British-American relations under a potential Biden presidency are off to a bad start, with the 77-year-old Democrat declining to give comment to the British press, saying: “The BBC? I’m Irish.”
Vote counting in the U.S. continues in some areas and results have not been officially certified, with President Donald Trump alleging fraud and declining to concede — yet much of the mainstream media have declared Mr Biden the winner or at least the projected winner of the election regardless.
The publicly-funded British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was one such outlet — but neither this nor Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s arguably premature rush to congratulate the Democrat seems to have done them any favours, as they discovered when they asked him for a “quick word” for their viewers.
“The BBC? I’m Irish,” Biden replied, walking away with a smirk, in what has seen by some as a signal that the Democrat — who has previously made no secret of his hostility to Brexit — would not be as friendly to the United Kingdom as the half-British Trump.
“As you can see from this clip, Biden hates the UK,” commented leading Brexit campaigner and Trump ally Nigel Farage.
“The Conservatives had 4 years to do a trade with the USA and [a] pro-UK President, and they failed,” he added, referring to the much-hyped British-American trade deal endorsed by President Trump which the British could have signed after reclaiming their right to strike international trade deals from the EU.
“There is no chance now,” Farage predicted, with Britain only just having left the EU at the beginning of 2020 — years after the British people voted for Brexit — and not due exit the ongoing “transition period” which amounts to continued EU membership in all but name until the end of the year.
Regarding himself as an Irishman — although his colonial ancestor William Biden appears to have been an Englishman — Biden has been fairly clear that he takes the EU’s side in its wranglings with the British, pressuring them to give into various EU demands for continued control over their territorial fisheries and state aid and regulatory regime in the name of peace in Northern Ireland, and integral part of the United Kingdom divided between a British unionist majority and an Irish nationalist minority.
Anthony Gardner, an advisor to the Biden campaign and former U.S. ambassador to the EU, has predicted that Biden would issue a “declaration of support for the European Union” early on in an administration — “perhaps first day” — and Britain’s former D.C. ambassador Kim Darroch has also predicted that he may not give Boris Johnson a “warm, welcoming embrace”, due to “resentment” of the British leader among “some Obama people” on his team.
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