Biden’s Hypocrisy Has Gone Global

COMMENTARY Europe

Biden’s Hypocrisy Has Gone Global

Jan 24, 2023 3 min read
COMMENTARY BY
Nile Gardiner, PhD

Director, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom and Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow

Nile Gardiner is Director of The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom and Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow.
It is time for Rishi Sunak to demonstrate some backbone and stand up to Mr. Biden. Scott Heppel - Pool / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

Biden's Labor Secretary, Marty Walsh, has launched an outrageous preemptive attack on the British Government's proposed strike law.

With the Conservative Party divided and heavily trailing Labour in the polls, Biden thinks he can do whatever he wants in telling the British people what to do.

Any sign of weakness from Number 10 will only embolden the Biden Presidency to intervene further in U.K. affairs, and actively undermine British sovereignty.

Joe Biden loves to lecture Britain. His imperial-style presidency has rambled incessantly about the Northern Ireland Protocol, warning that it may sink a potential U.S. trade deal if British politicians don’t comply with his wishes. Last October, he personally intervened to condemn then-Prime Minister Liz Truss's proposed tax cuts, calling her economic policies a "mistake".

Now Biden's Labor Secretary, Marty Walsh, has launched an outrageous preemptive attack on the Government's proposed strike law. This sensibly proposes minimum service levels for certain public services to ensure that you can still get an ambulance if emergency workers are out on strike. But Walsh declared that he "would not support anything that would take away from the workers", even though he admits that he hasn’t even seen the British legislation yet.

It's bad enough the White House feels it has the right to intervene in British domestic affairs in this way, but it's also being terribly hypocritical. In December, Biden signed a measure to ban a national railway strike, declaring it would “devastate our economy.” And Walsh himself made it clear that Congress “will have to take action to avert a strike in our country” if the unions did not back down.

The nerve is astonishing. Biden, who has a historic disdain for Britain, hates Brexit and viewed both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss with contempt. And now he seemingly believes he can bully Rishi Sunak, who he very likely sees as a significantly softer target.

>>> Rishi Sunak Must Do a Maggie and Take On Militant Unions

The fundamental issue is that the White House believes it can walk all over Downing Street in the post-Boris era. With the Conservative Party deeply divided and heavily trailing Labour in the polls, Joe Biden thinks he can do whatever he wants in telling the British people what to do.

This is hardly surprising; Biden is one of the most narcissistic presidents in U.S. history, acting like an emperor at home and abroad. There is no humility from a completely tone-deaf politician who has presided over America’s highest inflation level in 40 years, rapidly rising interest rates and a dangerous recession looming on the horizon.

While he's happy to lecture the British people on matters he knows nothing about, Biden simply is not serious about addressing the greatest cost of living crisis Americans have faced in several decades, or soaring crime in America’s biggest cities—which are overwhelmingly run by his own party. He remains in denial over his country’s immense immigration crisis and has shown no interest whatsoever in securing America’s borders, despite millions of illegal migrants flowing into the United States under his presidency.

Yet somehow Biden still has the temerity to tell the British what to do in the face of industrial action. It is time for Rishi Sunak to demonstrate some backbone and stand up to Mr. Biden. He must be prepared to tell Biden and his cabinet to back off and focus on addressing the myriad problems facing the United States today. Any sign of weakness from Number 10 will only embolden the Biden Presidency to intervene further in U.K. affairs, and actively undermine British sovereignty.

This piece originally appeared in the Telegraph

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