- Boris Johnson has an uphill battle to shake off his ties with Trump and build a relationship with Biden.
- Biden’s allies say the prime minister’s comments and ties to Trump in the past are an obstacle for the two men who are building a strong relationship.
- ‘I believe Boris likes him [the administration]? No, “one Biden surrogate told Insider.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
It was a sign of how eager Boris Johnson is to restore relations with President Joe Biden that his office last week denied several requests to criticize Biden’s criticism of the removal of Winston Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office.
“The oval office is the president’s private office and it is the president’s choice to decorate as he pleases,” was the only comment the prime minister’s official spokesman would make.
The tone was strikingly different from Johnson’s response to the removal of the bust by Biden’s predecessor Barack Obama in 2016.
At the time, Johnson, who was writing a biography of Churchill, devoted an entire newspaper column to the decision, concluding that President Obama had removed the bust as a “snub” to Britain, caused by the “partial Kenyan president’s dislike” of the ancestor of the British Empire. ‘
The line, with its apparent racial connotations, is still remembered by President Biden and his team.
“Joe has a long memory,” about such things, one source in Biden’s campaign told Insider last year.
Since Biden’s victory, Downing Street officials have addressed the common issue between the UK and the US on issues such as climate change.
However, Johnson’s ties to Trump, both personally and in his political style, remain a source of mistrust among Biden’s allies.
“Boris has said a lot of things,” Ashish Prashar, a lawyer for Biden-Harris’ surrogate and government reform, told Insider. “He sided with people like Steve Bannon. He was public about his dismissals around President Obama’s birth.”
Biden’s move to a more progressive politician is also being voiced against Johnson, Prashar said.
He pointed to the president’s outspoken support for transgender rights, his diverse cabinet and his efforts to enforce equal marriage legislation in 2012.
“He did the reverse of the herd making you conservative as you get older,” Prashar said.
Biden compared Boris Johnson to a ‘physical and emotional clone’ of Donald Trump last year, and the shaking off of the associations is an uphill battle for Johnson.
While many world leaders tried to establish close ties with Trump, Johnson went further and repeatedly spoke admiringly of the former president. He has reportedly been in close contact with U.S. Judge Provocateur Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign manager, for some time.
Biden’s senior team also considers Brexit a significant mistake. Last year there was alarm in London when Biden Johnson issued a stern warning about the impact of his Brexit plans on Northern Ireland.
There is nonetheless a recognition on both sides of the Atlantic that the two men must work together for common interests after the Trump era. Both leaders face the monumental task of vaccinating their own population against COVID and eradicating the virus worldwide.
Biden and his foreign minister Antony Blinken are facing the task of restoring America’s position on the world stage after four years. Trump has often treated American allies with contempt or distrust.
The task will be ‘massive’, ‘said Mike Blake, deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, in an interview with Insider.
However, he stressed that Biden’s long experience means he has the ability to perform the task.
“The second dynamic of this is that you have a leader who is ready to do that,” he said.
“You can make the very clear argument that President Biden is the most qualified person to become president in our history. If you have someone who has been in the Senate for 36 years, a person who has been vice president for 8 years, then the relationships he has: It will immediately allow the recovery to be able to build from there. ‘
Boris Johnson’s team is very much looking forward to the G7 summit in June, when world leaders will meet in person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson is reportedly hoping to use the summit, as well as a climate summit later in the year, to place his green credentials on a president who has put climate change at the heart of his agenda.
Whether Johnson and Biden will ever have a warm relationship, however, is another question.
But even if Biden remains wary of Johnson, maintaining relations with one of the United States’ closest allies will remain a priority.
“I believe the relationship between the UK and the US will remain strong. There are many reasons why we are intrinsically connected,” Prashar told Insider.
‘But I believe Boris likes him [the new administration]? No.”