Why the British should welcome the re-election of Donald Trump

His last term of office was beneficial for Britain and another is likely to be the same

My late father was proud of his American heritage. His mother Beatrice was an American from Mamaroneck, New York, where the Daniel Warren Elementary School still exists and is named after her father, my great-grandfather, who was Vice-President of the American Trading Company. All four of her grandparents left Ireland after the potato famine and settled for a new life in the United States.

Beatrice married my grandfather, Edmund Fletcher Rees-Mogg, in 1920, and brought my father up with an interest in American politics. On marriage she was deprived of her American citizenship, which was only restored to her late in life. This meant she only voted twice, once in 1920, when American women first had the vote in Presidential elections, for the ticket F. D. Roosevelt was on; and then in 1976 for, of all people, Jimmy Carter. Most descendants of Irish immigrants were Democrats, which is why Joe Biden played so shamelessly to that audience.

This interest in US politics has passed from my father to me, and it is one that is especially strong at election time. However, Americans quite rightly resent foreign interference in their elections, whether by Russian bots or Labour Party apparatchiks. Guardian readers' letters to Ohio residents of Clark County in opposition to George W. Bush serve as a permanent reminder of this feeling. Thus, although I am writing about why the British should welcome the re-election of Donald Trump, this is not in the vain and presumptuous hope of persuading any American readers.