US president Donald Trump is one of Brexit's biggest cheerleaders, describing Britain's withdrawal from the European Union as "great" and "wonderful". But his latest senior White House appointment seems to see things very differently.
Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's new director of communications, tweeted repeatedly last year about his negative views on Brexit, and went as far as describing UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexiteer, of risking being "on the wrong side of history".
After his appointment was announced last week, Scaramucci announced that he was deleting all his old tweets. But here are the ones laying out his strongly anti-Brexit views.
In an early string of tweets last year about the UK's impending referendum, Scaramucci said Brexit was a "bad idea".
Brexit’s Threat to ‘the Special Relationship’ https://t.co/CAKOvg12ck @strobetalbott great breakdown of many reasons #Brexit a bad idea
Scaramucci also said he agreed with President Obama that EU membership "makes Britain even greater".
Barack Obama: As your friend, let me say that the EU makes Britain even greater https://t.co/ZoFF6Xqi9W re: #Brexit I stand with @POTUS
On 23 April 2016, Scaramucci tweeted: "Brexit goes against 71 yrs of progress, peace and prosperity".
@Number10gov a Brexit goes against 71 yrs of progress, peace and prosperity. We are better together. Lincoln understood this long ago.
But even before that, he'd retweeted a Financial Times op-ed attacking Johnson for backing the Leave campaign.
Boris Johnson has failed the Churchill test https://t.co/3T7sjNfUzB @gideonrachman risks standing on wrong side of history re: #Brexit
A few weeks before the referendum, he said Brexit could feel "good in the beginning but ends badly", and likened the rise in nationalist feeling to the start of the first world war.
The Brexit could be the beginning of a sharper turn in Nationalism which feels good in the beginning but ends badly. Cf Aug 1914
Days after the referendum, Scaramucci tweeted that he thought that Remain would win if the vote were held again.
If there was a re-vote on #Brexit this week, I don't think it would be close. #Remain would win in a landslide
Interestingly, he was basing his understanding of British public opinion on the most highly rated comments on the Daily Mail website.
Trump's new director of communications then went on to predict that Brexit will not actually happen, and that the UK and the EU27 would renegotiate their relationship.
Scaramucci compared the vote to leave the EU to Trump's plan to build a wall along the border with Mexico. He described it as a "starting point" in a negotiation to get improved terms.
#Brexit is now starting point in negotiation to get improved terms in relationship with EU, but things will not change as much as ppl think
I predict #7 - EU treaty renegotiated to allow more control over immigration and #Brexit never happens https://t.co/pjmR1OBuiY
He also described the Brexit vote as "unwise", but said it was driven by trends similar to those behind Trump's popularity.
A #Brexit is unwise, but I understand why #Leave prevailed. Middle-class let down by out-of-touch global elite, and they want voice heard
As late as August 2016, Scaramucci was sharing articles describing the UK's economy as stalling.
Since Brexit Vote, U.K. Online Inflation Surging After Pound Decline While Economy Stalls via @forbes https://t.co/mBnspVoh52 @Jon_Hartley_
But just ahead of Trump's election win, Scaramucci shared an article comparing Trump's chances of an upset to Brexit.
Trump’s American Brexit - The Boston Globe https://t.co/aRPaEiPRIm
And in January this year he said the president's win and Brexit were both examples of experts getting it wrong because the economy and stocks were "booming" in the US and the UK.
"Experts" said #Brexit would destroy UK economy and @realDonaldTrump victory would crash US stocks. Both are booming https://t.co/a0ZajFDeGb
(The UK's GDP growth was the weakest in the EU in the first three months of 2017, and the US and Britain are now the two slowest-growing economies in the G7).