Kamala Harris’s top adviser pleaded for Britain to stay in EU

If Kamala Harris’s top foreign policy adviser had got his way, then Brexit would never have happened.

As the vice-president’s national security adviser, Philip Gordon has been instrumental in forming her views on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the US’s strategic competition with China.

Friends describe the little-known 62-year-old official as a shrewd pragmatist and practised negotiator who does not seek the limelight but commands respect in diplomatic circles.

If Ms Harris wins this year’s election, Mr Gordon looks set to become one of the most powerful and scrutinised officials in the world. Well placed-sources believe he is being lined up as either the White House’s national security adviser or Ms Harris’s secretary of state.

A creature of the Washington foreign policy establishment, Mr Gordon has followed a familiar career path, rotating between increasingly senior State Department jobs under Democratic presidents and tenured roles in influential think tanks during Republican administrations.

But it is his role in the vanguard of Barack Obama’s war on Brexit that will most concern some in Westminster if he takes a senior role in the US government next year.

Mr Gordon served as the assistant secretary for Europe in the State Department from 2009 to 2013, working as the main political liaison between Britain and the US.

The “special relationship” between the countries remained strong, and the Conservative government was keen to curry favour with Mr Obama’s administration.

In January 2013, Mr Gordon attended a lavish dinner given by William Hague in honour of Hillary Clinton at the British ambassador’s residence in Washington. Mr Hague, then foreign secretary, had arranged for the cast of Downton Abbey to record a message praising Mrs Clinton as she approached the end of her tenure at the State Department.

But as the Eurosceptic noise from the Tory back benches and Nigel Farage’s Ukip rose back in London, the US had serious concerns about the possibility of a Brexit referendum.

The idea of a vote that could end Britain’s role in Europe raised alarm in Washington. Mr Obama’s aides were concerned that the UK might no longer serve as America’s eyes and ears in Brussels.

Mr Gordon was dispatched to London to speak to British ministers and officials and warn them against holding a referendum that the pro-EU administration of David Cameron might lose.

In Westminster, he found Conservative ministers and their advisers deep in preparation for Lord Cameron’s Bloomberg speech on Jan 23. After months of pressure and speculation, Lord Cameron would use the address to commit the Conservative party to a referendum on leaving the European Union after the next general election.

“This is the moment when the Cameron team were putting together the referendum policy, and thinking about how they would run the campaign,” recalled one adviser.

Taking a stand

Mr Gordon, who had previously avoided commenting on Brexit, decided to use the trip as an opportunity to take a stand against a referendum – both in public and in private meetings.

While opposition to Brexit was the official position of the US government, Mr Gordon was also personally against breaking up the union.

A committed Europhile who had studied in France and translated one of Nicolas Sarkozy’s books into English, Mr Gordon was seen as a “multilingual, classic old-school Europe expert” with an “emotional gut support for the European project,” according to those who knew him at the time.

Sir David Lidington, Britain’s then minister for Europe, who met with him on the same trip, recalled him arguing in favour of continued EU membership in private meetings.

“He wanted to understand what was going on in our politics here,” Sir David said. “I have no doubt that he was in favour of Britain staying inside the EU.”

In Whitehall meetings, Mr Gordon made three arguments against Brexit.

The first was that it could harm transatlantic relations by forcing US officials to go directly to Brussels to lobby the EU on the issues of the day.

“From the Democrats’ perspective, the UK was always viewed as useful to the US to the extent it toed the US line on issues, and to the extent it really pulled others in the EU closer to the US,” one senior diplomat said.

Both the UK and US were part of the “E3+3”, a grouping of countries negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, but America had no seat at the table in Brussels for discussions on the stability of the Eurozone and emerging tension in Ukraine.

Second, Mr Gordon argued that a referendum was a “terribly risky” move that might have unintended consequences, including an independent Scotland.  He warned it would be unwise to hold a vote without certainty that the Remain campaign would win it.

“They said, ‘Well, if you’re going to have a referendum, are you sure you’re going to win?” said one official. “Because it would be a big setback if you were to lose it.’”

Unified partner

Third, Mr Gordon suggested that holding a referendum that could force Britain out of the EU would embolden other Eurosceptic voices in Europe, taking the focus of the bloc away from foreign affairs.

In an unusually frank discussion with reporters on the trip, Mr Gordon said: “The more the European Union is focused on its internal debates, the less it is able to be our unified partner abroad.”

“Referendums have often turned countries inwards,” he added.

Ultimately, Mr Gordon’s attempt to warn against Brexit failed.

In his speech announcing the Brexit referendum, Lord Cameron nodded to Mr Gordon’s arguments, telling voters Brexit “matters to the United States and other friends around the world” who had argued “very clearly that they want Britain to remain in the EU”.

Three months later, Mr Gordon was moved off the Europe brief and given responsibility for American diplomacy in the Middle East, ending his conversations with Britain about Brexit.

He left the administration in 2015, months before Mr Obama himself warned the UK would be at the “back of the queue” for a trade deal if it voted to leave.

Mr Gordon’s personal campaign against Brexit continued. In a series of articles published before and after the referendum, he argued that the US would lose a major ally in Brussels if Britain left the EU.

Two days before the vote, in June 2016, he wrote in the Financial Times that Brexit would unleash the “forces of disintegration” in Europe, and “almost certainly” result in another Scottish independence referendum, which Scots would “probably use to leave the UK”.

“The unravelling of Europe would not be automatic or immediate, but Brexit would have knock-on effects that would be hard to contain over time,” he said.

A week after the surprise result, he wrote another article condemning the “misleading promises” of the Leave campaign and arguing for a second referendum, which he said “might be the only legitimate option” after a Brexit deal had been finalised.

Appearing on CNN he added: “Once they start down that road and they realise that all of the other options are bad…they might start to say, ‘Well, can we rebuild something?’

“And pretty soon it starts to look like European Union membership.”

For some Brexiteers, the prospect of American lobbying on the EU is an unwelcome reminder of Washington’s stance before the referendum.

“British public opinion has not always reacted positively to attempts by the Obama administration to tell us how to run our own country,” said Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative MPs.

“Hopefully lessons have been learned from that episode in Washington, including by anyone likely to take up key roles, if Kamala Harris were to win the US presidential election.”