.
Biden cultivated relationships with other UK political leaders
Some will recall that he served during Barack Obama’s Brexit intervention
Nor will Trump-loving Tory Brexiteers forget that Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president when Obama controversially declared during a visit to the UK in 2016 that Brexit would leave the UK “at the bottom of the line” in trade deals with the US.
At the same time, Obama was offended by Johnson’s claim that his “part Kenyan heritage” made him anti-British.
Officials in Brussels claimed that Brexit negotiations had stalled while the outcome in Washington was in doubt, and now that there is a Biden victory, the UK will feel the pressure.
Inevitably, the relationship between Biden and the prime minister, who never met, Downing Street revealed this week, will not be as close as that between Johnson and his soulmate in the White House for the past four years, Donald Trump.
It is said that the president gave Johnson his personal mobile phone number and that they speak regularly.
Ideologically, the Prime Minister’s relationship with “the Donald” has been as close as that of soul mates Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Tony Blair’s with Bill Clinton.
So Johnson has a great job now to mend relationships with Biden’s field.
It may not be easy. It is claimed that after Trump’s support for Brexit, Biden wants to enter into relations with the European Union.
In that case, Johnson could be frozen and fall behind the likes of French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel in the race to be invited to meet Biden at the White House.
Charles Grant, head of the think tank at the Center for European Reform, told Sky News: “The Biden advisers I speak with are concerned about Brexit, partly only for reasons of national interest.
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“They saw Britain as a friend and helper in Europe who helped steer the EU in a pro-American direction, pushing Atlanticist agendas on free trade, a strong NATO and opposing Russia.
“More generally, Biden’s people strongly believe in multilateralism and believe that the world is a better place with great international organizations with a lot of power, such as the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization and the European Union.
“Although Boris Johnson, to be fair, is not against the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization or the Paris agreements on climate change, he has strongly opposed the EU, which Americans see as a stability force in Europe.
“They see the West weakened with Britain’s departure from the EU. They see the EU without Britain weaker strategically, economically, diplomatically and in terms of defense, compared to other countries like Russia.”
But it’s not all bad news for the prime minister, despite the fact that Biden identifies as a passionate Irish-American.
While it emphasizes her Irish heritage, because that always plays well in American politics, that was the maternal side of the family. His father’s side came from Sussex.
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Looking back at Biden’s long career in American politics, spanning nearly half a century, critics in the UK claim he was a key figure in persuading President Clinton to grant Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams an American visa in 1994.
But a more careful and detailed look at the 77-year-old Biden’s long record suggests he is by no means anti-British, far from it.
If you look back enough at his record in American politics, the record shows that in 1982 young Senator Biden was one of the UK’s strongest American supporters of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands, while President Reagan and his Secretary of State Alexander Haig was initially neutral.
Biden was the sponsor of a Senate resolution demanding that Washington side with Great Britain. In a television interview at the time, he said: “My resolution calls for the United States to declare whose side we are on: the British side.
“Argentines should be disillusioned with this notion that the United States is neutral on this matter. It is clear that Argentina is the aggressor. It is clear that Great Britain is right and it should be clear to the whole world what the United States’ position is.” . “
Challenged in the interview if he risked damaging relations with South American allies, Biden responded: “We lose a lot more by not supporting our oldest and closest ally.”
So in many respects Mr Biden is a good and reliable friend from the UK. But Brexit threatens to damage that friendship.
