David Cameron ‘angered US conservatives’ with ‘unprecedented’ election-year embrace of Barack Obama

The Republican Party’s shift to the Right, reflected by the rise of the Tea
Party movement during the mid-term elections in 2010, has left it out of
step with the Conservative Party on issues such as taxation, health care and
rights for same-sex couples. Mr Cameron’s party is more in line with the
Democrats in several areas.

Some British Tories continue to cultivate links. Greg Hands, the MP for
Chelsea and Fulham, hosted Rick Scott, the Republican Governor of Florida,
at the Houses of Parliament earlier this month. Mr Hands, who was born in
New York, is himself a registered Republican in the US.

However, relations between transatlantic conservatives are a far cry from
their 1980s heyday, when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher presented a
united front – despite Mr Romney adapting Lady Thatcher’s famous “Labour
isn’t working” election poster this year to claim: “Obama isn’t working”.

Boris Johnson, the Conservative London mayor, has spoken of his admiration for
Bill Clinton, the previous Democratic president, saying the “world was
better run under him” and describing aspects of George W Bush’s leadership
style as “terrible”.

Nile Gardiner, another foreign policy adviser to Mr Romney, previously
described the Prime Minister’s behaviour in Washington as a “sad exercise in
hero-worship before an extremely liberal White House”, which had shown
itself willing to “knife London in the back” over the Falkland Islands.

“David Cameron’s wholehearted support for Barack Obama has significantly
harmed the image of the British Conservative Party among US conservatives,
who revere its greatest figures: Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill,” Mr
Gardiner wrote after the visit
.

None the less, spokesmen for Mr Romney have denied that there is
disgruntlement in his camp regarding Mr Cameron’s visit since this was first
reported by The Guardian in May
.

Under Mr Obama the US has remained neutral in the dispute between Britain and
Argentina over the sovereignty of the Falklands, to the frustration of
British diplomats. One member of Mr Romney’s foreign policy advisory team
said that it had been discussing the issue in some detail.

“There’s a great deal of sympathy and support for the British position,” said
the adviser, who added: “Even though Argentina is more or less a friend,
Britain is our oldest friend in the world.”

While the Republican candidate now emphasises his admiration of Britain, he
has previously held it up as a post-imperial warning to those who would
allow the US to decline. “England is just a small island,” he
wrote in his memoir ‘No Apology’. “Its roads and houses are small. With
few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people want to buy”.

The former Massachusetts governor will on Thursday also meet senior ministers
Nick Clegg, George Osborne and William Hague, as well as Ed Miliband and
Tony Blair. On Friday he will meet US athletes before attending the opening
ceremony of the Olympics. Mr Romney was the chief executive of the 2002
Winter games in Utah.

His foreign policy advisers requested anonymity because they had been asked by
Mr Romney’s campaign not to criticise the President in foreign media.

A Downing Street spokesman stressed that Mr Cameron had met Mr Romney in
London last year and maintained links with Republicans despite not having
met any during March’s visit to Washington.

“It was a packed schedule, and was as close to a state visit as a head of
government can do,” said the spokesman. “He wanted to focus on the
relationship between the prime minister and the president.”

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