Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Opinion: Biden's spectacular breach of royal protocol didn't keep UK visit from success

Opinion: Biden's spectacular breach of royal protocol didn't keep UK visit from success

There is a mystique that surrounds any meeting between the Queen of England and a President of the United States.

She may be a descendant of King George III, the principal raison d'etre for America's creation, and he the living embodiment of its success as an independent nation, but they come together as two individuals who know more than anyone the burden of leadership and a life lived under the glare of global fame.

Queen Elizabeth II has relished her meetings with the 13 presidents she has encountered during her long reign, and her tea with the President and Jill Biden at Windsor Castle on Sunday was a special moment.

(Even the President's spectacular breach of royal protocol in disclosing details of his conversation with the monarch -- she apparently asked for his impressions of Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping -- did not dim the allure.)

The gathering capped what the British government will surely view as a hugely successful visit to Britain by the Bidens for the G7 Summit, one which went more smoothly than they dared to hope at the outset.

The timing of the summit favored the British hosts; home advantage meant Downing Street could capitalize on the relief all the world leaders clearly felt at gathering in person for the first time after a trying year of Covid restrictions and video calls.

Perhaps as a result, the summit was broadly judged a success, with more progress than is often the case at such events, including landmark agreements on vaccine sharing, tackling climate change and a new project to challenge China's Belt and Road initiative.

It was telling that it ended on a high note at the Castle, because the visibility of the Royal Family at the events surrounding the G7 represents the deployment of one of the United Kingdom's most potent weapons of soft power.

The thought and care which went into making the Bidens' trip as pleasing as possible hints at a nervousness in the British government around the President's attitude to the UK as it struggles with post-Brexit teething pains.

When a simmering row between the EU and its former member erupted on the eve of the summit over the somewhat prosaic issue of chilled meats -- inspiring inevitable headlines of "sausage wars" -- the US made clear which side its bread was buttered on.

Sausage jokes aside, the contretemps relates to the question of British goods crossing unhampered into Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK despite sharing a land border with the EU member state Ireland, with all the questions of sovereignty that raises.

As a child of Irish grandparents, Biden is perhaps more wary than previous Presidents of any spat which threatens to inflame tensions among the parties to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Thus the day before Biden arrived in Cornwall, at the southernmost tip of the UK, for the summit, America's most senior diplomat in Britain, Yael Lempert, was let off the leash to issue an unprecedented diplomatic rebuke known as a "demarche," making clear the President's concern at the prospect of rows relating to Brexit reigniting the Troubles.

When Biden used his first address on British soil to quote the great Irish poet WB Yeats' famous lines on Irish independence, "Easter 1916," Downing Street must have despaired.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was already on the back foot with the Biden administration over the sense he was too close to the latter's predecessor, who once described him as "Britain Trump."

But for all the blond hair and populism, Johnson is no Donald Trump -- for one, he is a staunch supporter of tackling climate change (an agenda he has taken up more whole-heartedly since getting together with his now-wife, keen environmentalist Carrie née Symonds).

But the concern over how best to optimize this trip to put the Johnson-Trump relationship in the past was well-placed. British voters were near-universal in their antipathy for Trump, and despite Johnson's (and before him, Theresa May's) attempts to woo Trump's favor, there was a collective sigh of relief inside as well as out of government at Biden's victory in November. His ascendancy promised the welcome return of something approaching diplomatic normality in Washington.

Hence the rolling out of the big Royal guns for the G7. As well as tea at the Castle, the Bidens along with the other world leaders dined with the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince William and other Royals at the Eden Project on Friday night, while Jill Biden co-wrote an article on early years and visited a school alongside the Duchess of Cambridge, aka Kate Middleton.

And it soon became clear that despite his concerns about Northern Ireland, Biden was ready to play good cop -- gifting Johnson, who is a keen cyclist, a custom-built bike painted red, white and blue.

The President appeared genial and mollifying, telling Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab that given his own experience of losing his first wife and child in a road accident, he empathized with the family of Harry Dunn, the British teenager killed after being struck by a car driven by Anne Sacoolas, wife of a US diplomat who fled to the States claiming diplomatic immunity. The two sides agreed to explore the prospect of a virtual trial which would allow her to remain in the US while providing the Dunn family a form of resolution.

Soon after becoming President, Biden declared: "America is back. Diplomacy is back." For all that Johnson has said he is not a fan of the term, it seems the "special relationship" between the UK and US is back as well.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
×