The barbs being traded across the Atlantic, between British Conservatives and American Democrats, are a reminder of how this U.S. presidential race is an awkward one for Boris Johnson’s Tories. Whisper it, but Donald Trump has been almost as influential in reshaping the means and mien of the U.K.’s Conservative Party as he has the Republican Party. Many Tories quite like it that way.
Chances are that Joe Biden, if he wins in November, would be a little less interested in Britain and a little frostier toward Boris Johnson. It’s pretty clear already that he’s far less enamored of Brexit.
If we are heading toward a Biden administration, Conservatives haven’t exactly started on the right foot. In introducing a bill that overrides parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol — specifically, the bit of the U.K.-EU Withdrawal Agreement that is designed to preserve the achievements of the 1998 Belfast Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland — Johnson sure got Biden’s attention.