No, Biden didn't just snub Brexit Britain

For European Union enthusiasts, the ‘trade deal with America’ has joined ‘£350 million pledge on a bus’ as one of the great Brexit lies. A certain amount of gloating has therefore greeted the news that Joe Biden last night ‘downplayed’ the possibility of a US-U.K. Free Trade Agreement. It’s a ‘snub’, Brexiteer hopes are dashed, and so on.

But did Biden actually ‘downplay’ anything? Not really, since nobody has been seriously playing up the possibility of late. Many journalists are today talking as if the Prime Minister had been hoping to announce with Biden the trade deal Donald Trump promised Britain in 2017. But Boris has been the one minimising the government’s hopes. He admitted this week the Biden administration had ‘bigger fish to fry’.

Theresa’s May administration, allergic as it was to the dreaded Donald, missed whatever early opportunities there might have been to exploit any shared goodwill

In fact, in as much as Biden said anything meaningful at all last night, he sounded more well-disposed towards Brexit Britain than he has before.