Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has repeatedly refused to say whether all votes should be counted in the US presidential election.
Mr Raab’s insistence that he would not be “dragged into” questions over the legitimacy of the poll was branded “astonishing” by Sky News interviewer Sophy Ridge, who rolled her eyes and shook her head at his response.
The foreign secretary surprised many with a congratulatory tweet to president-elect Joe Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris last night, when he said that it had been a close contest fought hard by Donald Trump and that “some of the processes are still playing out”.
He today denied that his tweet had played into conspiracist theories throwing doubt on Mr Biden’s victory, which is being challenged by Trump in a series of legal actions.
But he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: “It’s a statement of fact that we haven’t had the formal statement by the Electoral College, and of course, there’ll be appeals going on and I make no apologies as foreign secretary for treading very sensitively and carefully whilst we waited for the clarity of the result.
“We’ve got that clarity and we offer the new administration, president-elect Biden and vice president-elect Harris, our full support, and we look forward to working with them in the future.
“But I think it’s right that we’re careful to respect the sensitivities, and indeed the integrity of the US process. That’s incumbent on me as foreign secretary.”
A clearly incredulous Ridge told him: “The question is, do you think all votes should be counted in a democratic election? I find it astonishing there’s not an answer to that.”
Asked what he meant about processes still to be completed, he said: “We know for example there’s going to be recounts. We know that in relation to some of the states, we know in relation to some of the Senate seats.
“But we can also say that the result is clear now, I don’t think that’s pre-empting those other processes, which is exactly why I said we should tread sensitively to respect the integrity of the process.
“I’ve been very clear we were very confident the checks and balances in the US system that will produce a definitive result, and I think we’ve got one now.”
It was only after repeated questioning from Ridge that Mr Raab agreed that “in principle, yes, of course” it was right for all votes to be counted in democratic elections.
But when pressed on the US vote, he said: “It is not for us to start adjudicating on the appeals, the legal claims and the counterclaims.
“But what we have said is the result is now very clear. It’s beyond reasonable doubt, in my view, and we welcome the new administration.”
He added: “I’m not going to get drawn into … the legal claims about whether or not all the votes, have properly been counted when you look at the mailed votes, the votes in person, and the claims that have been made for example about the posted military ballots. So I just don’t want to get sucked into that.”
