DOUGLAS MURRAY: Warning to everyone who cheers Joe Biden’s victory …...

Britain has never had a great love for Donald Trump. His public approval rarely exceeded 25 percent.

But one thing everyone knew was that he was a great friend of Britain. Even if that feeling was never returned.

And while opinion polls suggest that the UK public will be more comfortable with the Democratic alternative (as always), one thing they should know above all is that Joe Biden and his party are not friends of this country. We could still regret the day Donald Trump left the White House.

The madness of this country’s stance must be made clear – and now more than ever.

Four years ago, the British people took a big and bold leap in voting to leave the European Union. Since then, this country has struggled to leave the country, but we are finally out.

At this very moment, when alliances are shifting and new trade deals are required, older and closer friends need to be strengthened.

To a large extent, they have. For example, our allies in Australia have not only pushed for an improved trade relationship, they have even sent a former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to help us as an unpaid trade ambassador.

But the biggest price is the trade deal we so badly need with the United States. America is this country’s largest export market and our second largest import market. After leaving the EU, it is no exaggeration to say that this relationship is vital.

And Donald Trump was on our side. He made it clear from day one that he favored a huge trade deal with Britain that would enrich both parties. The goodwill was there, and from the moment the negotiations could begin, they did.

Under the direction of Envoy Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s experienced trading team has been deeply friendly to Britain. They stressed from the start that the US would seek a generous deal with Britain.

Just as Biden’s inevitable decision to reintroduce America into the Iranian nuclear deal will mean that Iran can once again buy weapons from Russia and China that no one will question – including this country

Of course, certain public figures here went out of their way to poison this relationship. For example, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was so anxious to insult our main trading partner that, even as Mayor of our capital, he tried to rise on the international stage by repeatedly insulting the American President. The then Speaker of the House of Commons – John Bercow – did the same.

This is not a normal condition. But Trump’s negotiating team went beyond this pettiness. Throughout the year they worked constructively towards a speedy conclusion.

As one negotiating party recently told me, while it was likely that an agreement would never be reached before the election, it was certainly not due to a lack of goodwill, but simply to the number of formalities that had to be agreed before a deal of such a size can be completed.

So the Americans were ready to go. This country would have benefited enormously – in jobs and much more.

But if President Trump can’t somehow get a deal through before he leaves office in January, the UK public should know something. The situation with Trump’s successor will be very different.

Joe Biden and the high command of the Democrats abhor Brexit Britain. They believe the Brexit movement had something to do with the election of Donald Trump – as a kind of precursor. You instinctively connect the two.

And they also have a disdainful, angry, and deeply anti-British attitude towards anything related to our future relationship.

In their extraordinary ignorance, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Joe Biden appear to believe that Britain’s exit from the EU could unravel the Good Friday Peace Agreement on the island of Ireland.

In fact, it shows that they haven’t spent time thinking about Northern Ireland or studying the details of the EU withdrawal agreement.

Pelosi and Biden have been pressured by partisans in their own party to embrace this nonsense, and the effect could be enormously devastating to both our friendship with America and our prosperity.

The problem is summed up in a letter sent to Boris Johnson two months ago. It was signed by a number of US Congressmen, including some who vocalized the IRA at the heights of trouble. This included the appalling supporter of IRA terrorism, Congressman Peter King.

The letter alleged that any free trade agreement with America and the Good Friday Agreement were “inextricably linked” and that a no-deal Brexit would jeopardize the Good Friday Agreement.

The Democrat Pelosi was anxious to take up this poisonous claim. At a press conference two months ago, she spoke so angrily about Brexit UK that you could see her trying to keep her teeth in her mouth.

If Britain believed we could leave the EU without a deal and “jeopardize” the Good Friday Agreement, the UK could forget about a trade deal with the US, she spat.

There is “absolutely no chance” for a trade deal between the US and the UK, she said, as long as the Democrats have a say. For his part, Joe Biden – or whoever runs his Twitter account – liked to repeat this claim and even tweeted the threatening letter from the pro-IRA congressmen.

Mr Biden is proud of his own Irish roots, and you get a picture of where his sympathies lie in a photo popped up yesterday.

The problem is summed up in a letter sent to Boris Johnson two months ago. It was signed by a number of US Congressmen, including some who vocalized the IRA at the heights of trouble. This included the appalling supporter of IRA terrorism, Congressman Peter King

It was recorded three years ago and shows Biden, beaming with pleasure, next to former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and with his arm around former refugee Rita O’Hare. She had been arrested in Belfast in 1972 following the attempted murder of a British Army officer, but skipped bail and ended up in the United States.

So the people of Britain should know that this country is now in a very serious situation. We jumped out of the EU with the consent of the population to face a clean no-deal exit. That’s fine and there is a logic. But it is not at all okay if we are subsequently punished simultaneously by unsympathetic and anti-British Democratic-led US.

And I don’t mind saying that I’m worried.

Pro-EU activists in the UK like Sadiq Khan will of course be delighted.

They have always wanted to punish the British people for voting “wrong” in 2016 and are desperate for everyone to learn the lesson “the hard way” that they were right about all along. Nothing could be more ignorant or wrong.

The Trump administration had many flaws. But it also had many virtues. Trump himself was the only prominent politician in the world to question the appalling corruption and undermining of world trade by the Chinese Communist Party. In Trump’s absence, China’s rise will remain uncontrolled.

Just as Biden’s inevitable decision to reintroduce America into the Iranian nuclear deal will mean that Iran can again buy weapons from Russia and China that no one will question, including this country.

It is a tradition that Republican presidents are despised in Britain. This was the case with Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and many others.

Yes, Trump made it easier than most of the others. For all its shortcomings, the president was a true supporter of this country.

He wanted Brexit Britain and the United States to work well and prosper together.

Much of the British public can look forward to Trump leaving the White House. But his exit will be a bad day. We’ll have lost a friend. At a time when we needed friends the most.