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Former UK ambassador to Washington, Kim Darroch, warned of a “genuine risk” of violence following the tight November US elections.
Darroch noted that while Joe Biden maintains a significant advantage across the country, margins in some battle states are shrinking, and suggested that pollsters may be systematically underestimating supporters of Donald Trump.
“I’m not sure pollsters really know how to count Trump voters,” Darroch said in an interview.
He pointed to the recent violence in Portland, Oregon and Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the wake of police shootings of unarmed Black Americans, and the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, a fervent police supporter facing murder charges after a Kenosha shooting that left two people dead and a third seriously injured. Since then, Rittenhouse has been hailed as a vigilante hero by the far right.
The crescendo of violence as the Nov. 3 vote looms heightens the stakes of a close and contested election, Darroch said.
“It’s probably much closer on the ground than the battlefield states, and it looks like the polls,” Darroch told The Guardian.
“Vote-by-mail is clearly going to play a big role in this election, and I feel like the Trump campaign is building it, especially if it’s close, to declare it manipulated or invalid,” said the former ambassador, now Lord Darroch of Kew, said.
“If Biden wins, there is a question whether Trump’s rank and file will really support or accept that as a result. Likewise, if it appears that postal votes have not been counted or there is a severe voter suppression, you worry about the other side of the argument, ”he added. “It feels very volatile.”
When asked about the risk of violence on the streets, Darroch said: “I think it’s there. We’ve all seen Portland and Kenosha, and it feels like a genuine risk. That 17-year-old who shot at protesters and the reaction in alt-right circles is truly terrifying.
“Whoever wins, he just hopes that people will accept the result and take it easy, although I cannot say that I am sure that will be the case,” he said.
He also pointed to the threat of a repeat of Russian interference in the 2016 election. But he is skeptical of suspicions that Vladimir Putin has a secret source of influence over Trump.
“For me, the most likely theory is that [the Kremlin] He really didn’t want Hillary Clinton as president: no one but her. They knew her well from her time as Secretary of State and they didn’t like what they had seen, ”said the former ambassador.
“Partly, [they intervened] because they could. Putin’s formative years had been in the KGB. He knew what they could do and believed in using their skills and abilities. Once a KGB man, always a KGB man. “
Darroch highlighted the threat posed by the persistent evil Russian influence on Western societies.
“If it is repeated systematically in future elections around the world, it could discredit democracy for a generation,” he said.
Darroch resigned as ambassador to the United States in July of last year after his report on the early stages of the Trump era was leaked to the press, highlighting confusion within the administration.
“Seen from here, we really don’t think this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional, less unpredictable, less divided into factions, less diplomatically clumsy and inept, ”he reported in the summer of 2017.
He has described his experiences and the circumstances surrounding his expulsion in a memoir, Collateral Damage, published this week in the UK and next month in the US.
One of the leaked documents was a letter that had very limited circulation in Whitehall, but a yearlong police investigation has not resulted in an arrest.
“That letter should have been in very, very few files,” Darroch said. “How many do the police have to say, and as far as I know, they are still continuing their investigations.”
Darroch said his three main theories were that the perpetrator of the leak was someone outraged that a British ambassador might privately criticize a US president, or he felt Darroch was not sufficiently in favor of Brexit, or that he was involved in an intricate plot to try to influence the choice of his successor. In the end, the post went not to a political appointee, as many had suspected, but to another career diplomat, Karen Pierce, who at the time was the UK’s permanent representative to the UN.
“I would be fascinated by the motivation behind it,” said Darroch. “So if the person responsible was nailed and I could talk to them, I would just want to say, ‘Why did you do it?'”
