What could the US midterm election results mean for the UK?

The midterm results may be a vindication of US democracy, but they may not make US-UK relations run any more smoothly than they might otherwise have done, writes Mary Dejevsky

Lesson one might be never to write off US democracy (AFP/Getty)

When the United States went to vote this week, the prevailing assumptions on this side of the Atlantic tended to mirror the pessimism among the Democratic elite over there.

First, there was an expectation that the Republicans would make serious gains, as the opposition party usually does in the midterm elections during a president’s first term, and because Joe Biden seemed hardly to have covered himself in glory.

Second, it was assumed that the complexion of the victorious Republicans would skew US congressional politics in a more right-wing, isolationist direction – which the UK, like most US allies, would regard as a bad thing.