One hour: this is the time it took Downing Street, Saturday, November 7, to publish its message of congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and his vice-president Kamala Harris. “The United States is our most important ally and I look forward to working together on our common priorities, from climate change to trade and security,” hailed Conservative Boris Johnson.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Prime Minister, Micheal Martin, the Irish leader and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister have certainly reacted more quickly. But Boris Johnson was faster than other Europeans – Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, the Presidents of the Council and of the Commission. And from Sunday, November 8, he insisted, telling the Associated Press, about the American Democrat, that there was “Many more things that unite us than things that divide us”.
“No special relationship”
This eagerness reflects a certain excitement at the head of the British government. Because Boris Johnson, the ” best friend ” of Donald Trump, finds himself in an embarrassing position, of isolation unprecedented in Western countries. Joe biden “Is one of the rare leaders whom I have not insulted” he joked during a meeting in Downing Street on Friday November 6, according to the Sunday Times. The joke should not have made people laugh around him: Mr. Johnson, who was still betting a few weeks ago on the re-election of Donald Trump, has never met Joe Biden and his teams are now scrambling to create links with the Democrats across the Atlantic.
However, the task could prove delicate: Joe Biden and his entourage – including many former advisers to Barack Obama -, consider the British leader as a mini-Trump and Brexit as a historic mistake. Didn’t Joe Biden himself call the Briton “Physical and emotional clone” of its predecessor? The former vice president of Barack Obama has not forgotten the remark dropped by Boris Johnson, in the columns of the Sun, in 2016, who had pointed the‘Half-Kenyan heritage’ of Mr. Obama supposed to explain his supposed “Anti-British sentiment”. “We will never forget your racist comments about Obama and your slavish devotion to Trump,” Tommy Vietor, a former Obama spokesperson, tweeted on Saturday.
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