Britains Prime Minister Boris Johnson (R) welcomes US President Donald Trump (L) to the NATO summit at the Grove hotel in Watford, northeast of London on December 4, 2019. (AFP photo)
The United Kingdoms special relations with the United States may end if Republican President Donald Trump is reelected, former British diplomats and Conservative foreign policy specialists warn.
They also say that Washington may regard the EU not the UK as its primary partner if the Democrat Joe Biden is elected president.
The assessment, which has been made on and off the record in different seminars over the past month, underscores concerns at Trumps performance during the coronavirus crisis.
In addition, it is a reflection of diplomatic outreach to London by Bidens chief foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, The Guardian reported on Monday.
British diplomats have instead been looking to make a broader alternative alliance of democracies that waters down dependence on the United States, the report added.
"If Trump comes in for another four years that will be very challenging for the global system and for Britains relationship with the US," Rory Stewart, the former Conservative international development secretary, said in one assessment.
"If we were to move away from the US, and Trump obviously poses the challenge that may have to happen, we are going to find ourselves in a situation in which much of our Foreign Office infrastructure had been predicated on working very closely with the US for a very long time.
"If we have to move away from the US, it will involve a much bigger shift in national security infrastructure than we have ever experienced. Almost since Suez, they have been our default."
For years, he said, the UK had taken for granted that it might fall into line with US foreign policy position, adding, if London wants to make any changes to it now, the Foreign Office needs a rethink as it "sometimes had no idea what an independent policy would feel like."
Meanwhile, Sir John Sawers, the former head of M16 and a former UK ambassador to the UN, said Trumps second term in office would be challenging.
"There is no doubt President Trump is the most difficult president for us to deal with," he said.
"If he gets elected for a second time some of the changes we have seen in the past few years will become embedded and entrenched and then, absolutely Britain will not be so much a bridge between the US and Europe. We will need to be bounding closely together with our European partners."
He also said if Biden wins the election, it would not be easy for the UK to get back into bed with the US like in the past.
Another diplomat also pointed to what might happen to UK-US ties if Biden becomes president, saying the Democrat might - like former US President Barack Obama - view Europe and particularly Germany as his primary interlocutor.
"If you get a Joe Biden presidency in the US, then the relationship will focus again on Europe, on Germany and France, and we may feel a little neglected."
Yet another ambassador from Tony Blairs time as prime minister said it is possible "to imagine Joe Biden trying to lead us back to a more normative, multilateral and cohesive world."
SOURCE: PRESS TV
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/18333
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