The “democratic, legal and social” values that underpin the so-called “special relationship” between the UK and the US were highlighted by Britain’s King Charles during an address to Congress on Tuesday. But his visit comes as this relationship is under a strain unprecedented in recent years. At best, the king is engaged in a job of damage limitation.
It is only the second time that a member of the British royal family has addressed Congress – Queen Elizabeth did so in 1991. It is an attempt by the UK government to improve relations, though these look broken, at least for as long as Donald Trump is in the White House.
The king may have cited the shared legal structures that bind the two countries together, but there is a certain irony here in that the basis for President Trump’s latest broadside against Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, was his failure to participate in an illegal war. Starmer rightly refused to join Trump’s ill-advised attack on Iran.
Trump has made some emollient statements during the visit, perhaps enough to ensure that tensions between London and Washington will ease in the short term. But any détente is unlikely to last. In all probability, the UK government – along with the EU – will continue to face a relentless propaganda war from across the Atlantic, laced with regular threats of reprisals for alleged wrongs inflicted on the US.
RM Block
Brexit – in the eyes of its proponents – was supposed to cement Britain’s place on the global stage through an emerging Anglosphere, with the UK and the US at the centre. Ironically the election of Trump in 2016 hardened Brexiteers’ hopes that this would become a reality. Yet the US president’s policies have only served to undermine the fiction that Brexit would restore the UK’s position as a superpower.
Trump may see the royal visit as an affirmation of his importance, but it will do nothing to temper his isolationist policies. Like other European capitals, London is struggling to deal with the fallout and to navigate its wider relationships in a changed world.
