As US president, Hillary Clinton would be alert to Ireland’s interests

As Donald Trump faces the probability of defeat on November 8th, he has clutched with ever greater urgency at the straw of Brexit, which has replaced Harry Truman's upset victory over Thomas Dewey in 1948 as the last, flickering hope of failing candidates everywhere.

“We will shock the world. This is going to be Brexit-plus,” Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania last week, promising to confound the polls just as Britain’s Leave campaign did.

Never mind that the polls were effectively tied ahead of June's referendum (after Leave gained ground in the final month of campaigning), the Brexit vote was indeed almost as great a shock to most pollsters, pundits and betting markets in Britain as a Trump victory would be in the United States.

Although few in Britain would welcome a Trump presidency, an upset next month could offer emotional comfort to those on both sides of the Brexit divide. For Brexiteers, it would confirm a sense that Britain is in the vanguard of a backlash against multilateralism and a restoration of the primacy of the nation state. And remainers could reassure themselves that the referendum was part of a broader wave of populism sweeping the western world.

If Trump is defeated decisively, however, Brexit may seem more like a singularly British event, almost an eccentric detour which leaves Britain stranded outside the international mainstream. This sense of isolation, combined with the economic cost of leaving the European Union, may not be strong enough to trigger buyer's remorse, but it will add weight to those voices urging a more cautious approach in Brexit negotiations and calling for an exit deal that leaves Britain as closely integrated as possible with the EU.

The main effect of a Trump defeat would, of course, be the election of Hillary Clinton, a convinced multilateralist who, like her husband, takes an unsentimental view of the special relationship between Britain and the US. Britain does indeed occupy a special place among the US's allies as the biggest European contributor to Nato and a party to the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement which excludes other EU powers.

Deeply Anglophile

The US state department remains deeply Anglophile and in the days after the referendum it lobbied Britain's EU partners to take a generous approach towards Brexit, an effort that was met with more politeness than enthusiasm. This Anglophilia is less pronounced among Clinton's policy advisers and in the Democratic caucus in the US Congress, whose support will be necessary for any new US-UK trade deal.

Although Clinton is much less hostile to international trade deals than Trump, she has adapted to political reality in opposing the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. And some of her economic advisers are sceptical about the benefits of the new generation of deals, which go well beyond trade, limiting the capacity of governments to take actions that affect the profits of international corporations.

Among the aspects of Brexit that will closely interest a Clinton administration is its impact on Ireland, particularly on Northern Ireland. It is difficult to overstate the personal stake held by the Clintons in the success of the peace process or their emotional attachment to Ireland. Clinton and her foreign policy advisers are alert to the threat Brexit poses to the stability of the constitutional arrangements on the island of Ireland and to the economic progress she perceives to be essential for the success of the political process in the North.

This concern is shared by many Democrats on Capitol Hill, notably those Irish-Americans and others who have a decades-long history of engagement with Ireland. Some are planning an event in Congress shortly after the election to examine the implications of Brexit for Ireland and to consider what role the US can play in ensuring that they do not imperil the constitutional arrangements in the North.

A Clinton administration would be sympathetic to calls from Congress to raise the Irish dimension of Brexit with Britain and its EU partners at an early stage in the negotiations. Some EU governments and the European institutions in Brussels will bristle at what they perceive as American interference in European affairs.

If Clinton wins next month, Ireland should move swiftly to encourage her to take as active a role as possible in ensuring that Brexit does not undermine one of her husband’s most important foreign policy achievements.