Dominic Raab says Joe Biden and the US has ‘no greater ally’ than UK
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has said the US has “no greater ally or dependable friend” than the UK as Downing Street prepares for a Joe Biden White House.
The foreign secretary told the BBC he was “excited” to work with Biden and was “confident” the UK will be able to smooth any fears he may have about the Good Friday Agreement and how it relates to Brexit.
Raab said the UK’s ambassador to Washington Dame Karen Pierce has been in touch with the Biden camp and the President-elect would speak to Boris Johnson “in due course”.
There has been speculation that Biden will give the the UK government the cold shoulder over its stance on Brexit, Johnson’s attempts to forge a close relationship with Donald Trump and comments made by the Prime Minister in 2016 about Barack Obama.
Johnson said the then President’s removal of a Winston Churchill bust from the Oval Office was a “symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire”.
Biden recently sent a tweet warning the there would be no UK-US trade deal if Johnson breached the Belfast Good Friday Agreement during Brexit negotiations.
The Prime Minister introduced legislation earlier this year that would breach the Withdrawal Agreement, as it pertains to Northern Ireland, if the UK leaves the EU’s single market and customs union without a deal on 31 December.
Brussels has claimed this legislation could put the Good Friday Agreement at risk.
Raab today said the UK has “no intention of imperiling” the peace treaty.
“What he’s looking for, what the Americans will be looking for, I’m sure, is the opportunities of the future,” he said.
“I’m not saying that their interest in the Good Friday Agreement will in any way dim, I’ve explained why we’re absolutely committed to it, but . . . they’re looking at the opportunities for multi-lateral co-operation on Covid or counter-terrorism, cyber is a big thing, reinforcing the Nato alliance and, of course, climate change.”
Senator Chris Coons, a close Biden ally and a potential cabinet appointee, told the BBC today that the UK-US relationship is “significant and enduring” and dismissed claims the President-elect sees Johnson as a British equivalent of Trump.
“In my meetings with the Prime Minister he’s struck me as someone more agile, engaging, educated and forward looking than perhaps the caricature of him in the American press would have suggested,” he said.