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      Western leaders’ silence about Israel’s atrocities gives free rein to Netanyahu | Letters

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      Owen Jones speaks for many of us (What atrocity would Israel have to commit for our leaders to break their silence?, 3 October). Joe Biden, Keir Starmer and other western leaders have responded to Israel’s actions by repeatedly stating that they stand with Israel and its right to defend itself. They have been quick to vociferously condemn those who threaten or attack Israel, but silent on the atrocities Israel inflicts on tens of thousands of innocent civilians in neighbouring countries. Benjamin Netanyahu has interpreted this silence as permission to pursue his strategy without effective censure or sanction.Therefore the question remains of whether these political leaders are complicit in the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, the creation of millions of refugees and the destruction of towns and cities. Like many others, I yearn to see brave political leadership willing to speak out and challenge Israel’s right to act without adherence to fundamental humanitarian rights and principles of international law. Without such a voice being heard, there will be no end to this humanitarian tragedy.Peter RiddleWirksworth, Derbyshire More

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      Whether it’s Trump or Harris in office, Starmer will need an incredible US ambassador. Here’s my vote | Martin Kettle

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      The widening of the Middle East war has a multiplicity of woeful causes and grim consequences. Many have the potential to become even more intractable in the weeks to come. Fresh human suffering in Israel, Lebanon and beyond is only the start of it. Donald Trump is wrong to claim we are on the brink of a third world war. But these events have global implications. Remember what happened after 9/11.The latest bombings and missile attacks mark a historic failure for politics and diplomacy. This is not the first such failure in the Middle East. But wishing that diplomacy could prevail will not make it happen, and even fragile ceasefires are a long way off right now. As angry populations rally behind the respective combatants the prospects for desperately needed political solutions are almost negligible. You can’t stop a war if those on all sides are determined to fight.On the global scale, the implications for Britain and for Keir Starmer’s government come a long way down the list of the escalation’s most important consequences. In domestic terms, however, they still matter very much indeed. The Gaza war has already made a powerful impact on British politics. Israel’s latest conflict with Iran and its proxies is likely to do the same. The shadow of the Iraq war is a lasting one, more than 20 years on.Yet Britain is not some touchline observer of events in the Middle East. British listening stations in Cyprus monitor the Middle East 24/7. British jets, based in Cyprus, fly over Syria and Iraq almost daily. Those same British jets flew missions to help protect Israel in April, and did so again this week in response to Iran’s missile attacks. Like it or not, Britain also has a history in the region.All of which underscores the high seriousness of the strategic choices that Starmer faces in foreign policy. Like all European nations, Britain now exists in an unstable world shaped by Chinese power, the threat from Russia, US political uncertainty and climate change. It has expelled itself from the European Union. Starmer was in Brussels today to try to make the best of these volatile realities.No one should kid themselves that this is not a difficult hand to play. The difficulty lies behind the escapist and trivialising foreign policy solutions in which Boris Johnson and Liz Truss took refuge, in office and afterwards. Starmer’s seriousness offers a quite different response to theirs but it brings another sort of danger. It puts him at risk of not challenging some inherited orthodoxies of British foreign policy at a newly unstable time for which they are no longer adequate. Dean Acheson’s 1962 comment that Britain had lost an empire but not yet found a role still echoes.Starmer himself has little background in foreign policy. He gets day-to-day advice from his national security adviser, Tim Barrow, and his foreign policy adviser, Ailsa Terry. It is hard to say from the outside if they are the ideal team for the biggest foreign policy call he faces as prime minister. That call is not, though, over the Middle East war, or the defence of Ukraine. It is not even over the relationship with the EU. It is over the relationship with the US.British foreign policy always seeks to hug America close. But a month from now, the US reaches a fork in the road. Trump and Kamala Harris offer radically different approaches to the country’s global role. These differences will shape Washington’s approach to every important global issue – including Ukraine, the Middle East, China, climate, and digital regulation – for the coming four years. They will be reflected, too, in the way the US operates towards international bodies including the United Nations, Nato, the International Monetary Fund and the international criminal court.The outcome will shape British foreign policy too. A Harris victory would permit something like business as usual. But a Trump win would not. Trying to hug Trump close risks being unsuccessful, dangerous and damaging. Even trying to influence him would require a very special skill set, notably the ability to catch Trump’s attention on Fox News. And Harris would be operating in a more volatile world, too, in which constrained US power might not give priority to British and European interests.That is why, for Starmer, there is an umbilical link between the pressures of a massive event such as the Middle East war and an otherwise relatively niche decision, like who should be the next UK ambassador to the US. Seen through the global lens, the imminent appointment of Karen Pierce’s successor in Washington is relatively minor. Seen through the UK lens, however, it is one of the hinges on which the success or failure of Starmer’s government will depend.Unsurprisingly, No 10 has said the Washington job – the special relationship’s most special post – will only be allocated after the US election. But it will be a defining moment all the same. Politicians including David Miliband, Catherine Ashton and Peter Mandelson have been mentioned. So have current ambassadors, including Menna Rawlings (now in Paris) and Barbara Woodward (now at the UN). Whitehall veterans such as Tom Scholar (former head of the Treasury) and Vijay Rangarajan (now head of the Electoral Commission) may be in the frame too.It’s a job that Labour, nowadays full of West Wing wannabes, has always taken especially seriously. Peter Jay, who died last month, was appointed to the ambassador’s luxurious Massachusetts Avenue residence by his Labour prime ministerial father-in-law, James Callaghan, in 1977. “We want you to get up the arse of the White House and stay there,” were the instructions from New Labour in 1997, when the late Christopher Meyer was despatched to be Tony Blair’s man in Washington.The appointment rests very personally with Starmer. He has surely now learned that the global agenda will also determine Labour’s future, whether Trump or Harris wins. The appointee therefore needs to be someone with the ear of the president but with the ear of the prime minister as well. That’s why, in the end, my prediction is that the job will go to a man who, untypically, did not reply to my inquiries on the subject this week.A generation ago, as Blair’s chief of staff, it was he who gave Meyer those robust instructions. It was also he who played a key role in the hard-won peace process in Northern Ireland. At a time when another peace process is again so urgent, it is hard to think of a stronger candidate than Jonathan Powell.

      Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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      Trump ‘likelier winner’ unless Harris tackles two failings, says ex-ambassador

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      Donald Trump will remain the “likelier winner” of the US presidential election on 5 November unless the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, addresses key failings in her campaign, a former British ambassador to Washington says on Sunday.Kim Darroch says that despite clearly getting the better of Trump in last week’s televised head-to-head debate, Harris risks making two crucial mistakes in the final weeks of campaigning, which mean the former Republican president is still the favourite.View image in fullscreenWith a Trump return to the White House on the cards, Lord Darroch says it is important that the prime minister, Keir Starmer, who met US president Joe Biden and other leading Democrats in Washington on Thursday, should also now be seeking a meeting with Trump and his team before polling day, so he has built links with both sides.“It is important that if Starmer meets one, he meets both,” Darroch says in an article for the Observer. “It will be noticed and resented by the Trump team if he doesn’t.”Darroch was UK ambassador to the US from 2016 to 2019, when he resigned in a row over leaked confidential emails in which he criticised Trump’s administration as “clumsy and inept”. Darroch’s position became untenable after Boris Johnson, then involved in the Tory leadership contest to succeed Theresa May, failed to give the ambassador his unequivocal backing.Darroch, who remains a respected figure in diplomatic circles on both sides of the Atlantic, says Trump is now “a less formidable campaigner” than in 2016, “down on energy, more liable to become confused, with a mind cluttered with grievances. And he remains a policy-free zone.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“But,” he adds, “he is still capable of connecting with the ‘left behind’ to a level few others can match, a talent which ensures a devoted and enduring support base in a country where one in three workers say they live paycheck to paycheck.”Darroch argues that the Democratic campaign is at risk of making two hugely important errors. Urging Harris to be “laser-focused” on voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin won by Biden in 2020, Darroch warns that they may drift back to Trump unless Harris is able to offer “some crisply worded, specific, targeted policies to bring jobs and hope back to these blighted neighbourhoods”.The second error is that Harris appears to be hiding from the media, repeating a mistake made by Hillary Clinton. “Back in 2016, Trump was ever-present. He would accept any and every invitation. He would even, unbidden, phone the morning news shows to offer his views on the day’s issues. By contrast, Hillary Clinton locked the media out – and lost.”Harris, he claims “seems to have adopted the Clinton playbook”.View image in fullscreenDarroch says the UK embassy in Washington will no doubt be advising Starmer to try to meet Trump, perhaps taking time out from a meeting of the UN general assembly this week to do so.“There is a lot to discuss with him, starting with his views on Ukraine. And however badly Trump performed in the debate, however visible his personal decline, he remains for many of us the likelier winner.” Last week, Starmer’s former pollster Deborah Mattinson met Harris’s campaign team in Washington to share details of how Labour pulled off its stunning election win by targeting key groups of “squeezed working-class voters who wanted change”, further strengthening contacts with the Democratic side. More

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      Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

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      Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.British sources indicated that concerns were aired about Iran’s trade for nuclear technology, part of a deepening alliance between Tehran and Moscow.On Tuesday last week, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, made a similar warning on a visit to London for a summit with his British counterpart, David Lammy, though it received little attention, as the focus then was the US announcement of Iran’s missile supply to Moscow.“For its part, Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information,” Blinken said, accusing the two countries of engaging in destabilising activities that sow “even greater insecurity” around the world.Britain, France and Germany jointly warned last week that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium had “continued to grow significantly, without any credible civilian justification” and that it had accumulated four “significant quantities” that each could be used to make a nuclear bomb.But it is not clear how much technical knowhow Tehran has to build a nuclear weapon at this stage, or how quickly it could do so. Working with experienced Russian specialists or using Russian knowledge would help speed up the manufacturing process, however – though Iran denies that it is trying to make a nuclear bomb.Iran had struck a deal in 2015 to halt making nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief with the US and other western nations – only for the agreement to be abandoned in 2018 by then US president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump.Iran responded by breaching agreed limits on the quantity of enriched uranium it could hold.Western concern that Iran is close to being able to make a nuclear weapon has been circulating for months, contributing to tensions in the Middle East, already at a high pitch because of Israel’s continuing assault on Hamas and Gaza.Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are supporters of Hamas – and Tehran’s nuclear development is therefore viewed as a direct threat by Jerusalem.Soon after Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran began supplying Shahed delta winged drones to Moscow and helped Russia build a factory to make more to bomb targets across Ukraine. In April this year, Iran launched a Russian-style missile and drone attack aimed at Israel, though it was essentially prevented and stopped with the help of the US and UK.Russia and Iran, though not historically allies, have become increasingly united in their opposition to the west, part of a wider “axis of upheaval” that also includes to varying degrees China and North Korea, reflecting a return to an era of state competition reminiscent of the cold war.Last week in London, Blinken said that US intelligence had concluded that the first batch of high-speed Iranian Fath-360 ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 75 miles (120km), had been delivered to Russia.Able to strike already bombarded frontline Ukrainian cities, the missiles prompted a dramatic reassessment in western thinking as well as fresh economic sanctions.Starmer flew to Washington late on Thursday to hold a special foreign policy summit with Biden at the White House on Friday, beginning with a short one on one in the outgoing president’s Oval Office followed by a 70-minute-long meeting with both sides’ top foreign policy teams in the residence’s Blue Room.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThe leaders and their aides discussed the war in Ukraine, the crisis in the Middle East, Iran and the emerging competition with China.Starmer brought along with him Lammy, Downing Street’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, and the UK’s national security adviser, Tim Barrow, , while Biden was accompanied by Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, among others.Prior to the meeting, UK sources indicated that the two countries had agreed in principle to allow Ukraine to fire long-range Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time. But Biden appeared to suggest the topic was one of the reasons for the face-to-face, saying to reporters: “We’re going to discuss that now,” as the meeting began.There was no update after the meeting, partly to keep the Kremlin guessing. Any use of the missiles is expected to be part of a wider war plan on the part of Ukraine aimed at using them to target airbases, missile launch sites and other locations used by Russia to bomb Ukraine.Britain needs the White House’s permission to allow Ukraine to use the missiles in Russia because they use components manufactured in the US.Protocol dictated that Biden and Starmer – the only two present without printed-out name cards – did most of the talking, while the other politicians and officials present only spoke when introduced by the president or the prime minister.Lammy was asked by Starmer to update those present on his and Blinken’s trip to Kyiv on Thursday to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Shortly after the meeting, Starmer said the two sides had had “a wide ranging discussion about strategy”. More

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      US ‘hero voters’ key to Harris win, say top ex-aides who plotted Labour UK victory

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      Keir Starmer’s former pollster, Deborah Mattinson, is to meet Kamala Harris’s campaign team in Washington this week to share details of how Labour pulled off its stunning election win by targeting key groups of “squeezed working-class voters who wanted change”.The visit comes ahead of a separate trip by Starmer to Washington on Friday to meet US president Joe Biden, his second since becoming prime minister. It will also be his first since Biden stepped down and Harris became the Democratic nominee.With the race for the White House on a knife-edge, Mattinson, who stepped down from Starmer’s office after the election, and the prime minister’s former director of policy, Claire Ainsley, who will also attend the briefings, believe the same strategy that delivered for Labour could play an important role in Harris defeating Donald Trump on 5 November.Writing in the Observer, Mattinson and Ainsley say many of the concerns of crucial undecided voters will be similar on both of sides of the Atlantic.“These voters – often past Labour voters – had rejected the party because they believed that it had rejected them. Often Tory voters in 2019, they made up nearly 20% of the electorate. Labour’s focus on economic concerns, from affordable housing to job security, won them back.“For Harris, addressing core issues such as housing, prices and job creation could also win over undecided US middle-class voters, many of whom face similar economic pressures. Labour set about finding out as much as possible about these voters and applying that knowledge to all aspects of campaigning.“They were patriotic, they were family oriented, they were struggling with the cost of living: squeezed working-class voters who wanted change.”Mattinson coined the phrase “hero voters” to describe a group who were more often than not pro-Brexit and persuadable by political leaders if they felt they would address their fundamental core concerns.The collaboration, they believe, could help tilt the balance by delivering voters in key US battlegrounds.“Before November’s presidential election, Harris has turned on its head a contest that looked like a foregone conclusion in Trump’s favour. However, as the data shows clearly, it is still too close to call. We believe that adopting a similar hero-voter approach could make a vital difference, just as it did here in the UK.“The start point is to identify and understand Harris’s hero voters – undecided voters who have considered Trump and live in the handful of the most crucial battleground states.”Mattinson and Ainsley were invited by the Democratic thinktank the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), with which Ainsley has been working since leaving Starmer’s team in late 2022.Recently, they have been polling among US voters and conducting focus groups to try to understand what will win them over and which groups matter most.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The context is very different but the parallels are almost uncanny,” they write. “This group – who in the US self-define as middle class rather than working class, as the same group might in the UK – is struggling.“Its members believe that the middle class is in jeopardy, out of reach for people like them, denied the dream of homeownership that previous generations took for granted, unable to cover the essentials, and hyper-aware of the cost of groceries, utilities and other bills. Many work multiple jobs just to keep afloat.”Among those that the two former Starmer aides are likely to meet are Megan Jones, the senior political adviser to vice-president Harris, and Will Marshall, founder of the PPI, who had dealings with top New Labour figures, including Tony Blair, when the party was trying to learn from the electoral success of Bill Clinton’s Democrats in the early to mid-1990s, before the 1997 general election.View image in fullscreenMattinson and Ainsley say they had far more time to plan their strategy in detail than have members of the Harris campaign. But they suggest that fine-tuning the Democratic strategy could help sustain recent momentum and give the party a better chance of crossing the finishing line victorious.“From the point where we defined our hero-voter focus, we had three years to mainline the thinking through party activity. Team Harris has less than three months. But looking at what they have achieved in the past few weeks, success now looks within reach. Hero voters may just help to close that gap.” More

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      How the lessons of the UK election could help Kamala Harris defeat Donald Trump

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      On 4 July, against all odds, Labour overturned the most shattering defeat in decades to win a stunning landslide. A talented and energetic party team deserves huge credit for this victory: effective communications, innovative digital output, creative policy culminating in the five missions, organisationally brilliant events and a super-efficient ground force – all under the leadership of campaign director Morgan McSweeney and political leads Pat McFadden and Ellie Reeves.It was a cohesive campaign united by its sharp, disciplined focus on our very tightly defined “hero voters”. Could a similar single-mindedness help Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump on 5 November?Just three years before, Labour had suffered the devastating setback of the Hartlepool byelection. While Keir Starmer had made significant strides towards returning Labour to the service of working people in his first year as leader, the party still struggled to embrace a disparate coalition of voters stretching from its base to a wider group of progressive voters and including the “red wall” that had so dramatically abandoned Labour in 2019.It was an impossible task. As the party picked itself up, Starmer’s brief was to really understand the voters who were crucial to that Tory win. He redoubled his resolve to take the party to them. These voters – often past Labour voters – had rejected the party because they believed that it had rejected them. Often Tory voters in 2019, they made up nearly 20% of the electorate. Labour’s focus on economic concerns, from affordable housing to job security, won them back.For Harris, addressing core issues such as housing, prices and job creation could also win over undecided US middle-class voters, many of whom face similar economic pressures. Labour set about finding out as much as possible about these voters and applying that knowledge to all aspects of campaigning. They were patriotic, they were family oriented, they were struggling with the cost of living: squeezed working-class voters who wanted change.Starmer was the personification of this segment of the UK electorate. As someone who had grown up in a pebbledash semi, with hard-working parents who were so strapped for cash that at one point the family’s phone was cut off, he identified with these voters and understood them. This became our focus over the next three years. The discipline paid off, enabling the electoral efficiency that won 411 seats, even on a vote share of less than 35%.Before November’s US presidential election, Harris has turned on its head a contest that looked like a foregone conclusion in Trump’s favour. However, as the data shows, it is still too close to call. We believe that adopting a similar hero-voter approach could make a vital difference, just as it did here in the UK.The start point is to identify and understand Harris’s hero voters – undecided voters who have considered Trump and live in the handful of most crucial battleground states.Working with Democratic thinktank the Progressive Policy Institute, we have attempted to do just that, applying lessons from the UK election, conducting polling and focus groups to really understand the voters that matter most.The context is very different but the parallels are almost uncanny. This group – who in the US self-define as middle class rather than working class as the same group might in the UK – is struggling. Its members believe that the middle class is in jeopardy, denied the dream of homeownership that previous generations took for granted, unable to cover the essentials, and hyper-aware of the cost of groceries, utilities and other bills. Many work multiple jobs just to keep afloat.As one Michigan swing voter told us last week: “There’s less of a ‘legit’ middle class these days. People are just working, working, working – and I think that’s really unfair.” Another voter in Pennsylvania said: “The middle class is being eroded. You used to be able to work one job and buy a house, but those things are out of reach for people like us nowadays.”Unsurprisingly, these voters want change – change that redresses the balance. But they are also deeply insecure and want that change within a framework of stability.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris can use this balancing act to her advantage, offering a combination of stability and the change voters crave. By addressing concerns such as inflation and homeownership while promising steady progress, she can present a vision that contrasts with Trump’s record, appealing directly to the middle class’s desire for practical, lasting change.Like Starmer, Harris has an edge: she comes from the same background as these voters. Her middle-class upbringing and understanding of economic struggle give her a unique connection to working-class Americans. She can own this narrative – something that Trump’s rhetoric, despite his populist appeal, can’t match.There are takeaways for the new Labour government from our research too. US voters want tangible evidence of policies from the Democrats that have helped them and their country. In these early days of the new Labour government, the party will want to plan now what those markers of success will be to their hero voters, well before the next general election.In our project, we have explored how the lessons from Labour’s successful campaign may translate across, reflecting the mood of hero voters, creating clear dividing lines on party brand, and leader reputation and, ultimately, developing a compelling offer.From the point where we defined our hero voter focus, we had three years to mainline the thinking through party activity. Team Harris has less than three months. But, looking at what they have achieved in the past few weeks, success now looks within reach. Hero voters may just help to close that gap.Deborah Mattinson and Claire Ainsley will spend this week in Washington DC with the Progressive Policy Institute, briefing leading Democrats on their project More

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      World leaders react to Biden’s decision to exit presidential race

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      Leaders from around the world have begun to react to Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek re-election this year, endorsing vice-president Kamala Harris in the most unorthodox US presidential campaign in generations.US allies largely offered tributes to Biden’s work over decades of government service, discussing his work as a partner in international security, without addressing the tense political debate still unfolding in the US.The US election campaign comes at a pivotal moment with major conflicts ongoing in Ukraine and in Gaza, both parties warning of a growing great-power rivalry with China, and European allies unsettled about a revanchist Russia and potential America First policy under Donald Trump that could see Washington turn its back on the continent.“Dear President @JoeBiden,” wrote Polish prime minister Donald Tusk on X, “you’ve taken many difficult decisions thanks to which Poland, America and the world are safer, and democracy stronger. I know you were driven by the same motivations when announcing your final decision. Probably the most difficult one in your life.”UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that he “respected” Biden’s decision and called his career “remarkable”.“I respect President Biden’s decision and I look forward to us working together during the remainder of his presidency,” Starmer said in a statement. “I know that, as he has done throughout his remarkable career, he will have made his decision based on what he believes is best for the American people.”Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett called Biden a “true friend” of Israel.“President Biden is a true friend of Israel who stood by us in our most difficult moments,” he wrote on X. “During my tenure as Prime Minister, I witnessed his unwavering support of the State of Israel. Thank you for everything.”US adversaries criticised Biden’s record and accused him of standing behind growing tensions around the world.“Biden has caused problems all over the world and in his own country, the United States. Since he sees that he will not be elected, he is withdrawing without waiting for the election,” Russian state Duma leader Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Vladimir Putin’s, told reporters on Sunday.Biden “should be held accountable for the war unleashed in Ukraine, for destroying the economies of European countries, and for the sanctions policy against Russia and other countries,” Volodin said.“The issue has not been Biden for a long time,” said Russia’s Federation Council deputy speaker Konstantin Kosyachov. “The Americans are divided in their positions in favour of or against Trump. I believe that whoever leads the Democrats’ campaign after Biden’s withdrawal, this divide will remain in place. And everything will depend on how the Republicans will now organise and complete this campaign.” More

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      Starmer praises Biden’s ‘remarkable’ career after US election withdrawal

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      Sir Keir Starmer says he respects Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of the US presidential election, describing the 81-year-old’s political career as “remarkable”.The UK prime minister said: “I respect President Biden’s decision and I look forward to us working together during the remainder of his presidency.“I know that, as he has done throughout his remarkable career, President Biden will have made his decision based on what he believes is in the best interests of the American people.”Starmer was among a number of British politicians who responded to Biden’s announcement on Sunday evening, which came after weeks of pressure to quit due to concerns about his mental acuity and ability to beat Republican nominee Donald Trump.Rishi Sunak praised Biden’s “love for America and dedication to service”.Writing on X, Sunak, who served as prime minister until the UK general election earlier this month, said: “Working with Joe Biden, I saw first-hand his love for America and dedication to service.“Our partnership has led to significant achievements, including [military pact] Aukus, steadfast support for Israel and joint efforts in defending our people from Houthi threats. I wish him all the best.”Boris Johnson, who was prime minister when Biden won the 2020 US election, paid tribute to the president’s “bravery”.He wrote on X: “I salute Joe Biden for the bravery of his decision and also for all he has done as president.“He has been a staunch Atlanticist and friend to Britain throughout his career and it was a privilege to work with him.”Scotland’s first minister John Swinney commended Biden for his “selfless” decision.In a post on X, he wrote that Biden had “served the people of the USA with devotion and total commitment”.“Now, in a typically selfless act, he steps aside to do what he thinks is right for his people.“He came to Scotland for Cop26 and made a powerful contribution. He has our best wishes for the future.”Green party co-leader Carla Denyer said Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race was “a true sign of leadership”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShe said: “We wish President Biden well and thank him for his many years of public service.“This cannot have been an easy decision for him. But to take a decision that is personally difficult, but that is in the public interest, is a true sign of leadership.”She added: “The foundations of our democracy are under threat and this presidential election is a pivotal moment. All elected representatives must be able to undertake their democratic duties without facing the threats of violence.“Equally, showing respect for democratic results is perhaps the most fundamental cornerstone of our democratic foundations. All leaders must now not just abide by our democratic principles but cherish and protect them at every turn.“It is abundantly clear that President Trump has no interest in this grave responsibility. My hope is that the Democratic party can find a suitable candidate that can take on this responsibility.“It’s not hyperbole to say that the future of democracy relies on it.”Former foreign secretary James Cleverly thanked Biden for being “a great friend to the UK”.In a post on X, he said: “It was a pleasure meeting President Biden as foreign secretary on his visits to the UK, especially at the signing of the book of condolence for Her Late Majesty.“Thank you for being a great friend to the UK as our two governments defended freedom and democracy around the world.” More