It was a carefully staged display of high-power theater—or, more accurately, middle-power, high-power theater.
“You are now connected to Air Force One,” a White House operator said as Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain hunched over a speakerphone, in a short video released Saturday by 10 Downing Street.
“Mr. Prime Minister, congratulations,” said President Biden, who flew to Wisconsin for a campaign rally. “What a great victory!”
The two leaders spoke warmly about the importance of the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States, their shared commitment to defend Ukraine and an upcoming meeting: Mr. Starmer leaves for Washington on Tuesday, where Mr. Biden will host a NATO meeting. meeting.
Since Barack Obama’s first term, the White House and Downing Street have not been in the hands of center-left parties. After years of tensions over Brexit, Northern Ireland and frustrated British hopes for a trade deal, this could herald a new era of harmony in the transatlantic relationship.
It could also be a short era. The US elections could, within four months, restore the presidency of Donald J. Trump, who managed to maintain difficult relations with a right-wing British leader, Prime Minister Theresa May, let alone a left-of-center one.
Managing Britain’s relationship with one of its closest allies at a time of acute uncertainty will be a delicate challenge for Mr Starmer, according to diplomats and analysts. He faces a Democratic president who is on the defensive, even within his own party, and the specter of a Republican replacement who would disagree with him on key issues from Ukraine to climate change.
The Labor Party’s landslide victory would normally be welcome news for Mr Biden. British voters have a habit of predicting political changes in the United States, whether it was the election of Margaret Thatcher a year before that of Ronald Reagan, or the 2016 Brexit vote five months before Trump’s election.
But Starmer’s victory came with caveats, not least the strong showing of a defiant, anti-immigrant Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, a vocal Trump ally. And Mr. Biden has his own problems, which have to do with actuarial tables rather than political cycles.
“For this administration, it’s all about hedging against who’s going to be the Democratic nominee, hedging against whether Donald Trump will be elected, hedging against American policy regardless of who gets elected,” he said. Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and US program at Chatham House, the UK research institution.
Mr Starmer, she said, will even have to assess issues such as how to respond to the results of the US election, especially if they are close and do not go in Mr Trump’s favour. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel congratulated Mr. Biden on his 2020 victory — a result that Mr. Trump continues to dispute without evidence — Mr. Trump reacted angrily and harbored a grudge against Mr. Netanyahu.
Given such scenarios, diplomats prefer to focus on what Mr Starmer could achieve with Mr Biden over the next six and a half months. The two agree on issues such as military aid to Ukraine, aggressive government action to combat climate change and closer ties between Britain and the European Union.
The latter could really change the tone, analysts said, as transatlantic tensions over Brexit predate the Brexit referendum. Mr Obama famously warned Britain that they would be “at the back of the line” for a trade deal if they voted to leave the European Union.
“The political relationship has been tense since Britain’s decision to leave the EU, not least because of the risk that Brexit posed to the smooth implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland,” said David Manning , Britain’s last ambassador to Washington under Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Good Friday Agreement was the 1998 agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
“This is the chance for a new start,” he said.
Mr Starmer will be accompanied to Washington by his foreign secretary, David Lammy, who has close ties to Mr Obama through Harvard Law School, where they both attended. He and his boss do not hold out great hopes for a trade deal, given the Biden administration’s lack of interest in such deals.
But Mr Starmer could defuse lingering tensions over Northern Ireland, which has been caught in the often hostile negotiations with Brussels over the terms of Britain’s departure from the EU.
That issue alarmed Mr. Biden, who proudly celebrates his Irish heritage. He regularly warned previous British governments against taking actions that would jeopardize the Good Friday Agreement.
On his first visit to Belfast since becoming prime minister on Monday, Mr Starmer described Labour’s victory as a reset for Northern Ireland and promised a “respectful and collaborative” relationship.
Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party, said the difference in dealing with Labor and Conservative governments was “daylight and dark”.
Even under Starmer’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak, tensions over Northern Ireland had eased somewhat. Mr Sunak struck a deal with the European Union last year on trade arrangements for the North.
Analysts said a bigger source of tension could arise over issues such as commercial ties with China, where the Biden administration has pushed Britain and other allies to take a more combative approach.
“Britain needs economic growth,” Ms Vinjamuri said. “Choosing between the US and China is not a good position for Britain.”
If Mr. Trump is elected for a second term, analysts say, he would not care about Northern Ireland but would be put off by Mr. Starmer’s efforts to get closer to Europe. To the extent that Mr Trump had a warm relationship with any prime minister, it was with Boris Johnson, who clashed happily with the European Union and bore a passing resemblance to the president’s own populism.
That is not to say that British and American leaders from opposing parties cannot work together. After all, Obama issued his Brexit warning at the behest of David Cameron, a conservative prime minister who called the referendum but campaigned against leaving the European Union. And Mr. Blair famously supported George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, even relying on Mr. Bush to consult with other leaders on his behalf.
“Bush found it helpful to be able to take temperatures with Blair,” Manning said. “It is difficult to imagine that Trump would want such a relationship, but much depends on how he would approach America’s traditional transatlantic partners.”
