It’s been 170 years since U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s great-great grandfather Patrick Blewitt fled the Irish potato famine and settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania. But Biden’s Irish roots and Catholic faith are a cornerstone of his self-identity, an embrace that the Emerald Isle has enthusiastically reciprocated—setting nerves on edge in London that Brexit Britain could find the special relationship with the United States a little less special.
Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party, tweeted that Biden “hates the UK” after a video clip surfaced of Biden rebuffing a question from a BBC journalist by saying, “I’m Irish.” U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s advisors were, according to the New York Times, concerned that the British leader’s warm relationship with outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump could put him on the back foot with Biden. Widening the gap between the two governments, John Taylor, a member of House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber of the British Parliament, described U.S. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as simply “the Indian” in a tweet earlier this month.
