Tony Blinken appointment shows US Brexit policy divide

President-elect Joe Biden has appointed Anthony Blinken (pictured above) as his secretary of state - Credit: YouTube

A US official who once compared Brexit to a dog being run over by a car is expected to be appointed Joe Biden’s secretary of state.

Antony Blinken once described Brexit as a “total mess” and said the process resembled a dog being run over by a car.

Blinken, an Obama-era White House deputy, is expected to take over the reins as president-elect Joe Biden’s secretary of state next year.

This comes off the back of news that incumbent US president Donald Trump issued a coded tweet announcing his concession to Biden, who firmly beat him in the November 3 election.

The soon-to-be secretary of state’s comment is believed to show a splintering policy between the White House and Downing Street.

Speaking on the Pod Save America podcast in March 2019, Blinken said in relation to Brexit: “This is not just the dog that caught the car, this is the dog that caught the car and the car goes into reverse and runs over the dog.”

He went on to suggest that any administration he worked in would seek to “keep Britain in” the EU and said that the Irish peace process would be “a heck of a lot tougher” after Brexit.

He also sided with podcast co-host Ben Rhodes – also an Obama-era White House staffer – who said Brexit had “sh***y consequences” for the British economy and that it was “clearly” in US interests for the UK to remain in the EU.

The comments show a divergence of policy on dealing with the EU between the US and UK.

In September, President-elect Biden publicly denounced moves by Downing Street to undermine the Good Friday Agreement.

In a tweet, Biden took aim at Boris Johnson’s internal market bill.

“We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”

President-elect Biden and Johnson have reportedly to not gotten their relationship off on the best start.

Biden once described Johnson as the “kind of physical and emotion clone” of president Trump.

Johnson’s tweet congratulating Biden for his victory earlier this month was subsequently found to contain remnants of an earlier draft congratulating Trump instead.