A brief rundown of how the fawning UK right-wing have cast Joe Biden's Irish ancestry as the latest enemy of Brexit.
Joe Biden's huge election upset, in which he beat Donald Trump by less then everyone thought he would, is already being appropriated into our perpetual national panic about how much America likes us.
Polls suggest as many as 33 million Americans identify as Irish-American, and while to any normal person this would seem a fairly innocuous bit of trivia, those in the British Establishment, and those who fawn over it in the hope they will someday be let in, see this as a grave threat.
A pivotal moment of the 2020 election was Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News declaring Arizona for Biden before any other network, even before the Fake-News-Liberal-Elite-Media like CNN and MSNBC. Reports from “White House insiders” are always a little sketchy, but reports from these “sources” appear to corroborate the account of Senior Fox News reporters like Howard Kurtz, in his claim that Kushnar (Trump’s son-in-law) called the cadaverous media-mogul on election night in an effort to reverse the Arizona call. Murdoch, who knows when a cause is lost, didn't budge.
This flagrant display of government-media cronyism is relevant to how this new right-wing talking point will be perpetuated, and by whom. The Murdoch Empire’s apparent abandonment of Trump will likely be echoed across the pages of his global empire. UK papers like The Sun and The Times, in their disregard of Trump's ‘fraud’ claims, means only fringe pundits are left to carry the Trump Torch; enter Nigel Farage.
Farage’s latest arse-licking sesh involves a piece in the Telegraph entitled Joe Biden is No Friend of Britain, in which he praises just about every aspect of the outgoing President and voices fear over Biden’s “antipathy towards Britain”.
“If you are still in any doubt about Biden’s antipathy towards the UK, just look at his response to the BBC journalist Nick Bryant who asked him on Saturday if he had anything to say to the British state broadcaster. “The BBC? I’m Irish,” he replied as he walked off. He might just as well have stuck two fingers up”
-Nigel Farage, The Telegraph, 11/11/2020
Farage, in this tirade of god-awful takes, is only demonstrating how a lot of Brits feel about the ‘special relationship’: insecure. We’re the groveling partner who won’t give up on someone who couldn’t care less about us. If unrequited American love was our only problem then it wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but the fact we chose the year of Trump's election to leave Europe, and the year of his ousting to actually leave Europe, leaves us in an awkward position.
With no Trump Trade Deal™ the UK is back in the position of needing ‘them’ more than they need us, and might have to reconsider the whole ‘hard Brexit’ thing. We’ve trashed the EU over the last four years, assuming our 'closest ally' and 'special friend' (cringe) would take us under its wing, even going so far as to elect the British equivalent of a sleazy New York businessman; a pompous southern aristocrat, to aid the process of US-UK integration. But it’s all blown up in our stupid faces.
Biden’s Irish heritage will probably have little effect on Britain, given the state of his own country, and the UK’s as of yet unrealized insignificance, but the mere prospect of the US and EU becoming closer, while leaving Britain out in the cold, has only ignited a new dimension in this shared panic attack of an Empire in decline.
Conventional wisdom now, for what it’s worth, assumes the UK government will have to make concessions to Europe in order to make up for the loss of our Trump card. Farage actually seems to be conceding defeat on this point, admitting that ‘beleaguered Boris’ (who Farage’s party literally helped to power) will inevitably crumble in the face of Brussels and force Britain into accepting- wait for it- ‘a fisheries deal that benefits the EU’. He’s no sheep, he knows what really matters.
By now I doubt even the staunchest Brexit-voter really cares about British fish that much. The last 4 and a half years has featured a steady downgrading of expectations; from the ‘exact same benefits’, ‘easiest deal in history’ rhetoric of David Davies (pictured below), to trying not to turn Kent into a French enclave.
The Brexit saga has always kept itself going by presenting some kind of enemy, threat, or roadblock to the liberation of Britannia; something to be overcome in the righteous quest for lower food-standards and a downgraded passport. But with Boris’ purge of remainer MPs, and the decimation of the completely ineffective People’s Vote campaign, they’re running out of excuses for when it inevitably fails to deliver the treats we were promised, hence the new focus on ‘Irish Biden’ and the fevered, paranoid, panic at the prospect of an evil White House conspiracy to undermine the UK by not putting us ahead of 27 other countries. As Barack Obama previously said, much to the fury of every Etonion Old Boy back in 2016; Britain is at the back of the queue. What we'll never admit is that it's entirely our fault.
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