It’s fair to say elements of the UK’s political establishment and rightwing media don’t much like Joe Biden. The US president was accused of being “anti-British” when visiting Northern Ireland in April. Conservative commentators sneered uneasily at subsequent scenes of him playing to the crowd in Ballina, his family’s ancestral home in County Mayo, as he recalled how his forebears fled famine-stricken (British-ruled) Ireland for a better life in America.
What really annoyed rightwing critics was that Biden visited Dublin on that trip, winning standing ovations in the Dáil Éireann, but didn’t find time to come to Westminster. “I’m at home,” he declared in Ireland’s capital. “I just wish I could stay longer.” It’s unlikely Biden will feel the same way on Monday when he makes a brief stopover in London to meet Rishi Sunak and King Charles, en route to Nato’s Ukraine crisis summit in Lithuania.
Far from rolling out a verbal red carpet, Biden’s detractors have been busily writing him off. The list of his allegedly egregious transgressions includes declining to give Brexiters the prized US-UK free trade agreement they promised voters, quipping that he had travelled to Belfast to “make sure … the Brits didn’t screw around” with the peace process, turning up late for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral last September and not turning up at all for the king’s coronation in May.
Such criticisms, politically unrealistic, petty and over-sensitive, provide a clue as to why the US – and not just the Biden administration – has difficulty taking Britain seriously these days. The UK isn’t the global player it once was, whatever Tories may say. By leaving the EU, it has lost the influence and leverage in Europe the Americans valued. Geopolitically, the UK is stuck up a blind alley. Its “tilt” to the Asia-Pacific impresses neither Washington nor Beijing. Cuts in overseas aid and the anticipated failure to honour climate funding pledges further undercut British soft power.
Biden’s blocking of Ben Wallace as the next Nato secretary general is a reflection not on the defence secretary’s record but on the UK’s diminished standing and clout. It’s not a reason to sulk. Rather, it is a timely reminder of a political reality that Sunak, like his delusional predecessors, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, seems unable to grasp. Viewed from Washington’s hard-nosed perspective, the relationship with Britain, while still useful in limited ways and historically resonant, just isn’t that “special” any more. Naturally, the Americans do not say that out loud. On the contrary, the White House is at pains to stress “the close relationship between our two nations”. Biden, 80, an old-school, moderate Democrat whose father was a used-car salesman, has been typically generous in trying to build bridges to the inexperienced Sunak, 43, a millionaire from a very different political background. Perhaps he is just relieved that Johnson, “Britain’s Trump”, is out of the way.
The Atlantic declaration agreed between Biden and Sunak in Washington last month, which will supposedly encourage cooperation on new technologies such as AI, advance bilateral trade, and enhance economic security and data protection vis-à-vis China and Russia, was an example of Biden’s goodwill – and political nous. The declaration sounded important. It gave Sunak something to crow about. But it is largely lacking in substance. Mostly, it replicates agreements the US has already made with the EU.
Despite the slightly false bonhomie, there is no hiding the fact the two leaders’ views diverge in fundamental ways. Biden is a veteran warrior for economic and social justice. Sunak exhibits scant idea of what that means. Specifically, Biden thinks, rightly, that Brexit was a foolhardy error that has needlessly damaged the UK, the EU and transatlantic cohesion; he believes, correctly, that its bungled terms stoked tensions in Northern Ireland; probably feels, with justice, that Britain is only beginning to come to terms with some bitter imperial legacies; and quite reasonably distrusts Trumpian populist tendencies on the British right.
Ironically, but not entirely surprisingly, all that suggests this US leader may be more in tune with the current state of British public opinion than Sunak, his tone-deaf ministers and a Conservative government that has long outstayed its welcome. Rather than mock Biden for his gaffes, his age, his filial embarrassments and his faux-Irishness, Britain, and especially the Tories, would do well to heartily welcome him – and recognise his achievements at a time of hugely challenging global discord and domestic strife.
Biden has achieved more radical change at home in just over two years than Barack Obama did in eight. His successes include the $1.9tn Covid-19 relief bill, a $1tn national infrastructure renewal package and the most ambitious climate law in US history, which boosts green energy and healthcare. The White House says about 13m jobs have been created since he took office, pushing unemployment to a 50-year low. He also persuaded Congress to adopt major gun safety legislation.
Biden has faced setbacks, too, not least a series of regressive decisions by the US supreme court, including on abortion rights. He’s blamed, unfairly, for high inflation. And overseas, he mishandled the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yet, fortunately for British and European security, his leadership over Ukraine has been strong and steady. How do his rightwing detractors think Russia-loving Trump would have managed this crisis? They may find out after next year’s presidential election. Those who like to rubbish Biden should be careful what they wish for.
