Bernie Sanders will 'absolutely' change US-UK defence relationship if elected president

The defence relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom will “absolutely” change if Bernie Sanders is elected president, his campaign said on Thursday.

Tad Devine, chief strategist for the Sanders campaign, said the UK should be prepared to re-evaluate that relationship if the Vermont senator’s surging campaign ends in a general election victory, as Mr Sanders believes it is time the US stops “spending so much of its resources defending the rest of the world”.

“Bernie has been very outspoken about his priorities in terms of the collective defence of the United States and our allies,” Mr Devine told the Telegraph, noting that it will be “very different than the current military industrial policy of the United States”.

The comments came after an acrimonious debate between Mr Sanders and Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire that laid bare the rifts that have grown between the Democratic rivals.

The aura of inevitability around the former secretary of state has begun to dissipate after a “virtual tie” in the Iowa caucuses (Mrs Clinton won by four-tenths of one per cent).

In New Hampshire, it is Mr Sanders who holds the advantage. A poll released hours before the debate showed Mr Sanders with a two-to-one advantage in the state.

Even more worryingly for Mrs Clinton, a poll conducted after Iowa showed the race tightening dramatically nationwide, with Mrs Clinton on 44 per cent and Mr Sanders on 42 per cent.

The same polling organisation, Quinnipiac, had Mrs Clinton leading 61-30 in December.

The poll also found Mr Sanders faring much better in hypothetical match ups against Republican candidates. It had Mrs Clinton losing by seven percentage points if the Republican candidate was Marco Rubio, for example, while Mr Sanders is tied with the Florida senator.

Much of Thursday’s debate was centred on labels. Mr Sanders said Mrs Clinton was a member of the “establishment” and not a true “progressive”. Mrs Clinton, for her part, scoffed at the idea that Mr Sanders was the “gatekeeper of progressivism”, and said his insinuations about her ties to Wall St were part of an “artful smear”.

“I really don’t think these kinds of attacks are worthy of you,” she scolded Mr Sanders, “and enough is enough.”

The differences between the candidates on foreign policy were less cosmetic, with Mrs Clinton promoting a robust American presence abroad, and Mr Sanders - less sure footed discussing Isil policy than infrastructure projects - advocating a tactical retreat.

Joel Benenson, Mrs Clinton’s chief strategist, told the Telegraph that Mr Sanders had “flunked the test on Commander-in-Chief” during the debate.

Jeff Weaver, Mr Sanders’s campaign manager, countered that the senator showed wisdom in rejecting the idea that “America’s sons and daughters should always be sent in first when other countries are unwilling to carry the load”.

On the Republican side, polls showed Donald Trump’s still-formidable lead narrowing slightly, with Senator Marco Rubio in second place and gaining ground.

Mr Trump was due to return to New Hampshire on Friday but a snowstorm prevented him from doing so.

Mr Rubio travelled the state attempting to push back against lingering criticism from his rivals that he lacked a significant achievement during his political career.

He emphasised additional sanctions placed on Hezbollah as one concrete accomplishment, though Jeb Bush responded shortly thereafter that the Hezbollah sanctions were a “93 to nothing vote” in the senate that Rubio had failed to turn up for.

Meanwhile the controversy surrounding Ted Cruz, who won in Iowa and polls third in New Hampshire, deepened on Friday.

A recorded telephone message emerged from hours before the caucuses, in which voters are informed that Ben Carson would be dropping out of the race and are urged to support Mr Cruz instead.

Dr Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and rival candidate, had announced that he would be taking a break from the campaign trail, but reacted with fury after Mr Cruz’s campaign began spreading the message that his candidacy was finished.

Mr Cruz has apologised, and attempted to soften his hard-liner image during campaigns stops in New Hampshire.

Speaking at a church in the town of Hooksett, he spoke at length about his step-sister’s struggles with drug addiction.

“My sister Miriam, her whole life she was very angry. She never forgave my father for divorcing my mother. Her whole life she had a rage. She was angry at the world, she was angry at God,” he said.

Some in the audience could be seen fighting back tears as he described hearing the news that she had died of a drug overdose.

Opioid addiction is an epidemic in New Hampshire, and many voters in the state list drugs as the most important issue in the 2016 election.

The Republican contenders will debate tonight in Manchester, in a crucial showdown that could shape the results of Tuesday’s primary election.