Whether it’s Biden or Trump who takes the election, the UK will undoubtedly lose

Boris Johnson may have been right to snub the incumbent in the past – but it’ll cost him now. The Democratic presidential candidate won’t be much warmer either

Whichever septuagenarian is going to win this extraordinary and unpredictable presidential election, one of the unfortunate losers is the UK. We know Boris Johnson is unlikely to get much love from Joe Biden, whose antipathy to Johnson and Brexit is open and real – or, in fact, Donald Trump.  

“Britain Trump”, as the president refers to our prime minister, was conspicuous by his absence in recent weeks so far as the US is concerned. Johnson has not been as helpful to the Trump campaign in recent weeks as Trump would have liked. The prime minister has even gone out of his way to leave Trump hanging like a Floridian chad, telling the Commons on Wednesday that “we don’t comment as a UK government on the democratic processes of our friends and allies”.

For Mr Trump, loyalty is a one-way street, as has long been evident from his record in business and in politics. He demands complete support from those around him, expects them to lie for him, defend his interests and generally back him in bad times and good. If you let him down, you’re going to get punished.

“Britain Trump” has been found wanting, I suspect. As soon as it looked clear that Trump was going to lose, the feelers went out to the Biden camp. Not even the vaguest complimentary mumblings about Trump were heard from Downing Street. Nor from anyone else around government, such as Micheal Gove, who memorably rushed with Rupert Murdoch to land an early interview with Trump when he won four years ago – the picture of Gove and Trump, thumbs up, posing in front of a framed photos of Trump in his grandiose office still make one squirm. Dominic Raab was unusually reticent when he commented on the prospects for a UK-US trade deal on Wednesday morning. Of course, there are diplomatic niceties, but politicians usually find a way to issue some coded friendly remarks, as Benjamin Netanyahu duly did.

Contrast Johnson with Nigel Farage. As in 2016, old Nige was there for The Donald, when he needed him. Farage spoke warmly of Mr Trump’s “resilience” and has been all over Twitter predicting the incumbent’s inevitable victory, including what looks like a £10,000 bet on Trump to win. A friend indeed. Maybe he’ll get that British ambassador’s job after all.  

But Johnson? He’s said nowt. Politically he was wise not to, in the sense that Trump is not popular in Britain. Diplomatically, Johnson followed protocol. But in terms of the geopolitics, the special relationship and the success of a post-Brexit trade deal, Johnson called it wrong.  

In truth, Mr Trump was never going to give Britain much on trade out of sentimentality or vague nationalistic anti-European sympathy. America’s farmers and manufacturers will come first whoever is in the White House these days. Mr Trump hasn’t any time for the World Trade Organisation, which Britain may need to depend on to defend its new free trade future. The personal chemistry – something Trump thinks important – between Mr Trump and Johnson might well be frostier than it has been, and Mr Trump was often quite nice about Johnson.  

Now would be an awful moment to remind the White House about when Johnson, Macron and Trudeau seemed to be laughing at the president at a Nato summit. Or indeed what Johnson said on camera about Mr Trump back in 2015, as mayor of London. Hitting back on the “Muslim ban” advocated by Mr Trump, Johnson probably revealed his true instincts: “The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump”. I’m not sure Trump will want to meet the prime minister these days either.