President-elect Joe Biden made his first phone call to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 10 November. The conversation followed in the footsteps of generations of leaders that have upheld the unique bond between the UK and the US, but what will the Biden-Johnson combination mean for the “special relationship”?
Winston Churchill coined the connection between the United States and the United Kingdom as a “special relationship” back in 1946, and it has since gone on to embody all manner of dealings between the two English-speaking countries, particularly during the Thatcher-Reagan years in the 1980s, and in the early noughties during the Blair-Bush era.
President-elect Joe Biden is due to be inaugurated as president of the United States on 20 January 2021, and as the residents of the White House change, so does the ever-morphing bond between Britain and America.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the incoming president shared their first telephone call last Tuesday, and once niceties were shared, conversation turned to what this regeneration of the “special relationship” would look like.
For the president-elect, the way in which Britain’s exit from the European Union unfurls will be pivotal in shaping the bond between the two nations.
The Good Friday Agreement has played a central role in Joe Biden’s comments about Brexit, saying in September that: “Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”
It is understood that Johnson used their telephone conversation to reassure his soon-to-be American counterpart, who is proudly of Irish heritage, that the Good Friday Agreement would not be undermined in any way by Brexit.
This follows announcements in May that there would instead be a “light-touch border” in the Irish Sea, and that there wouldn’t be checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but “some new administrative processes” would be implemented.
Biden is a staunch supporter of the 1998 peace deal, with his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton having played an important role in its instatement over two decades ago. Any action that puts the agreement at risk would undoubtedly sour transatlantic relations, which is just another important consideration among the staling melting pot that is the current Brexit negotiations.
More similarities than differences
Many speculated what else would be up for discussion in the first conversation between Biden and Johnson, and the British Prime Minister was quick to highlight that: “there’s far more that unites [the United States and the UK] than divides us”, and commonalities between the two nations also came up in the phone call.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson said that the two men had: “strongly agreed on the need for… the UK and the US to stand together to stick up for our values around the world”.
The Prime Minister also expressed that he was “delighted to find the many areas in which the incoming Biden/Harris administration is able to make common cause with [the UK]”.
Areas of shared interest touched upon in the 25-minute call included tackling climate change, promoting democracy, and “building back better” after the pandemic, according to a tweet by Boris Johnson.
To what extent the two leaders really converge on these issues will be better seen over the next year when they meet at the UN Climate Change Conference and the G7 summit, both of which are to be hosted in the UK in 2021.
Interpersonal relations
The British Prime Minister was the second world leader to be contacted by Biden, after Canadian leader Justin Trudeau. Former PM Theresa May was considerably lower on Donald Trump’s list following his election in 2016, and was the tenth leader to be contacted, coming after heads of state from Ireland, Turkey, India, Japan, Mexico, Egypt, Israel, Australia and South Korea.
Regardless of previous mud-slinging, Boris Johnson was reportedly “delighted” with his first conversation with the man who is set to be the 46th president of the United States.
This is a good start given that the tumultuous times the UK has ahead may necessitate an increased reliance on the transatlantic relationship.
This last month has seen a seismic shift in the political landscape of the world’s most powerful country – what has yet to be seen is the ripples that shift will have across the rest of the world, including how it shapes the “special relationship”.
Hannah Ward-Glenton
Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash. License for usage can be found here. No changes were made to this image.