In an interview with BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday, Iran hawk Richard Goldberg – who recently stepped down from his role on the National Security Council following his part in ramping up US tensions with Tehran – ostensibly issued Johnson a veiled threat.

Goldberg suggested that Johnson think long and hard about the UK’s position on the Iran nuclear deal and foreign policy more generally. He insisted that in post-Brexit Britain, it’s “less important what Brussels thinks and far more important what Washington thinks.”

Goldberg’s comments have been widely panned on social media, with many interpreting his words as an ultimatum, rather than a “choice” being presented to PM Johnson. Green MP Caroline Lucas claimed that it was “clear” that if the UK is to secure a trade deal with the US then “we’d have to follow Trump’s dangerous foreign policies.”

Others online insisted Trump’s former aide was in reality proposing that the UK becomes “a US vassal state & to fall in line on Iran, Israel” and the Middle East. While another angrily tweeted: “So much for Take Back Control.”

On Tuesday, Johnson signaled that he was falling in line behind the US president and would seek to tear up the current Iran deal and replace it with a ‘Trump deal’.
“Let’s work together to replace the JCPOA and get the ‘Trump deal’ instead,” Johnson told BBC Breakfast.