tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/special-relationship-35362/articlesSpecial relationship – The Conversation2023-08-15T12:54:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2115332023-08-15T12:54:43Z2023-08-15T12:54:43ZRed, White & Royal Blue review – this queer romcom puts a new spin on the US and UK’s ‘special relationship’<p><em>Warning: contains spoilers for Red, White & Royal Blue.</em></p>
<p>Global interest in the British royals has increased in recent years, thanks, in part, to the prominent romance between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. So, it is perhaps not surprising that Amazon Prime’s new <a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-romances-have-always-been-fantasies-of-transformation-how-does-new-generation-teen-fiction-reflect-queer-and-diverse-desires-211196">queer romantic comedy</a>, Red, White & Royal Blue, has taken social media by storm. </p>
<p>The feature-length romcom follows Alex Claremont-Diaz, son of the first female US president (played by Uma Thurman), and Prince Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, who is fourth in line to the British throne, as they fall in love. Based on <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/casey-mcquiston/red-white-royal-blue/9781035028504">the 2019 novel</a> by <a href="https://www.caseymcquiston.com">Casey McQuiston</a>, the film follows the <a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Enemies_to_Lovers">enemies-to-lovers</a> trope, and starts off by showing off the protagonists’ dislike for each other.</p>
<p>After an antagonistic encounter at the wedding of Prince Henry’s brother that results in the destruction of a £75,000 cake, the pair are brought together by their respective governments in the name of damage limitation. Their shenanigans are considered a risk to the intense trade deal negotiations that are going on between the US and UK.</p>
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<h2>A ‘special relationship’</h2>
<p>Once forced to spend time together, they fall in love. Henry (played by Nicholas Galitzine) and Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez) try to make their budding romance work over long distance and amid pressure to keep their relationship a secret. Cultural differences and stereotypes between the Englishman and American are at the heart of the film’s humour, and play a significant role in the development of their relationship. </p>
<p>In line with national stereotypes, American Alex is outgoing and confident, while Prince Henry is quieter and emotionally repressed. During their enforced media tour, Henry states that “Alex has very strong opinions, and he shares them loudly”. Once they fall in love, Alex recalls how Prince Henry “grabbed my hair in a way that made me understand the difference between rugby and football”.</p>
<p>The film is the most recent iteration in <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-love-across-the-atlantic.html">a long tradition</a> of romances that negotiate the “special relationship” between the UK and US. </p>
<p>Coined by Winston Churchill in 1946, this refers to the close economic, political and military ties between the two nations. The treatment of personal US-UK relationships in popular culture is symbolic of the wider political foibles, tensions and connections between the two countries – as quips about Brexit in Red White & Royal Blue demonstrate.</p>
<p>Generally, these romantic depictions are heterosexual, as seen in Notting Hill (1999), Serendipity (2001) and The Holiday (2006), for example. The focus on a queer relationship here is thus a welcome addition to the romantic US-UK canon.</p>
<p>Their different approaches to politics and public life is what temporarily breaks up the young couple. Both worry about the political impact of their coming out. Alex is concerned about a negative effect on his mother’s chance for re-election – a bisexual son potentially scaring away conservative voters in key swing states. Henry is painfully aware of his role as prince and “belonging” to the British public, who may not be able to consolidate the tradition of the monarchy with the image of a gay royal. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A clip from Red, White & Royal Blue.</span></figcaption>
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<p>That each sees his role so differently emphasises the contrasting systems of government of the countries in which they grew up. While Alex is dedicated to politics beyond his position as First Son (he’s ambitious and keen to work on the ground to make a difference), Henry is both imprisoned by his involuntary public position and disillusioned by the role of the British monarchy. He wonders “if what we do has any meaningful impact on people’s lives”. </p>
<p>As Alex voluntarily seeks an enduring, more prominent role in public life, Henry worries about the reception his sexuality will get in the UK. He fears further intrusion in his life as a result of Alex’s political ambitions.</p>
<p>The film’s ending resolves these tensions. The monarchy is portrayed as an outdated and homophobic institution. The king (Stephen Fry) suggests the nation won’t accept a gay prince – only to be proved wrong a minute later, as crowds gather outside Buckingham Palace waving pride flags and offering support for Prince Henry. Across the Atlantic, Claremont wins re-election by flipping Texas. </p>
<p>As a modern, queer exploration of the “special relationship”, the film encourages audiences to reflect on what unites and divides both countries, from politics to personal relationships. At a time when both sides of the Atlantic see <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/30/lgbtq-civil-rights-us-united-nations">legislative</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038026120934684">discursive</a> challenges to LGBTQ+ rights, the film may not provide a systematic critique of queer repression, but it does offer a welcome dose of charming (if perhaps over-optimistic) political escapism.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathalie Weidhase does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cultural differences and stereotypes between the Englishman and American are at the heart of the film’s humour and play a significant role in the development of their relationship.Nathalie Weidhase, Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055902023-05-15T11:47:04Z2023-05-15T11:47:04ZThe Diplomat: Netflix show suggests the US-UK special relationship needs some TLC<p>Netflix’s new political drama, The Diplomat, is focused on the trials and tribulations of Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), a new American ambassador to Britain. It begins with a deadly attack on a British aircraft carrier and then follows the twists and turns of a joint US and UK attempt to find the culprits.</p>
<p>Ambassador Wyler is an experienced diplomat frustrated by the unwanted interventions of her high profile husband (Rufus Sewell). Wyler is a capable crisis manager irritated by the ceremonial demands of the role but earmarked for great things by the White House (she has been identified as a future vice president).</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Netflix’s The Diplomat.</span></figcaption>
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<p>It is entertaining stuff and clearly owes much to its highly successful predecessor in dissecting US politics, The West Wing (1999).</p>
<p>The Diplomat also tells the familiar story of the much celebrated “special relationship” between the US and UK. It engagingly critiques, laments and celebrates contemporary US-UK relations.</p>
<p>The show suggests that if the special relationship is to survive into a world turned topsy turvy by Brexit (explicitly named), Trump (hinted at) and war in Europe (repeatedly referred to) it demands a little TLC.</p>
<h2>The history of the special relationship</h2>
<p>The idea of the “<a href="https://uk.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/policy-history/special-relationship-anniversary-1946-2016/">special relationship</a>” was popularised by Winston Churchill in a speech he gave at Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946 that bequeathed two evocative phrases. </p>
<p>One was “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iron-Curtain#:%7E:text=Iron%20Curtain%2C%20the%20political%2C%20military,West%20and%20other%20noncommunist%20areas.">Iron Curtain</a>”, deployed to describe the hardening of tensions between east and west. The other, a rallying cry intended to consolidate the Anglo-American bond forged in war, was that “special relationship”.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525864/original/file-20230512-15-4sjmk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white portrait of Churchill" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525864/original/file-20230512-15-4sjmk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525864/original/file-20230512-15-4sjmk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525864/original/file-20230512-15-4sjmk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525864/original/file-20230512-15-4sjmk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525864/original/file-20230512-15-4sjmk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525864/original/file-20230512-15-4sjmk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525864/original/file-20230512-15-4sjmk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Churchill was the child of an Anglo-American love match.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Winston_Churchill.jpg">Library and Archives Canada</a></span>
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<p>For various reasons, Churchill’s phrase quickly entered the lexicon of diplomatic discourse. One reason was its author, a skilful orator whose words always drew press attention. But another was that Churchill had described something – the idea of a special connection between the US and UK – that had long been the subject of sustained cultural attention. </p>
<p>Take, for instance, how the Anglo-American alliance <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s42738-020-00053-y">had been depicted</a> in films like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZSdSntd4ZI">A Yank in the RAF</a> (1941), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbjVrazpjzU">The Way to the Stars</a> (1945) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfpcsk_rUa8">I Live at Grosvenor Square</a> (1945).</p>
<p>All these films celebrated special Anglo-American connections often – like Churchill – with a nod towards shared language, values and history. And crucially, given a key feature of The Diplomat, many also did so via a specific narrative ploy: a transatlantic love tryst.</p>
<p>It is a revealing metaphor and in it the gendered assumptions shaping the 1940s US-UK alliance are powerfully exposed. This was a relationship, these films suggest, sustained by love and romance just as much as by trade or treaties – an idea that Churchill, himself the product of <a href="https://winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child/lord-and-lady-randolph-churchill/">an Anglo-American love match</a>, understood very well.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Love Actually’s ‘special relationship’ scene.</span></figcaption>
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<p>While this was a ploy with a deep history (traceable to the writings of 19th century <a href="https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/julyaugust/feature/henry-james-and-the-american-idea">authors such as Henry James</a>), it was in wartime and, later, post-war popular culture that it secured new visibility. </p>
<p>By the 1990s the trope was a staple, with transatlantic romances featuring in everything from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t3Xv70vkY8">A Matter of Life and Death</a> (1946), to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SNJR4eJ36o">D-Day: Sixth of June</a> (1956), to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFC_5n08a-0">The War Lover</a> (1962), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWnUizew7io">Yanks</a> (1979) and the popular television series about the second world war American presence in Britain, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClwW0n05av4">We’ll Meet Again</a> (1982).</p>
<p>Still more recently, it has featured in a host of transatlantic rom coms, from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RI0QvaGoiI">Notting Hill</a> (1996) to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Z3_ifFheQ">Love Actually</a> (2003) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk9caHO3pW0">The Holiday</a> (2006).</p>
<h2>Unrequited love?</h2>
<p>In its love triangle between the US ambassador, her husband and the British foreign secretary (David Gyasi), The Diplomat deploys this same metaphor in order to critique the special relationship.</p>
<p>The drama underscores that close ties remain between the nations. It’s apparent in their intelligence sharing, the speed with which the US president offers his support to the British prime minister, the easy familiarity between the two nation’s principal players and – most obviously – in the burgeoning romance between the US ambassador and the British foreign secretary.</p>
<p>But there is also a clear sense that the two nations have become estranged. </p>
<p>Does London really have Washington’s full support? Does Brexit Britain retain its strategic significance to the US? And of course, sublimating it all, is the most important question of all: is the foreign secretary’s love for the ambassador unrequited? Does she feel for him what he feels for her? </p>
<p>If she does, then perhaps this is the very sort of TLC that might restore and rejuvenate the special relationship. After all, to thrive and prosper, any good relationship needs a little romance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Edwards has previously received funding from the ESRC and the US-UK Fulbright Commission. Sam is a Trustee of The American Library (Norwich) and Sulgrave Manor.</span></em></p>The Diplomat suggests that if the ‘special relationship’ is to survive into a world turned topsy turvy by Brexit, Trump and war in Europe, it demands a little TLC.Sam Edwards, Reader in Modern Political History, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1683422021-09-27T13:17:02Z2021-09-27T13:17:02ZGlobal Britain is becoming a stooge of the US<p>The scenes as American and British troops withdrew from Afghanistan were heartbreaking. People desperate to leave the country they love, offering up their children for transportation to a more peaceful country, being crushed to death for a chance at freedom. </p>
<p>Those horrific scenes were also visual confirmation of Britain’s waning influence in the world, despite hoping to become <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/john-bew-global-britain-uk-eu/">“Global Britain”</a> in the wake of Brexit. Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative member of parliament and chair of the foreign affairs select committee, described the departure from Afghanistan as “the biggest <a href="https://twitter.com/tomtugendhat/status/1427204680900349952?lang=en">foreign policy disaster</a> since Suez”. </p>
<p>The 1956 Suez crisis – which ended with the US pressuring the British and French to end their invasion of Egypt – was a turning point in British foreign policy. It held up a mirror to the British political establishment, showing the public very clearly how Britain’s overseas influence <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/14/past.education1">had declined</a>. </p>
<p>The Leave campaign pitched post-EU Britain as an outward-looking world leader, fighting for the ideals the UK holds dear. But when push came to shove in Afghanistan, here were the British, again following the US’s lead. </p>
<p>In his first official <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/21/joe-biden-boris-johnson-relationship-513496">private meeting</a> with US president Joe Biden since Biden took office, Boris Johnson was keen to leverage the “special relationship” to build Britain’s international status and cement its position as the ally of choice for the US. But a closer look at the status of this relationship suggests the UK has, instead of taking a step towards becoming “Global Britain”, traded its leading role in the EU for a subordinate one in the shadow of the US.</p>
<p>The “special relationship’” is built on military cooperation and the sharing of intelligence and the complementary elements of the US and UK intelligence services allow valuable information to travel in both directions. Any problems or issues within the relationship, such as the repercussions of the tragic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/22/harry-dunn-death-timeline-key-events-anne-sacoolas">death of Harry Dunn</a> after being hit by a vehicle driven by the wife of a US intelligence officer, are quickly compartmentalised and largely forgotten about to maintain the working practices of the two partners. </p>
<p>By 2016, with the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, many observers of British foreign policy recognised that the heady days of the Thatcher-Reagan or Blair-Bush partnerships were gone. In the short term, Britain’s priorities were the Brexit negotiations and to build a relationship with Trump, beginning with a state visit to the UK. While the relationship between Theresa May and Trump may not have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/13/special-relationship-trump-and-mays-is-almost-pathological-john-crace">been perfect</a> (nor the relationship between <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/politics/boris-johnson-donald-trump-relationship-b1721070.html">Johnson and Trump</a>) it did at least keep the train on the tracks as far as the relationship was concerned. </p>
<p>The election of Biden, the Obama-era vice president and a Democrat, promised someone perhaps more level-headed than Trump. Still, there were concerns over Biden’s – an Irish-American Catholic’s – views on Northern Ireland and the Brexit negotiations, compounded by some objectionable comments Johnson <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54863576">made about Obama</a> when Biden was vice president.</p>
<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<p>So far, we have seen very little of that “specialness” between Biden and Johnson, but tensions and complaints over Afghanistan were eased with two recent initiatives. </p>
<p>The first was AUKUS, the deal between the <a href="https://theconversation.com/aukus-is-an-arms-race-with-china-the-price-of-global-britain-168107">US, UK and Australia</a> to provide nuclear submarines for use in the Pacific region. </p>
<p>Beyond its immediate financial benefits for the UK, this deal builds a stronger relationship with Australia, where Britain is very keen to sign a trade deal, and it demonstrates some closeness between the UK and the US. Being able to “get one over” on the French is, for some, just <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/21/aukus-row-european-union-demands-apology-from-australia-over-frances-treatment-before-trade-talks">an added benefit</a>. </p>
<p>The second was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/20/us-travel-ban-lifted-uk-eu-flights-allowed-vaccinated-latest-covid-restrictions">easing of travel restrictions</a> between the US and the UK (and large parts of the EU). This was something the UK and EU had been working on and the success was counted, in both London and Brussels, as a sign of improving relations with Washington.</p>
<p>However, the UK government would be foolish to believe their own hype. The “special relationship” is far more special in London than it is in Washington and the election of Biden will not change that. While a post-Brexit Britain needs the US more than ever, the US needs the UK considerably less, and benefits come with costs. </p>
<p>After his meeting with Biden, Johnson claimed he <a href="https://twitter.com/bbcjlandale/status/1440690141459222544">hadn’t been asked</a> about Northern Ireland and the issue of Brexit. The White House transcripts disagreed, demonstrating that the US are unafraid to demand action and the UK can do very little to frustrate them. While Johnson may be able to ignore Biden’s demands in private, he will be far less able if they ever become loudly public.</p>
<p>The US has always been able to shout “jump” and the UK ask “how high?” but the public humiliation which goes with that does not fit well with the post-Brexit rhetoric of a strong, “global” Britain. Voters may well hold the Johnson government responsible for any perceived decline they see in the UK’s global influence.</p>
<p>As happened in Suez, the UK has been reminded that it is an – but not the only – important country internationally. It isn’t in the big leagues, and therefore it will need to ensure it remains allied to a much bigger player if it wants to see its influence bear fruit. </p>
<p>That could have been the EU perhaps, or even the UN security council or Nato. But as Britain has done before, it has looked to the US – an example, perhaps, of what French foreign minister Clement Beaune described as Britain’s <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/france-accuses-britain-of-retreating-to-americas-lap-with-new-us-australia-submarine-deal-1206610">“accepted vassalisation”</a>.</p>
<p>Britain in the 1950s was wedded to the US, acting as a partner rather than leading the charge. Now, while the UK continues to support the US, the influence it has seems negligible. While it may bring comfort to the UK to feel it is a partner to a superpower, being its stooge or subordinate is an unpleasant place to be, no matter how much you tell yourself it values your opinion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Honeyman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The image of a post-Brexit Britain with a strong international presence is being lost to the so-called special relationship.Victoria Honeyman, Associate Professor of British Politics, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1622782021-06-07T11:57:16Z2021-06-07T11:57:16ZG7 summit: what to expect from Boris Johnson as Joe Biden visits the UK<p>Joe Biden’s first trip to the UK as US President this week is bound to produce hundreds of hot takes on the state of the so-called special relationship, most looking for signs either of its continuing strength or its more or less imminent demise.</p>
<p>Runes will be read, words parsed, and body-language interpreted in the hope of answering two perennial questions: does this new administration in Washington value the UK as much as its predecessors valued it? And does it value the UK more than it values any other country?</p>
<p>Sad but true – and should you doubt it, just cast your mind back to late January and the evident (some would say pathetic) satisfaction occasioned in the pages of Britain’s Conservative-supporting press by the news that Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and not German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/23/boris-johnson-first-european-leader-get-call-joe-biden/">the first leader outside North America to get a phone call from Joe</a>.</p>
<p>But if those questions are perennial they will also be seen as all the more burning this time around.</p>
<p>For one thing, there’s Donald Trump. Although Boris Johnson eventually did his best not to appear too pally with him, the PM couldn’t help but be seen as something of an ally of the 45th President – even, perhaps a populist kindred spirit. </p>
<p>Then there’s Brexit and, in particular, concerns that the UK is <a href="https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-politics-of-the-northern-ireland-protocol/">playing fast and loose</a> with arrangements for the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Sticking to the agreed plan is regarded in the US as crucial to the maintenance of the Good Friday Agreement that guarantees peace on the island. The new president is proudly Irish-American and takes the US role as custodian of the peace deal very seriously. </p>
<h2>Post-Brexit trade</h2>
<p>But another Brexit-related anxiety will be bothering Johnson just as much. The prospect (or otherwise) of a free trade deal with Washington is always on his mind. After all, a key element of the Brexit promise was <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5684939/Daniel-Hannan-MEP-says-staying-EU-customs-union-Brexit-pointless-harmful.html">freeing British governments to strike free trade deals with other countries</a>. And, surely, no country offers a bigger and better prize in this respect than the world’s richest state, the US?</p>
<p>Possibly, but before anyone gets too excited it is worth noting that the UK government’s most optimistic estimate is that such a deal would increase its own GDP by <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/869592/UK_US_FTA_negotiations.pdf">just 0.36%</a>. That’s non-trivial, perhaps, but (like <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1442003/Liz-Truss-UK-Australia-trade-deal-latest-update-UK-firms-bonus-Brexit-trade">the apparently imminent FTA with Australia</a> or <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57347874">the deal just reached with Norway, Iceland and mighty Lichtenstein</a>) hardly a triumph unless, heaven forfend, Brexit is as much about symbols than substance.</p>
<p>It may of course be that the UK’s plan to join the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57327372">Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)</a> might mitigate any failure to negotiate a bilateral deal between London and Washington, especially if the latter were eventually to join it too. Unfortunately, however, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/control-risks-on-biden-administration-rejoining-tpp-trade-deal.html">“eventually” looks like a fairly long time away right now</a>.</p>
<h2>Resetting international relations</h2>
<p>Still, if progress stalls on a US-UK FTA, the Johnson government can always take refuge in its defence and intelligence cooperation with the US. That’s especially true now that it is dealing with a president who is, to say the least, <a href="https://time.com/6053298/putin-biden-summit/">rather more sceptical about his Russian counterpart</a> than his predecessor. </p>
<p>Biden also appears, however, to be prepared to continue Trump’s tough stance on China, albeit couched in much less inflammatory language. This is something that will suit a Conservative Party which has come a long way from the days when the far-from-sinosceptic David Cameron was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-34608754">taking China’s President Xi Jinping down the pub for a pint</a>.</p>
<p>The meeting of minds on that issue may well explain how heavily the UK government’s recently published <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/global-britain-in-a-competitive-age-the-integrated-review-of-security-defence-development-and-foreign-policy">integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy</a> was spun as ushering in an <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2021-04/uk-sets-its-sights-eastward">“Indo-Pacific tilt”</a>. </p>
<p>Once again, however, if we look past the symbolism to the substance, it is obvious that the review, in addition to emphasising that “the US-UK partnership underpins our security and saves lives”, continues to see Britain’s main contribution to western defence as covering what it calls “the Euro-Atlantic area” and supporting Washington’s long-running campaign to get other NATO allies to up their military spending.</p>
<p>There are also less familiar points of communality that the UK will be keen to leverage. The most obvious among these is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-57368247">multinational tax reform</a> and (even if activists worry that politicians tend to will the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/26/britain-net-zero-targets-environmental-issues">ends but not the means</a>) the collective fight against climate change.</p>
<p>Whether any of this will be enough to persuade sceptical Democrats that Johnson is anything other than a “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-ally-warns-the-us-has-significant-concerns-about-brexit-2020-11">shapeshifting creep</a>”, as one of them none-too-diplomatically put it just after they’d won the White House, is a moot point.</p>
<p>What we can say with rather more certainty, however, is that Johnson, who’s borrowed liberally from the film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-YK3JJCIU">Love Actually</a> before, will be even less inclined than any of his predecessors to <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/5042500/hugh-grants-love-actually-prime-ministers-speech-who-plays-us-president/">do a Hugh Grant</a> and tell the US president that “the country of Shakespeare, Churchill, The Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter, David Beckham’s right foot, David Beckham’s left foot” is no longer going to do what it’s told by Washington.</p>
<p>Indeed, if anything, post Brexit, the tone will be more Notting Hill than Love Actually. Johnson is cast in the Julia Roberts role, begging America to remember that, as has long been the case when it comes to the special relationship, Britain’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAXutxWX7GI">just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.</a>”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Bale currently receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>Multiple post-Brexit pressures make the prime minister eager to please.Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1499992020-11-12T14:46:20Z2020-11-12T14:46:20ZFrom Trump to Biden: why Boris Johnson will be relieved by the end of the affair<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/make-america-great-again-35886">“Make America great again”</a> and “taking back control” shared both principles and principals.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-defends-admiring-donald-trump-leaked-comments/">“I am increasingly admiring of Donald Trump,”</a> Boris Johnson said; Trump said of Johnson: <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-49090804">“They call him ‘Britain Trump’.”</a> It followed, for Donald, that “this is the right time for Boris”.</p>
<p>The time was right in that transactions – deal making – were central to Trump’s appeal and to his practice. And with his superseding of alliances came the attraction of working directly with other self-consciously charismatic – male – leaders. Unlike most of the others, Johnson was at least elected.</p>
<p>The time was right given that both owed their position to successfully having targeted voters and concerns traditionally of their opponents. They embodied their supporters’ will against elites. Walls featured prominently, their <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46824649">building</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-boris-johnsons-conservatives-swept-to-election-victory-in-labour-heartlands-128684">breaching</a>, respectively.</p>
<p>The time was right since self-consciously charismatic leaders could, in the neologism of the day, craft their own narratives. Trump and Johnson certainly did, initially. Both were pre-eminent in the mastery of their platforms – social media and newspaper columns, respectively.</p>
<p>The time was right because obstruction in America and Britain – by <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/steve-bannon-endorsements-2018-midterms">Steve Bannon’s swamp</a>, and <a href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2020/02/06/cummings-v-the-blob">Dominic Cummings’s blob</a> – to the outcomes of 2016 served to rally their supporters in grievance against their own “deep state”, judiciary, legislature, mainstream media, and cultural establishment.</p>
<p>It was the right time because it was perhaps the first time that a president and a prime minister had served as proxies for each other. Johnson was seen as “Trumpish”; in Italy, Johnson was <a href="https://www.corriere.it/esteri/19_giugno_10/analista-conservatore-johnson-mente-sua-brexit-impossibile-d35b7c44-8b8a-11e9-89a9-d9b502b0b46e.shtml">“Trump’s little dog” </a>; in France, Johnson in Downing Street was <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/06/12/boris-johnson-a-la-tete-du-royaume-uni-non-merci_5475124_3232.html">“tantamount to installing a Trump”</a>. For Republicans Johnson’s success might <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-of-the-union/a-trump-boris-axis/">“presage a consecration of the Trump movement in America”</a>; for one Democrat, Johnson was a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/474419-biden-calls-boris-johnson-a-physical-and-emotional-clone-of-trump">“kind of a physical and emotional clone of the president”</a>. That Democrat was Joe Biden.</p>
<h2>Peas in a pod</h2>
<p>Though their differences were, if anything, greater, it was their similarities that attracted attention. Their physical attributes meant that they were a boon to caricaturists: two middle-aged white men in suits yet instantly recognisable from any angle.</p>
<p>There was the unusual public and political prominence of their families. Both were libertines, sharing a history of multiple marriages and relationships – and around five children each. Both were insiders running as outsiders; demotic sons of privilege.</p>
<p>Trump and Johnson, to an unusual extent, aroused opposition and hostility from within their own parties; indeed, never could so many colleagues have attested publicly to the unfitness for office of a candidate for president or prime minister. Neither would ever have been nominated, much less elected, by party officers. Their appeal lay with the ranks. Their party commands backed them because it was thought that they provided the best chance of winning power.</p>
<p>And in 2020, as winter became spring, both were emphatically to prove critics’ predictions that their genius was for campaigning rather than governing.</p>
<p>Trump’s effusions about a “magnificent” post-Brexit free trade deal were rhetorical and the row over <a href="https://theconversation.com/huawei-and-5g-uk-had-little-choice-but-say-yes-to-chinese-heres-why-130813">Huawei and Britain’s 5G</a> suggested that what should have been the easiest post-EU relationship had soured surprisingly quickly. When they spoke on the phone, Trump accused Johnson of betrayal and became <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a70f9506-48f1-11ea-aee2-9ddbdc86190d">“apoplectic”</a>. The call was ended abruptly. British policy was <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/huawei-uk-ban-boris-johnson-5g-network-oliver-dowden-today-a9617886.html">changed</a>.</p>
<p>Their last meeting was a year ago at the London Nato Summit. During a general election campaign. Trump’s unparalleled unpopularity in Britain ensured that other than the formal summit handshake of welcome, the pair were not seen in public together. Johnson even found ways of not referring to Trump by name.</p>
<p>That it was their last meeting was due to the pandemic, the defining event of their periods in office. Both initially made light of COVID; both eventually contracted it. But where the severity of his experience impressed on Johnson the gravity of the situation, Trump’s speedy recovery merely affirmed his view that there was nothing to fear. Politically, the virus prevailed.</p>
<p>Of all the relationships between presidents and prime ministers, that of Trump and Johnson was an inversion; a unique example of president infatuated with a prime minister. But where that was a dynamic any number of prime ministers would have craved, this was the president from whom such attention was least welcome. And it was not even as if it was offset by shared achievements.</p>
<p>Insofar as either could be said to exist as a mode of governing, Trumpism and Johnsonism were definable as expressions of will. For each, charismatic populist impulse was stronger than ideology. But as a mode of governing, it was found wanting in a pandemic. As a relationship, Trump and Johnson was unusually personal. That between Johnson and Biden will be less so – but it may be the better for it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149999/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This was always a marriage of convenience for the UK prime minister. But that doesn’t mean it will be an easy divorce.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1304902020-01-27T10:12:52Z2020-01-27T10:12:52ZAmerica has a unique 300 year old view of free trade – UK must recognise this to strike a deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311668/original/file-20200123-162185-i1kxcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Let battle commence. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/flags-great-britain-united-states-papers-1339869017">Novikov Aleksey </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With Boris Johnson <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5f820986-3d47-11ea-a01a-bae547046735">hailing parliament’s</a> vote towards Britain leaving the EU on January 31, there is a general consensus among the country’s leaders that there will be an intimate trading relationship with the US after Brexit. But whenever the question of a deal comes up in the media, there is usually much talk of stumbling blocks. </p>
<p>There is the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9c8c232e-3d07-11ea-a01a-bae547046735">war of words</a> between UK chancellor Sajid Javid and US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin over a digital tax on American companies in the UK, for instance. Or fears that the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/us-takes-aim-at-the-uks-national-health-service/">NHS will be sold off</a> to US healthcare giants. </p>
<p>Much is also written about the difficulty the UK faces in steering a course between its EU neighbours and the overwhelming political might of Washington. For example, will the UK <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/15/boris-johnson-uk-us-trade-deal-under-threat-unless-iran-stance-changes-says-trump-ally">have to abandon</a> the Iran nuclear deal to win free-trade concessions from America?</p>
<p>In light of the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-enthusiastic-about-boris-johnsons-victory-but-it-wont-be-smooth-sailing-for-the-special-relationship-128727">special relationship</a>”, you might wonder how these trade negotiations can be so testy before they are even underway. As my <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo43233186.html">recent book</a> suggests, the conflict may well lie in the historic trading relationship between the two countries. Much as Britain and America are “two nations divided by a common language”, they are also divided by their understanding of trade. To comprehend this, you have to go back to the American Revolution and beyond. </p>
<h2>Colonist knaves</h2>
<p>The misunderstandings began the moment that English government officials tried to get 17th-century colonists to pay customs duties to William III on the tobacco, alcohol and sugar they were trading. These settlers were trading with everyone from Native Americans to the French and Dutch, and were soon breaking the rules on what they owed the Crown. </p>
<p>Customs officials failed miserably to stop the settlers trading free of government regulation. The stream of letters from colonial officers to London noting a general refusal to follow the rules suggests it was widespread. The Earl of Bellomont, governor of New York until 1700, <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo43233186.html">complained that</a> America was “naturally cut out for unlawful trade”. </p>
<p>This behaviour grew exponentially in the 18th-century as Britain’s American colonies expanded. Some settlers even began to believe this was the natural way that trade functioned, arguing merchants should be free to do business without any government interference. As Philadelphia newspaper editor William Bradford <a href="https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/06/the-tombstone-edition-pennsylvania-journal-october-31-1765/">put it</a>, many thought that “trade should regulate itself”. </p>
<p>The perception of commerce in Britain was that the government had a central role as regulator and tax collector for the Crown. Colonial officials like Thomas Pownall, governor of Massachusetts Bay, <a href="http://www.masshist.org/terrafirma/pownall">insisted that</a> Americans’ dealings should be taxed to answer Britain’s “commercial interest”. Scottish economist Adam Smith might have advocated American-style free trade in his <a href="http://www.sjsu.edu/people/cynthia.rostankowski/courses/HUM2AF13/s3/Reader-Lecture-08-Adam-Smith-Wealth-of-Nations-Reading.pdf">1776 Wealth of Nations</a>, but he was very much an outlier in Britain at the time. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311669/original/file-20200123-162221-16qmkxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311669/original/file-20200123-162221-16qmkxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311669/original/file-20200123-162221-16qmkxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311669/original/file-20200123-162221-16qmkxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311669/original/file-20200123-162221-16qmkxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311669/original/file-20200123-162221-16qmkxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311669/original/file-20200123-162221-16qmkxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311669/original/file-20200123-162221-16qmkxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stamp man: George Grenville.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&authuser=0&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=760&ei=q80pXsPXCdvRgwfA5q34CQ&q=george+grenville&oq=george+grenville&gs_l=img.3..0l7j0i5i30l3.774.3485..3651...0.0..1.193.1406.14j2......0....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i131.gy5lIH-Lmyg&ved=0ahUKEwiD2YP0lZrnAhXb6OAKHUBzC58Q4dUDCAU&uact=5#imgrc=dpzaj3tHUeWHsM:">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1763, victory over France in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Seven-Years-War">Seven Years’ War</a> made Britain the supreme power in the Americas. She was free to trade profitably with its American colonies, except for <a href="https://www.yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?k=9780300164251">tax-dodging colonists</a> skimming the potential income. Poor tax revenues from colonial trade, plus a huge bill for the war in America, prompted British Prime Minister George Grenville to pass the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/parliament-enacts-the-stamp-act">Stamp Act of 1765</a>. After this new direct tax was imposed on the colonies, we know what happened. </p>
<p>Like all revolutions, America’s had many causes. <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/American-Revolutions/">Chief</a>, however, was Americans’ love of their “free” trade, which boiled down to a refusal to accept Britain’s right to profit from their entrepreneurism. By the time the US ratified its constitution in 1789, Americans had become highly protective of their right to trade, invest and deal exactly as they wished. </p>
<h2>America’s beating heart</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311667/original/file-20200123-162246-eb31p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311667/original/file-20200123-162246-eb31p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311667/original/file-20200123-162246-eb31p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311667/original/file-20200123-162246-eb31p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311667/original/file-20200123-162246-eb31p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311667/original/file-20200123-162246-eb31p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1413&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311667/original/file-20200123-162246-eb31p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311667/original/file-20200123-162246-eb31p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1413&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When Benny met Libby.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/travel-tourism-background-souvenirs-around-world-1288907035">Maglara</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Britain continued its close trading relationship with the US in the 19th century. English cotton manufacturers <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cotton/4474DAC211EB8DF76A2F2538118ADDB6">relied on slave-grown cotton</a>, for example. But such dealings were now premised on <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/fragile-fabric-union">Americans’ understanding</a> that British commercial interests could never be imposed to their detriment. If there were attempts to introduce tariffs, the cotton would be sold elsewhere.</p>
<p>Washington’s view of American interests has inevitably ebbed and flowed over the years. An alternative belief in international cooperation arguably reached a high watermark under Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1940s, albeit still with <a href="https://rooseveltinstitute.org/fdrs-comprehensive-approach-freer-trade/">strong emphasis</a> on free trade. </p>
<p>But Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-launches-reelection-campaign-saying-keep-america-great/">Make America Great Again</a> “philosophy” strongly echoes the nation’s 18th-century mindset. His trade war with the Chinese and threats to other partners such as the EU stems from the same old prioritisation of US trading freedoms. The current American threat <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9c8c232e-3d07-11ea-a01a-bae547046735">to impose tariffs</a> on British car exports in the row over the digital tax is no different. </p>
<p>Of course, the Anglo-American relationship has rarely played out in isolation to world events. Today, Britain no longer has an empire to lean on. It can’t abandon the US to build a powerbase elsewhere, like it did in <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-making-and-unmaking-of-empires-9780199226665?view=Standard&sortField=2&resultsPerPage=100&facet_narrowbyprice_facet=25to50&lang=en&cc=us">India</a> and the Caribbean after the loss of America in 1783. Nor can it rely on that mature empire as it did when America’s international might <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/conspiracy-of-free-trade/7C40548E83C12DF472E08E5368243771">expanded</a> at the end of the American civil war. </p>
<p>Boris Johnson and his allies have proposed an “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/08/empire-fantasy-fuelling-tory-divisions-on-brexit">Empire 2.0</a>” free-trade model <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/24/boris-johnson-dreams-anglosphere-european-union-empire-colonialism/">for a post-Brexit Britain</a> with open trading relationships with the former colonies. This misunderstands how trading actually worked when the UK had an empire. Free trade was an illusion, achieved by diktat by the colonial master, underpinned by heavy government intervention. </p>
<p>Boris Johnson and his negotiators are therefore mistaken on two fronts. There was no halcyon period of British free trade, and the concept means a different thing to the Americans anyway. Failure to realise this risks a trade deal that Britons find as hard to stomach as a tikka masala made with <a href="https://theconversation.com/chlorine-washed-chicken-qanda-food-safety-expert-explains-why-us-poultry-is-banned-in-the-eu-81921">chlorinated chicken</a> – if this is even avoidable. </p>
<p>The best hope is to recognise the weakness of the British 21st century negotiating position and be mindful that American tetchiness towards the former colonial power is probably never far from the surface. It will be necessary to flatter the Americans, speaking their language of free trade as well as the British version, and somehow promoting British interests without seeming to damage those of the US. With that approach, the UK may yet secure the best deal that is realistically available.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Hart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US reaction to the UK’s digital tax proposals is like 1765 all over again.Emma Hart, Senior Lecturer in American History, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1287272019-12-19T10:45:01Z2019-12-19T10:45:01ZDonald Trump enthusiastic about Boris Johnson’s victory – but it won’t be smooth sailing for the ‘special relationship’<p>Boris Johnson has taken the scale of the Conservative Party’s election victory as an emphatic mandate to leave the European Union in 2020. But what of the implications of the vote for the UK-US relationship? Despite <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1205338255832555520?s=20">enthusiastic tweets</a> from President Donald Trump, the longer-term consequences of Johnson’s 80-seat majority for the “special relationship” may point in a different direction to the short-term lessons.</p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the election, the Trump White House will be relieved that it doesn’t have to deal with Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister, a man who has spent his life railing against American imperialism and <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-world-according-to-corbyn">opposing</a> US foreign and security policies on almost all issues. For the rest of his tenure, whether re-elected or not, Trump can look forward to dealing with Johnson. </p>
<p>I have <a href="https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/ukus-relations-after-the-three-bs--blair-brown-and-bush(38ac3a61-eb90-490e-8596-1ad8cf59a94d).html">researched the US-UK relationship</a> and how it has evolved under different presidencies. Although Corbyn was looked on with more suspicion by Trump, in practice, the UK’s departure from the EU is the more seismic disruption to transatlantic relations. </p>
<p>In the short term, Trump will see positive implications in the Conservative victory for his own re-election in November 2020. The defeat of big government socialism by populist nationalism will encourage Trump in the belief that he can repeat the success of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/jul/23/they-call-him-britains-trump-trump-on-boris-johnson-video">“Britain Trump”</a>. </p>
<p>Corbyn’s defeat has also been seized upon in the Democratic leadership contest with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/13/democrats-labour-biden-bernie-sanders-warren">presidential candidate Joe Biden warning</a>: “Look what happens when the Labour Party moves so, so far to the left.” There are lessons to be drawn for both parties about the importance of embracing a leadership candidate who appears credible and popular to swing voters.</p>
<h2>Deals brewing</h2>
<p>Trump will also be pleased that Britain will be leaving the EU, which he sees mainly as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/15/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-helsinki-russia-indictments">competitor trading block</a> rather than a promoter of liberal values and rules-based international order. What weakens the EU and its progressive agenda will be welcomed by Trump. For the “America first” president, however, Brexit is <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1205368801438707713?s=20">mainly seen as an opportunity</a> to “strike a massive new trade deal” with “the potential to be far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the EU”. </p>
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<p>With the UK sending <a href="https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7851">45% of its exports</a> of goods and services to the EU in 2018 as opposed to 19% to the US, this would represent quite a change in trade policy. For such a change to occur, a “clean break Brexit” is necessary where regulatory alignment with the EU ends so <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-election-trump/trump-wades-again-into-uk-politics-tells-johnson-farage-to-unite-idUKKBN1XD0H8">that trade policy could come into line</a> with US food and manufacturing standards. This is the line that Nigel Farage and his Brexit Party <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49688420">advocate</a> to accelerate the transition to such a US trade deal. </p>
<p>The scale of Johnson’s victory, however, means that he can <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-kind-of-brexit-will-britain-now-get-done-after-boris-johnsons-thumping-election-win-128719">now choose the Brexit he wants</a>, unbeholden to the more extreme wing of his party represented by MPs from the European Research Group. Eager to hang on to the new coalition of working-class voters in the north and Midlands, Johnson may seek a Brexit deal with the EU that is less disruptive and damaging to existing trade policies than that advocated by Farage and Trump. Certainly, the extent to which any aspect of the health sector is opened up to the US market will be greatly scrutinised by the opposition and press. Under these circumstances, Trump may not get the deal he wants.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-drug-prices-rise-following-a-uk-us-trade-deal-126473">Will drug prices rise following a UK-US trade deal?</a>
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<h2>Questions of power</h2>
<p>After the UK leaves the EU, the US will also miss its main source of influence in Brussels. The US embassy in London is the largest in Europe because the UK is seen as the best way of persuading the EU to act in concert with Washington. It is through this link, for example, that the US has historically orchestrated common positions on sanctions policies and relations with Russia. With the UK out of the EU, the US will have less influence in Brussels and the UK will correspondingly be of less value to Washington. </p>
<p>Without the <a href="https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-uk-the-european-union-and-nato-brexits-unintended-consequences(85296a63-045d-457f-aae3-100a58e78f5e).html?_ga=2.212951188.1483756723.1576490553-884168932.1575893537">dissenting and cautionary voice</a> of the UK in the EU, the block will also be free to pursue greater integration on defence and security and a more independent European voice in foreign and trade policies. The bridging role that London played in persuading the EU to take a common line with Washington on arms sales to China, or sanctions on Russia will not be easily replaced.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307119/original/file-20191216-123998-176y1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307119/original/file-20191216-123998-176y1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307119/original/file-20191216-123998-176y1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307119/original/file-20191216-123998-176y1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307119/original/file-20191216-123998-176y1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307119/original/file-20191216-123998-176y1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307119/original/file-20191216-123998-176y1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The UK will need to justify its permanent seat at the UN Security Council.</span>
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<p>The role that the UK formerly played within Europe as a voice for liberal internationalism has now also been replaced with a government that is seen as a role model for populist nationalism in Europe. Rather than fulfilling a unifying role, post-Brexit Britain will add to the divisions within the west.</p>
<p>The UK’s ability to maintain its place as a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council will also be questioned once it leaves the EU. Having justified this position for the last 20 years because it represents, along with fellow permanent member France, 500 million Europeans, it will now be difficult to argue that its seat should be maintained to speak for Britain alone. </p>
<p>Trump can probably expect a more obsequious disposition from the UK towards the US as it pursues a new trading relationship with Washington. But future US administrations may come to regret the consequences of this election result and the Brexit that follows on their influence in Europe and the unity of the west in general.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Hastings Dunn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What Boris Johnson’s victory means for US-UK relations.David Hastings Dunn, Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1276512019-12-04T10:40:29Z2019-12-04T10:40:29ZDonald Trump goes to Watford: what happens when US presidents enter British elections<p>Foreign affairs rarely play a role in British elections. The exception, of course, is Europe: both Labour in <a href="http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1974/feb/1974-feb-labour-manifesto.shtml">1974</a> and the Conservatives in <a href="http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/wmatrix/ukmanifestos2015/localpdf/Conservatives.pdf">2015</a> won a narrow parliamentary majority after promising a referendum on UK membership. </p>
<p>For reasons of practicality and protocol, elections are usually scheduled to avoid summits, or the visits of foreign leaders. But nothing is normal any more and 2019’s rushed general election features the first visit of a US president to Watford, an unprepossessing commuter town north of London. Donald Trump flew into the UK on December 2 for a two-day visit to attend a meeting of NATO leaders marking the 70th anniversary of the alliance. </p>
<p>One of the many curiosities of our age is that this most <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/two-three-britons-feel-unfavourable-towards-donald-trump">unpopular</a> US president for the British should come so <a href="http://theconversation.com/donald-trump-in-the-uk-a-state-visit-offered-in-haste-and-regretted-at-leisure-118192">often</a>. Another is that Boris Johnson, a US-born, Atlanticist prime minister, earnestly <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/02/boris-johnson-have-minimal-contact-donald-trump-uk-visit-amid/">wishes</a> the leader of the free world was not in the UK. At the same time, Jeremy Corbyn, a very-far-from Atlanticist leader of the opposition, is <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/uk-election-why-jeremy-corbyn-surging-against-boris-johnson-100527">delighted</a> that he should be.</p>
<h2>Using the special relationship</h2>
<p>The Foreign Office may be the second most prestigious office of state, but in elections, foreign secretaries or their shadows from the opposition seldom find themselves much called on. Defence has had an impact though, such as in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/17/labour-party-manifesto-1983-michael-foot">1983</a> and <a href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/newspaper-advertisement-for-the-british-conservative-party-news-photo/92142235">1987</a> when Labour was portrayed as too pacifistic, and in <a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/europe/0,16641,20050509,00.html">2005</a>, when the party wished they had been so.</p>
<p>Those episodes revolved around the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/25/special-relationship-how-a-century-of-us-presidential-visits-tells-the-temperature">special relationship</a> between the US and UK – and prime ministers have not been averse to the blandishments of presidents on pre-election visits to the US, such as Harold Macmillan in <a href="https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/camp-david/macmillan.pdf">1959</a>, and David Cameron in <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/16/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-cameron-united-kingdom-joint-">2015</a>. </p>
<p>Presidents have been prepared to assist in other ways, as I’ve been examining in my research on the historical relationships <a href="https://www.baas.ac.uk/usso/review-presidents-and-premiers-workshop-newcastle-university-26-27-may-2017/">between US presidents and British premiers</a>. Ronald Reagan’s humiliation of Labour leader Neil Kinnock in <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1987/0330/akin.html">1987</a> calculatedly bolstered the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. But there has never been a presidential visit during a general election before now.</p>
<p>Part of the appeal of the Leave campaign in the EU referendum was Britain going out into the world and making more of its historic ties with what Winston Churchill called “<a href="https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-173/english-speaking-peoples/">English-speaking peoples</a>”. This overlooked the fact that every American president since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s has <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/05/11/explaining-obamas-intervention-why-an-eu-without-britain-would-be-the-worst-of-all-worlds-for-the-united-states/">wanted Britain to lead in Europe</a> because it enhanced US interests to have its closest ally at the centre of what became the world’s largest trading bloc. The exception, as ever, is President Trump.</p>
<p>The special relationship has weakened in the topsy-turvy political world since 2015 – the year Corbyn became Labour leader, Trump announced his presidential candidacy and the British parliament passed <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/36/contents/enacted">legislation</a> to hold a referendum on EU membership. In April <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/22/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-cameron-joint-press">2016</a> Barack Obama – the <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Barack_Obama">most popular</a> recent American president for the British public – visited the UK at the invitation of the prime minister, David Cameron, to assist with the increasingly panicked Remain campaign.</p>
<p>At the <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/cameron-personally-requested-obamas-back-of-the-queue-brexit-warning-11423669">personal request of Cameron</a>, Obama told the world that in the event of Brexit, Britain would be at “the back of the queue” for a trade deal. His intervention backfired, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36117907">reinforcing</a> the Leave narrative of a remote and condescending elite – and Remain never recovered.</p>
<p>Always keen to present himself in opposition to Obama, Trump has pushed his own anti-establishment narrative, which extended to condemnation of transnational institutions including NATO and the EU. In offering the promise of a free trade agreement to the UK, Trump has presented himself as a champion of self-government and so of Brexit, responsibility for which he characteristically <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/766246213079498752?lang=en">ascribed to himself</a>. </p>
<p>As if that were not a sufficient transgression of diplomatic norms, Trump also <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/800887087780294656">suggested</a> in 2016 that Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage, should be appointed British ambassador to the US. </p>
<p>More seriously, his relationship with Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, was quite unlike that of any other president and prime minister, as I’ve examined in <a href="https://www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/staff/profile/martinfarr.html#publications">forthcoming research</a>. Standing alongside May in <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-prime-minister-may-united-kingdom-joint-press-conference/">2018</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-prime-minister-may-joint-press-conference/">2019</a>, Trump embarrassed her, and breaking with any sense of protocol or propriety, also praised the person clearly positioning himself to replace her – who, shortly thereafter, did just that.</p>
<p>US presidents have attended NATO summits in the UK before – Jimmy Carter in <a href="https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-london-uk-uk-10th-may-1977-us-president-jimmy-carter-pours-water-for-73751623.html">1977</a>, George HW Bush in <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/116133.htm">1990</a>, and Obama in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-29036492">2014</a>. But Trump’s attitudes towards NATO were originally <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/10/donald-trump-britain-greatest-fear-isolationist-president">the principal source</a> of British consternation at his election. </p>
<p>It wasn’t known then that he wasn’t a man of settled policies. In three years he has moved from being NATO’s most prominent <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38635181">critic</a>, to its staunchest <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50641403">defender</a> in the face of criticism of the <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/11/07/emmanuel-macron-warns-europe-nato-is-becoming-brain-dead">alliance by the French president, Emmanuel Macron</a>. </p>
<h2>A liability for Johnson</h2>
<p>It would never have been necessary with any other president, but on this December visit Trump has done as requested – he has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50632385">observed convention</a> and said he would “stay out of the election”. Except that, insofar as he flagrantly <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-50647945/nhs-donald-trump-on-the-uk-s-national-health-service">contradicted</a> something he said the last time he was in the UK in the express interest of the prime minister, <a href="https://www.cityam.com/punters-flock-to-tories-after-donald-trumps-nhs-backdown/">he has not</a> stayed out of British politics. </p>
<p>Significantly, the impact of Trump’s visit to the UK is on a domestic policy area that is, by contrast, always central to elections: the National Health Service. In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-election-2019-a-choice-between-low-tax-individualism-or-generous-state-with-unknown-price-tag-127738">campaign characterised</a> on all sides by millions of this, billions of that, and trillions of the other, Labour has persistently claimed there will be a US-imposed increase in the NHS drugs bill of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50295231">£500m a week</a>. NHS staff <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/03/nhs-medics-reject-ideology-of-trump-in-rally-against-visit">duly joined</a> the now-traditional public protests that mark a Trump visit.</p>
<p>If Trump was ever an asset for Johnson, he’s now deemed a liability. The president sees something of himself in man he’s called “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-49090804/trump-on-johnson-they-call-him-britain-trump">Britain Trump</a>”, not least perhaps their at times disarming <a href="https://www.boredpanda.com/boris-johnson-donald-trump-comparison/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic">physical resemblance</a>. But given British public attitudes to Trump, it’s prudent for Johnson to maintain <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/01/politics/ip-forecast-why-trump-wont-meet-johnson/index.html">distance</a> during the last week of a tight election. Trump’s toxicity has the potential to poison Johnson’s hitherto effective campaign.</p>
<p>So after much speculation as to whether they would meet – itself extraordinary – Johnson and Trump <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50653296">did</a>, but, equally extraordinarily, there were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50653296">no photographs</a> of the host and his guest at that meeting at Number 10 or at a Buckingham Palace reception. The two were eventually photographed together arriving at The Grove, the venue for the NATO leaders summit in Watford. </p>
<p>By contrast, Corbyn has wanted nothing more than the chance to be photographed <a href="https://metro.co.uk/video/jeremy-corbyn-happy-meet-trump-2061254/">challenging Trump on the NHS</a> – though it emerged they did not meet at the palace. But not on NATO. On which they agree. A voter could be forgiven for being confused.</p>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKGE2019&utm_content=GEBannerA">Click here to subscribe to our newsletter if you believe this election should be all about the facts.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US president, Donald Trump, has arrived in the UK for a summit of NATO leaders – but it’s awkward timing for the British prime minister, Boris Johnson.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1182152019-06-04T15:07:37Z2019-06-04T15:07:37ZD-Day 75 years on: ‘special relationship’ forged on the beaches of France now poised to enter a new era<p>In 1944 the blimps above London were barrage balloons – in 2019 the blimp above the capital is a giant caricature of the US president, <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-in-the-uk-a-state-visit-offered-in-haste-and-regretted-at-leisure-118192">Donald Trump</a>, as a petulant baby. In 1944, British and American troops went into battle as firm allies against a common enemy while in 2019 Trump chafes against NATO and gets into a Twitter battle with the mayor of London. As the world marks the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-48478849">75th anniversary of the D-Day landings</a>, how healthy is the Anglo-American alliance that made them possible?</p>
<p>The US president certainly does not sit easily with war heroes. During his extraordinary spat with the late Senator John McCain, a Vietnam War veteran who was captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese, Trump commented sarcastically that he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/22/im-not-a-fan-trumps-grudge-against-john-mccain-continues-even-in-death">preferred his war heroes not to get captured</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps he did not realise that that would have excluded Winston Churchill – a man <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10417854/Winston-Churchill-an-all-American-hero.htmlhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10417854/Winston-Churchill-an-all-American-hero.html">even more revered</a> for his wartime role by Americans than he is in the UK. He was captured during the Boer War and became a national hero when he escaped from his PoW camp. It’s a sobering thought as Trump travels to France for the D-Day ceremony. </p>
<p>The D-Day landings have developed something of a mythology of their own, as a moment of heroic Anglo-American endeavour, sealing the wartime alliance and forging a transatlantic partnership that would see the world safely through the World War II and the Cold War that followed. </p>
<p>The truth is more complex. The fighting on the day was much harder than many people realised, at least until the appearance in 1998 of the Stephen Spielberg movie <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/movies/steven-spielberg-tom-hanks-legacy-saving-private-ryan-n1012166">Saving Private Ryan</a>, with its graphic portrayal of the fighting on Omaha beach. The fighting in the Normandy countryside in the days after D-Day similarly proved much harder and costlier than anything the allied commanders had anticipated. Recent research suggests that even the <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/d-day-why-the-training-was-deadlier-than-the-assault/">training for D-Day actually caused more casualties</a> than the invasion itself. </p>
<p>Moreover, the Allied High Command was far from the ideal of Anglo-American brotherhood the popular mythology would have us believe. The British commander, Field Marshal Viscount Bernard Montgomery, took little trouble to conceal his contempt for the American commanders, <a href="https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/george-patton-bernard-montgomery-operation-huskey/">General George S Patton</a> and especially General Dwight D Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, to whom “Monty” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/28/books/the-man-who-didn-t-like-ike.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/28/books/the-man-who-didn-t-like-ike.html">showed unforgivable insubordination</a>.</p>
<h2>Special relationship</h2>
<p>Nor was the Anglo-American political relationship as harmonious as is often supposed. Churchill and Roosevelt certainly had a good relationship and a shared loathing of Nazism – but Roosevelt was deeply suspicious of Churchill’s moves to maintain the British Empire after the war and by 1945 he was drawing away from Churchill and <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2015/0305/Roosevelt-and-Stalin-details-the-surprisingly-warm-relationship-of-an-unlikely-duo">towards Stalin</a>. His successor as president, Harry Truman, <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-records-impressions-of-stalin">put a stop to that move</a> but never enjoyed the warm relationship with Britain that Roosevelt had nurtured.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277911/original/file-20190604-69067-1hd3hs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277911/original/file-20190604-69067-1hd3hs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277911/original/file-20190604-69067-1hd3hs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277911/original/file-20190604-69067-1hd3hs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277911/original/file-20190604-69067-1hd3hs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277911/original/file-20190604-69067-1hd3hs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277911/original/file-20190604-69067-1hd3hs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Close, but no cigar: statue of Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">chrisdorney via Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, in the years after 1945 a “special relationship” did develop between Britain and the United States – even if the term was always more important in London than it ever was in Washington. Faced with the imposing might of the Soviet Union, the Western allies drew closer together after 1945, sharing the occupation of Germany and Austria and forming a series of alliances. The best known of these was – and is – NATO, which was formed in order to “contain” Soviet Communism, which each saw as a threat to western values that could spread in much the same way as a virus. </p>
<p>To this end, Britain tied its defence policy closely to the United States, depending not only on the deployment of American military weaponry and personnel, but even on American nuclear weaponry for Britain’s supposedly independent nuclear capability. In fact, Britain cannot use its nuclear weapons <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-trident-nuclear-program/">without the go-ahead from Washington</a>, so if there is a special relationship, it is certainly not one of equals.</p>
<h2>Old friends, new tensions</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, the 75th anniversary of D-Day therefore provides a moment when the political realities of today can be put aside (Theresa May must be delighted to have a day without Brexit). Thoughts can instead turn nostalgically to the events of 1944, when there was at least the appearance of parity between the two allies.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1135453891326238721"}"></div></p>
<p>It is tempting to contrast Trump’s boorish behaviour and his petulant tweet-spat with Sadiq Khan with the urbane charm and tactful diplomacy shown by Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander and himself a future Republican president. He managed to keep Patton and Montgomery from each other’s throats while also maintaining good relations with Churchill, the king, the British public and his own president – a delicate balancing act.</p>
<p>More worrying, perhaps, is the contrast between Eisenhower’s commitment to the wartime alliance – even if it meant giving precedence to Montgomery’s ultimately unsuccessful Operation Market Garden (the “Bridge Too Far” campaign at Arnhem in the Netherlands) over Patton’s proposal for an American-led drive directly into Germany. </p>
<p>Eisenhower was no sentimentalist about his allies: anglophile though he was, in 1956 he took <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6494165.pdfhttps://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/6494165.pdf">decisive action against sterling</a> to put a halt to Anthony Eden’s Suez invasion. But if allies sometimes needed to be reined in, Eisenhower also knew how to work with them in order to hold firm against a common enemy.</p>
<p>By contrast, Trump has shown impatience with his allies and enthusiasm for his opponents. Even leaving aside the claims of Russian interference with his election in 2016, Trump has given every sign of getting on better with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, than he does with European leaders. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"712969068396093440"}"></div></p>
<p>He has denounced his NATO allies for not committing to the alliance enough and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-03/trump-visit-uk-why-the-president-loves-brexit-so-much">welcomed Britain’s exit from the European Union</a>. The contrast with Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower – all of whom knew how to maintain American interests while still working with allies – could hardly be more stark.</p>
<p>So what lessons could Trump learn from D-Day? He will certainly learn its value in terms of news coverage – showing himself and his family in suitably dignified poses – but the main message will probably pass him by. D-Day’s success arose from international cooperation among allies – and its setbacks and failures arose when that cooperation weakened.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Lang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Relations between the UK and the US haven’t always been that “special”.Sean Lang, Senior Lecturer in History, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1167212019-05-08T07:51:31Z2019-05-08T07:51:31ZDonald Trump’s UK state visit: the little details that reveal the true health of the ‘special relationship’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273181/original/file-20190507-103078-154w5t6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Is he here yet?'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU1NzI4NzU4OSwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMTIzNDM1NjAxIiwiayI6InBob3RvLzEyMzQzNTYwMS9tZWRpdW0uanBnIiwibSI6MSwiZCI6InNodXR0ZXJzdG9jay1tZWRpYSJ9LCJKTzdmbnNUellzM0RuNmxBcXU3VGViZ2xRZkEiXQ%2Fshutterstock_123435601.jpg&pi=33421636&m=123435601&src=Dlt5IB-TM6niqx9ViIzM0w-1-27">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>British and American officials have yet to discuss the final programme of US president Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48020410">state visit to the UK</a>, scheduled for June 3-6. But fierce debates are already raging over the reception that America’s commander-in-chief will receive when he crosses the Atlantic.</p>
<p>Late last month, the speaker of the House of Lords, Lord Fowler, seemingly contradicted his House of Commons counterpart, John Bercow, by voicing support for a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/30/donald-trump-not-expected-address-parliament-uk-state-visit-bercow">presidential address to parliament</a>. Meanwhile, the Labour MP, David Lammy, has taken to Twitter to argue that Trump is not worthy of the <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/status/1120465288250712064">honours associated with a state visit</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1120465288250712064"}"></div></p>
<p>Besides making headlines, Trump’s upcoming trip to the UK points to a critical, but so often overlooked, feature of US presidential visits – far from being superficial displays of pomp and pageantry, these events are vital forms of contemporary diplomacy and statecraft.</p>
<p>The mediated spectacles of presidential visits – the speeches, motorcades, dinners and protests – allow the president and host nation to enact their political personae, garner support for government agendas and communicate particular norms and expectations. As the former CBS reporter and director of the US Information Agency, Edward R. Murrow, once put it, presidential travel should be treated as a “<a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKNSF">weapon</a>” to influence popular opinion and underline national policy.</p>
<p>Given their highly politicised nature, even the smallest details of presidential visits can have far-reaching consequences – as the following examples of previous presidential trips to the UK make clear.</p>
<h2>President Donald Trump (2018)</h2>
<p>The clothes of the current first lady, Melania Trump, have frequently been a <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/photos/2018/10/melania-trumps-most-controversial-fashion-choices">source of controversy and discussion</a>. But when Trump visited the UK in 2018, it was the clothing of Her Majesty the Queen that risked causing a political upset.</p>
<p>On the first day of Trump’s trip, the Queen wore a vintage, flower-shaped pin that had been presented to her by former US president <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/kgb-vip-gifts-214292">Barack Obama during a state visit in 2011</a>.</p>
<p>Although this decision may have simply been a way of marking the arrival of another US president – the pin has been unofficially named the “<a href="http://queensjewelvault.blogspot.com/2013/08/flashback-state-visit-from-united.html">American State Visit Brooch</a>” – it was interpreted by some as an attempt to embarrass Trump and quickly gained the title of “<a href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbnqz/broochgate-queen-elizabeths-fashion-fans-flames-of-trump-furor">Broochgate</a>”.</p>
<p>By electing to wear this particular item of jewellery, observers suggested, the Queen was expressing her preference for Obama and highlighting the warm friendship that the two heads of state <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/19/17586942/queen-elizabeth-brooch-warfare-trump-obama-code">had reportedly shared</a>.</p>
<h2>President Barack Obama (2011)</h2>
<p>On a sunny afternoon during President Obama’s visit to the UK in 2011, he and the then-prime minister, David Cameron, helped to host a barbecue for British and American service personnel in the garden of 10 Downing Street.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273182/original/file-20190507-103057-1or503t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273182/original/file-20190507-103057-1or503t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273182/original/file-20190507-103057-1or503t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273182/original/file-20190507-103057-1or503t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273182/original/file-20190507-103057-1or503t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273182/original/file-20190507-103057-1or503t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273182/original/file-20190507-103057-1or503t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barack Obama: likes a barbecue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU1NzI4Nzc5MiwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfNTYwNDEwNjgxIiwiayI6InBob3RvLzU2MDQxMDY4MS9tZWRpdW0uanBnIiwibSI6MSwiZCI6InNodXR0ZXJzd">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>While this occasion was widely framed in the media as a jovial event away from <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8535590/Barack-Obama-visit-special-culinary-relationship-cemented-with-burgers-and-salad.html">the pressures of politics</a>, it nevertheless represented an important opportunity to ease the tensions that had arisen over the president’s reluctance to expand <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/europe/25prexy.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=55F8CFB604023309BAB59D92C26C4692&gwt=pay">US military commitments in Libya</a>.</p>
<p>In Anglo-American society, barbecuing is frequently represented as a <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/articles/manning-the-grill-why-men-are-entranced-by-the-ritual-of-barbecuing/">distinctly “masculine” activity</a>. And, as commentators have noted, it has also become a cornerstone of American identity because of its <a href="https://www.weeklyramble.com/is-american-identity-cooked-up-on-the-grill/">multicultural origins and apparent sociability</a>.</p>
<p>The staging of a barbecue during Obama’s visit, then, may well have been viewed by planners as a way to bridge the diplomatic rift that had opened up between the president and prime minister by showcasing their common “manliness” during an event widely seen as a value-laden US icon.</p>
<h2>President John F. Kennedy (1961)</h2>
<p>It is not only during recent presidential trips to the UK that apparently mundane objects or events have taken on political significance. When visiting London with her husband in 1961, the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, is said to have found a dinner at Buckingham Palace somewhat distasteful.</p>
<p>Both the Queen’s appearance and palace decor, Mrs Kennedy informed the photographer, Cecil Beaton, had <a href="https://www.biography.com/news/kennedy-windsor-royal-family-similarities">fallen short of her expectations</a>. The first lady also later admitted that she found the Queen “pretty heavy going” and at times felt <a href="https://www.rd.com/culture/when-jackie-kennedy-met-the-queen/">“resented” by her</a>.</p>
<p>Although the extent to which Mrs Kennedy made her discomfort known at the time is unclear, her comments – which would make their way back to the Royal Family – carried an unmistakable political tone and reflected several crucial facets of the Kennedy presidency.</p>
<p>Perhaps most obviously, her remarks about the British monarch tied neatly into the Kennedy administration’s call to advance a “New Frontier” of American society that would abandon the trappings of the “Old World” and give way to an innovative, independent, republican future.</p>
<h2>Pomp and pageantry</h2>
<p>The policy implications of Trump’s state visit to the UK in June are not yet clear. What is certain, however, is that when US and British officials sit down to finalise the trip’s schedule, they will do so with specific agendas in mind and will to seek mobilise the most mundane details – from suits to seating-plans, music to make-up – in order to achieve them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ed Bryan receives funding from Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge. </span></em></p>As former director of the US Information Agency, Edward R. Murrow, once put it, presidential travel should be treated as a ‘weapon’ to influence popular opinion.Ed Bryan, PhD Candidate, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1099352019-01-16T17:37:15Z2019-01-16T17:37:15ZBrexit: An ‘escape room’ with no escape<p>Brexit is beginning to look a lot like an “escape room” with no exit.</p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/business/escape-room-small-business.html">escape room</a> is an increasingly popular adventure game that requires participants to solve a series of puzzles before they can leave the room and advance into another one with additional riddles.</p>
<p>Brexit now seems to be a riddle that can’t be solved, after U.K. <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-may-brexit-deal-hammered-in-parliament-but-be-wary-of-prospects-of-a-new-consensus-approach-109930">lawmakers voted down</a> Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to leave the European Union. This means there’s no way to “win,” yet no clear way to end the game that began with a 2016 referendum. </p>
<p>That’s bad news for the British. But based on <a href="https://directory.smeal.psu.edu/trg12">my research on international business</a>, that’s bad news for U.S. businesses and the “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/11/is-the-us-uk-special-relationship-still-special.html">special relationship</a>” between the two countries as well. </p>
<p>This decades-long relationship, based on common values and similar views on global issues, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-love-is-lost-why-its-time-to-drop-the-romance-from-the-special-relationship-72025">has been weakened</a> by <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-visit-has-thrown-the-special-relationship-into-unprecedented-turmoil-99481">President Donald Trump</a> and will deteriorate further without a post-Brexit plan.</p>
<h2>The Brexit puzzle</h2>
<p>The first escape room was relatively easy to solve, consisting of just one puzzle: leave or remain. </p>
<p>In June 2016, British citizens <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-explains-britains-brexit-shocker-61620">narrowly voted</a> to exit the union it joined in 1973, which moved the U.K. into the next room.</p>
<p>The second one was more complicated, since it required the U.K. to resolve domestic divisions over Brexit. Citizens who wished to remain – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36616028">majorities in London, Scotland and Northern Island</a> – refused to participate in the game any further, other than to <a href="https://theconversation.com/would-a-second-referendum-deliver-a-vote-to-remain-what-polling-tells-us-109157">urge fellow players</a> to return to the first room and answer that puzzle differently by holding another referendum.</p>
<p>The remaining participants, specifically the majority Conservative Party led by May, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/27/tory-divisions-the-factions-preparing-for-fall-of-theresa-mays-brexit-deal">started fighting among themselves</a> while trying to solve the puzzle of what the U.K. wanted from Brexit. </p>
<p>This room took the longest time to leave – over two years – since it required specific and lengthy negotiations on the terms of Brexit with the EU. Having reached an agreement, the prime minister <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-may-eu-brexit-deal-key-points-withdrawal-agreement-a4038526.html">stumbled out of this room</a> in November with her supporters and presented the plan to Parliament.</p>
<h2>No road map for US business</h2>
<p>That plan went down in a stunning defeat on Jan. 15 – May lost 432-202 in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/15/theresa-may-loses-brexit-deal-vote-by-majority-of-230">biggest upset in parliamentary history</a> – putting the U.K. in uncharted territory. </p>
<p>Opponents <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/16/brexit-labour-party-wants-general-election-but-2nd-referendum-likely.html">are pushing for new elections</a> or another referendum – back to the first room – while May’s own party is discussing ways for <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-vote-theresa-may-ed-davey-confidence-final-say-people-vote-a8729356.html">Parliament to take control of Brexit</a>. And the EU says the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/eu-expresses-horror-at-brexit-vote-but-refuses-to-reopen-deal">deal cannot be renegotiated</a> before the March 29 deadline.</p>
<p>Back in June 2016, before the referendum, I explained <a href="https://theconversation.com/love-it-or-leave-it-why-the-uks-brexit-vote-should-matter-to-americans-60835">why Americans should care</a> about the vote’s outcome, in part because Brexit would hurt U.S.-U.K. trade and investment.
But it is clear to me now that the impact will extend beyond business to the essence of the “special relationship” between the two countries. </p>
<p>U.S. companies <a href="https://www.pwc.co.uk/the-eu-referendum.html">still have no road map</a> for how to proceed. <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/20/news/economy/brexit-blind-uncertainty/index.html">Uncertainty reigns</a> on tariffs, <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2018/12/06/brexit-uncertainty-poses-substantial-market-impact-us-regulator">regulations</a>, whether to locate staff in the U.K. versus Europe and countless more business-related issues. </p>
<p>Business hates uncertainty. Foreign investment in the U.K. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/brexit-could-cause-serious-damage-for-foreign-investment-into-the-uk-new-study-says.html">has already dropped 19 percent</a> over the past two years as companies have been wary to invest in or expand their operations. Banks and other American companies <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-13/on-the-eve-of-brexit-u-s-banks-are-set-to-conquer-europe">seem more interested in closer ties</a> to the EU’s single market than doing business in the U.K.</p>
<p>This disinvestment is likely to accelerate following the failed vote in Parliament. Sadly, it looks like Brexit is a game without a winner or, at this point, any obvious way of quitting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terrence Guay has received funding from the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute for three prior research projects.</span></em></p>The UK’s agonizing efforts to find a path out of the European Union is beginning to look a lot like a game or riddle with no solution – and certainly no winners.Terrence Guay, Clinical Professor of International Business, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/994812018-07-13T13:47:37Z2018-07-13T13:47:37ZTrump’s visit has thrown the special relationship into unprecedented turmoil<p>One of the few conventions Donald Trump has observed as president has been to venerate <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-churchill-oval-office/index.html">Winston Churchill</a>. The intention was obvious therefore when on the evening of his arrival in the UK he was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-44815347/mays-welcome-trumps-at-blenheim-palace">feted</a> at Churchill’s birthplace, Blenheim Palace. Indeed, in the whole of his three days in Britain, the only time Trump was allocated to spend outside of a palace, a castle, or a golf course was be in a helicopter going between them – an arrangement not unlike the visit of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/18/newsid_4141000/4141126.stm">hitherto most unpopular American president</a>, George W Bush.</p>
<p>Trump arrived in the UK at an extraordinarily sensitive moment. Britain is detaching itself from one of its two geo-strategic moorings, the EU, the other being the US. The importance of that relationship sent the prime minister, Theresa May, <a href="https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/trump-hosts-first-foreign-leader-as-may-visits-white-house">flying in haste</a> (and to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-jokes-about-donald-trumps-hands-white-house/">some ridicule</a>) across the Atlantic to meet Trump as soon as he became president. She has now welcomed him in the midst of her latest, most serious, <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/how-the-world-reacted-to-theresa-mays-brexit-crisis-11431919">Brexit crisis</a> – seeking support from the “special relationship”.</p>
<p>With massive protests planned weeks in advance, the plan was to keep the visit as tight and cloistered as possible. Given the guest, there were high expectations of the unexpected. But Trump has actually exceeded them.</p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6766531/trump-may-brexit-us-deal-off/">interview with The Sun</a> on July 12, Trump said May’s Brexit policy would “probably kill” a US-UK trade deal – a key ambition of Brexiters – the problem being, typically, that “she didn’t listen to me”. He then praised her recently departed foreign secretary as likely to “make a great prime minister”. The pageantry of the palace appears to have counted for little, and Theresa May has been placed in an impossible position like no prime minister before her.</p>
<p>Evidently enjoying the chaos he had created, in their joint meeting at <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-chequers-history-the-country-palace-of-british-prime-ministers-99428">Chequers</a> Trump, by turns contradictory and incoherent, blamed “fake news” for stories of disagreement, and was at pains to state that their relationship was “very, very strong”, and that his visit was “really something”. At a joint press conference after their meeting, he clouded his original meaning: “Once the Brexit process is concluded and maybe the UK has left the EU … I don’t know what you’re gonna do, just make sure we can trade together, that’s all that matters.” To settle matters he assured the world that the special relationship was “the highest level of special”.</p>
<p>Trump’s earlier transgressions had become so well-known as to be a litany. He has retweeted <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42829555">Britain First</a>, endorsed <a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/800892125780938752?lang=en">Nigel Farage</a> for US ambassador, insulted <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/871725780535062528?lang=en">the mayor of London</a> and derided the location of America’s new <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43939442">London embassy</a>. His latest interventions are nothing less than a calculated insult to the prime minister – a humiliation. One runs out of superlatives. Nothing like this has ever happened before.</p>
<p>To add to the general air of unreality, this was the first time the itinerary of a presidential visit has been published alongside a list of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/11/donald-trump-could-meet-boris-johnson-says-us-ambassador">protests</a> one can choose from. Still, the visit has its precedents.</p>
<h2>Convention and choreography</h2>
<p>Trump is the 12th US president to visit the UK while in office. Of the two-termers, Bill Clinton came six times, George W Bush five, Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan four, Richard Nixon three, and Dwight Eisenhower two. One-termers Jimmy Carter and George Bush each came once, though John F Kennedy managed two visits in his single foreshortened term. Before Kennedy, only two presidents had visited, both after shared victories in world war: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCv_AHW0XAE">Harry Truman</a> on his way to Potsdam in August 1945, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXEDbxe07eM">Woodrow Wilson</a> on his way to the Paris Peace Conference in December 1918.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-38750419/richard-nixon-meets-harold-wilson-in-1969">Nixon’s</a> first visit in 1969 was subject to protests against Vietnam – an American war a Labour prime minister <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/sixties-britain/wilson-vietnam/">had kept Britain out of</a> (partly in consequence, Lyndon Johnson never came).
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3279179.stm">George W. Bush</a> visited in 2003 during another American war which had elicited a <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20171123122728/http:/www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/243761/2002-07-28-note-blair-to-bush-note-on-iraq.pdf">contrasting response</a> from a different Labour prime minister. </p>
<p>It’s a reflection of the orientation of the respective political cultures that it’s only ever Republican presidents who are unpopular in Britain. The worst it got for a Democrat was the awkwardness of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-38746575/bill-clinton-meets-john-major-in-1993">Clinton’s</a> visit in February 1993 – and only then because of the John Major government’s rather injudicious preference for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/12/07/critics-blast-major-on-file-search/54fb7d37-1eed-4ffa-a9fd-f62ddc831bd2/?utm_term=.f88ca3f40369">his opponent</a>.</p>
<p>What united all of these visits was convention. Even when there were Anglo-American disagreements, there was at least diplomatic language and due process. Indeed, Trump’s behaviour is a challenge to norms of diplomacy, manners, even <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44783208">grammar</a>: no previous president would have publicly described somewhere he was about to visit – much less a close ally – as “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44783208">a situation with turmoil</a>”. Such iconoclasm is of course, central to his appeal; his purpose.</p>
<p>Choreography has always been applied to add value to these visits: Reagan stayed at Windsor Castle, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOixafdiJpY">rode with the Queen</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCu7-Ka_zbY">addressed both houses of Parliament</a>, as did <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp85zRg2cwg">Obama</a> and <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?68594-1/presidential-address-british-parliament">Clinton</a> – who also <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35258180">attended a Cabinet meeting</a>. The present president is a test of any choreographer. </p>
<h2>Tearing up the rulebook</h2>
<p>When one party to a diplomatic encounter appears to delight in subverting the norms of due process, personal diplomacy assumes greater significance – but Trump’s capriciousness presents another challenge when set against May’s <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/international/370486-theresa-may-cant-get-her-points-across-before-trump-interrupts-her-in">uncommonly ordered personality</a>. Yet however fashionable it is to deny it – and however <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/trump-uk-visit-theresa-may-what-its-like_uk_5b477a1de4b022fdcc5719ff/">confused or stilted</a> Trump and May’s relationship might be – these two countries really do share a <a href="https://uk.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/policy-history/special-relationship-anniversary-1946-2016/">special relationship</a>.</p>
<p>Britain and America’s commonalities – language, commerce, defence, foreign policy, intelligence, customs, culture – mean that, as close Obama adviser <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/18/witnessing-the-obama-presidency-from-start-to-finish">Ben Rhodes</a> said this month, the UK and US <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-red-box-podcast-38sjl3sp5">never meet to negotiate</a>, because the start and end points are the same: “That makes it a unique relationship that you don’t have with any other country.”</p>
<p>This is, perhaps, the greatest challenge for the prime minister: it’s no longer clear what start or end points the US and UK share. Indeed, as Trump has demonstrated since arriving, nobody knew what her guest would say on any given subject – possibly not even the guest himself.</p>
<p>It is an axiom of diplomacy to deal with the world as it is rather as one might like it to be, and it follows that the visit of any American president needs to be a welcoming one. But protesters have more power than they may realise: Trump had already <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42657954">cancelled</a> one visit for fear of a humiliating reception, and no other president is so likely to feel slighted – even if, as a native New Yorker, Trump will be familiar with <a href="https://www.macys.com/social/parade/">personalised blimps</a>.</p>
<p>It seems an age since an American president - still living - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Y1_gmFtn8">visited the UK</a> with minimal security, and was met by thousands of members of the public, cheering and waving. In rare continuity, this president has also attracted thousands of members of the public, with their <a href="https://twitter.com/m_santana/status/1017340614202068992">hand gestures</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99481/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Efforts to keep Trump’s itinerary as tight and cloistered as possible failed to avoid a classic diplomatic calamity.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/980232018-07-03T10:28:37Z2018-07-03T10:28:37ZIndependence Day: July 4 means something very different when it’s celebrated in Britain<p>This year’s July 4 celebrations will come freighted with rather more complexity than usual, and on both sides of the Atlantic too. 2018’s commemoration of independence from British rule will take place just nine days before Donald Trump <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/donald-trump-uk-visit-melania-queen-theresa-may-nato-windsor-castle-scotland-a8426831.html">crosses the Atlantic</a> for talks with his British counterpart, Theresa May. The two will follow the annual celebration of severance with a performance of togetherness: as Independence Day makes way for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-love-is-lost-why-its-time-to-drop-the-romance-from-the-special-relationship-72025">special relationship</a>.</p>
<p>Given Trump’s remarkably poor grasp of history – this is a man who recently asked if the Canadians had <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44394156">burned down the White House</a> in 1814 – he’ll quite probably be oblivious to any such tensions between the upcoming events of July 4 and those of July 13 (the date of his visit to London). But if his advisers take a glance at the history books to think through this coincidence of timing, they might be pleasantly surprised. While many Americans unambiguously celebrate July 4 as a national event marking independence from the “mother country”, in Britain the day has long been a chance to celebrate Anglo-American ties. How can it be both?</p>
<p>It all comes down to exactly how you understand the origins and cause of the American Revolution. For many Americans, the War of Independence was a righteous conflict against a tyrannical and perfidious enemy, the narrative of independence famously celebrated in films such as <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1098149_patriot?">The Patriot</a>. In this view, the founding fathers were exceptional and exemplary Americans, leading heroic yeoman farmers in the cause of national independence from the British Empire.</p>
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<p>The problem with this idea is that it wasn’t until relatively late in the day, towards the middle of the 1770s, that colonial American leaders actually set themselves firmly on the cause of full independence. And even when they did, many still found it difficult to shed completely their identities as “Englishmen” overseas, while a significant proportion of the American population remained either loyal to the crown throughout, or tried to avoid choosing a side for as long as possible.</p>
<p>Hence why those leading the revolution were initially so keen to claim that they fought for the legitimate rights of “Englishmen”: not to be taxed without consent, the right to rule by elected representatives. Even George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and later the first president, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HFkZ5RBeuKoC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=george+washington+considered+himself+an+englishman&source=bl&ots=Lkj2A3hLTy&sig=LYYXzpiZAoWwTLGQb-x0CTiLpQg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwigrZLz1ILcAhVKJMAKHY9YCZYQ6AEwB3oECAEQXA#v=onepage&q=george%20washington%20considered%20himself%20an%20englishman&f=false">thought himself a loyal Englishman</a> until well into the 1770s.</p>
<p>In later years, such ideas faded from view. Washington was elevated to the status of American demi-god, and during the 19th century, July 4 developed its modern form and function: an assertive national ritual which celebrated American difference and distinction. Even so, the older idea that independence was originally an “English” cause lingered here and there, embedded in the much celebrated language used by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence (which suggested his schooling in certain ideals of “Anglo-Saxon” rights), in the structures of the US Constitution (including the two-house political system), and in the judicial system’s roots in English Common Law.</p>
<p>This all meant that when the US and Great Britain later developed increasingly close diplomatic connections, July 4 was ripe for re-interpretation.</p>
<h2>The best of friends</h2>
<p>The key moment came on July 4 1918, as Americans and Britons fought as allies on the Western Front. In London, various influential figures took the opportunity to revisit the history of American independence. For instance, Winston Churchill, later the most famous advocate for a “special relationship”, delighted in telling an audience of Anglo-American dignitaries that Britons were now “glad to know that an English colony declared itself independent under a German king”. As he gave this speech, government buildings across London and the British Empire proudly flew the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-stars-and-stripes-at-200-why-the-american-flag-is-uniquely-powerful-90662">Stars and Stripes</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225913/original/file-20180703-116132-cpgxw5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225913/original/file-20180703-116132-cpgxw5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225913/original/file-20180703-116132-cpgxw5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225913/original/file-20180703-116132-cpgxw5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225913/original/file-20180703-116132-cpgxw5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225913/original/file-20180703-116132-cpgxw5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225913/original/file-20180703-116132-cpgxw5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">George Washington in residence in Trafalgar Square.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_George_Washington,_Trafalgar_Square_02.JPG">Ham via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>British claims on American independence continued in the years that followed. In 1921, Lord Curzon, the foreign secretary, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/10/archives/americana-in-uk-tributes-to-us-presidents-others-are-found-on-all.html">happily proclaimed</a> Washington a “great Englishman” while dedicating a statue of the first president in Trafalgar Square. Much the same sentiment was heard a few days earlier when a gathering of politicians and diplomats opened Washington’s ancestral home in Northamptonshire, <a href="https://www.sulgravemanor.org.uk/">Sulgrave Manor</a>, as an Anglo-American shrine.</p>
<p>By the time of the bicentennial of American independence in 1976, the British political elite were well prepared to meet the challenge of celebrating July 4. In a masterstroke of political symbolism, the government gifted to the US a copy of the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/modern-america-and-magna-carta">Magna Carta</a>. The message was clear: while Jefferson’s famous text appeared to mark a moment of transatlantic severance, in actual fact it revealed the deep history of the Anglo-American bond. The Declaration of Independence stood with the document signed at Runnymede in 1215 in the pantheon of English constitutional history.</p>
<p>Will a similar claim on American independence surface in the pronouncements and performances linked to Trump’s visit to Britain this July? May will surely follow precedent and celebrate the ties of the “special relationship”; Trump will likely bluster, reciprocate, and talk about his Scottish roots. But Trump’s brand of nativism has little time or space for expansive Anglophilia, and he and May have yet to find an ideological or personal affinity of the sort enjoyed by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. This Independence Day, the special relationship may lose out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Edwards has previously received funding from the ESRC, the United States Army Military History Institute, and the US-UK Fulbright Commission. </span></em></p>The alignment of Independence Day and a presidential visit to Britain makes more sense than you might think.Sam Edwards, Senior Lecturer in History, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/898442018-01-12T13:48:59Z2018-01-12T13:48:59ZWhy labour movements in the UK and US need to build their own ‘special relationship’<p>Most people see the so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States as a compact of states and armies, of presidents and prime ministers. They leave out another “special” relationship between the two countries – between their workers, and their unions.</p>
<p>That relationship has a long history. British emigrants in the 19th century formed many early American unions. For 200 years, British and American workers have collaborated in the creation of labour parties, in the struggles of the low paid, of women, of people of all races and of trade unionists persecuted for heeding the call to organise and strike. They have exchanged fraternal delegates to their conventions. They have swapped warm words about solidarity and justice. They have also failed to live up to those words – more than once.</p>
<p>The history of labour’s special relationship has never been more relevant. British and American workers need allies to reverse the long decline of their unions and living standards. They need help to take advantage of <a href="https://theconversation.com/modern-capitalism-has-opened-a-major-new-front-for-strike-action-logistics-89616">new opportunities in logistics</a> and other industries. They both face populist, anti-union governments – and, to resist them, the new forces associated with Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders
need to work closely together. </p>
<p>Three individuals and campaigns, from the 19th century to the present, could help British and American trade unionists to think about solving those problems today.</p>
<h2>The Morgan plan</h2>
<p>Admirers of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders might not know of the Morgan Plan, a document drawn up in 1893 by a British-born machinist, Thomas Morgan. That plan was an 11-point programme directly inspired by the recent moves in Britain towards the <a href="https://www.wcml.org.uk/our-collections/protest-politics-and-campaigning-for-change/independent-labour-party-ilp/">Independent Labour Party</a>, a forerunner of today’s Labour Party. It called for the American Federation of Labor (AFL) to demand the nationalisation of key industries, much like British Labour’s old <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/09/clause-iv-of-labour-party-constitution-what-is-all-the-fuss-about-reinstating-it">Clause IV</a>. It also demanded that the AFL set up an American Labor Party. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201409/original/file-20180109-36009-84wl7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201409/original/file-20180109-36009-84wl7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201409/original/file-20180109-36009-84wl7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201409/original/file-20180109-36009-84wl7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201409/original/file-20180109-36009-84wl7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201409/original/file-20180109-36009-84wl7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201409/original/file-20180109-36009-84wl7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Samuel Gompers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21394509">Wikipedia</a></span>
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<p>If we haven’t heard of the Morgan plan, we probably recognise the means used to defeat it. Before the AFL’s 1893 convention, most affiliated unions endorsed it. Yet the federation’s president, Samuel Gompers, and his allies managed to defeat the plan and the socialists who advocated it. They did so through shrewd handling – a cosy word for manipulation – of the convention. </p>
<p>Gompers tried to dilute Morgan’s 11 planks by having the convention vote on them one by one. He then convinced enough delegates that Morgan’s programme would make enemies of the Democratic and Republican parties and mean ruin for American labour. The delegates who came pledged to support Morgan voted him down.</p>
<p>Corbynistas and Sanders supporters should not dwell on the fact that the process was rigged. They should emphasise the fact that British-American cooperation (nearly) led to an American Labor Party – in 1893! Americans who want to try that route again should learn from the Morgan plan – and its failure. Like their predecessors, they can learn from and work with their British friends.</p>
<h2>Emma Paterson</h2>
<p>Few people better sum up the potential of labour’s special relationship than Emma Paterson. Born in 1848, she became an active trade unionist before the age of 20 and served from 1872 and 1873 as secretary of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. A trip to the United States in 1873 changed her life. While there, she saw women organising their own unions, especially in female-dominated industries.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201416/original/file-20180109-36043-5b8sut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201416/original/file-20180109-36043-5b8sut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201416/original/file-20180109-36043-5b8sut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201416/original/file-20180109-36043-5b8sut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201416/original/file-20180109-36043-5b8sut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201416/original/file-20180109-36043-5b8sut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201416/original/file-20180109-36043-5b8sut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Logo of the American National Women’s Trade Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Paterson’s feminism and trade unionism came together on her return to Britain. She called for special efforts to organise women in largely female trades, and to promote that cause, helped to set up what became the <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/Wtu.htm">Women’s Protective and Provident League</a>, later renamed the Women’s Trade Union League. Paterson edited the Women’s Union Journal, spoke at countless meetings and picket lines, and was a tireless advocate of women as voters and as trade unionists until she died in 1886.</p>
<p>Transatlantic cooperation did not stop with her death. Activists in the British and American Women’s Trade Union Leagues maintained close ties well into the 20th century. Thanks to them, and to pioneers such as Emma Paterson, British women in the workforce are now more likely to be unionised than men, and American women nearly as likely. They show us what can be done when feminism combines with trade unionism -– and when British and American trade unionists learn from each other.</p>
<h2>Fight for $15</h2>
<p>They still do. In the past decade, in the same kinds of industries that Paterson singled out for special attention – low-paid, usually (but not only) made up mainly of women and people of colour – organising has begun in places where unions seldom existed before.</p>
<p>The most conspicuous example has been the American <a href="https://fightfor15.org/">Fight for $15</a>, a campaign that grew out of strikes by fast food workers in 2012. It now encompasses a range of service workers, from home carers to hotel cleaners and even casual university teachers. It has won political victories around its central claim: a US$15 minimum wage that workers could live on. New York, Seattle and Los Angeles, among other cities, have agreed to raise their minimum wage to $15 by the end of the decade.</p>
<p>Their example has spread elsewhere in the world. In the UK, the Bakers, Food, and Allied Workers’ Union has taken up the cause of fast food workers – and in <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-striking-mcdonalds-workers-are-taking-on-the-fast-food-giant-83260">September 2017</a>, McDonald’s workers went on strike for the first time since the company opened its first British store in 1974. Their action and their demands – union recognition, an end to zero hours contracts, and a £10 hourly wage – drew on earlier American struggles.</p>
<p>This is a perfect moment to revive labour’s special relationship. Against Donald Trump and Theresa May, we have the legacy of Thomas Morgan and Emma Paterson. I know which alternative I would rather choose.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author is opening a public exhibition about the shared history of the British and American labour movements with the Trades Union Congress Library. It will tour the US and UK in 2018, beginning with Manchester's Working-Class Movement Library in February.</span></em></p>Labour movements on both sides of the Atlantic have a rich history that’s worth rereading now.Steven Parfitt, University Teacher in History, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/729062017-02-20T11:29:59Z2017-02-20T11:29:59ZRanking the US’s presidents isn’t just a game for Americans<p>Of all the US’s public holidays, Presidents’ Day is perhaps the least faithfully observed. Countless sales events far outnumber parades or fireworks displays, and most Americans spend it shopping for discounted appliances or visiting car dealerships draped in red, white, and blue bunting. So, why no celebrations?</p>
<p>Well, this year there’s a different reason. Simply put, the mood is less than jubilant; mass protests, organised marches, and near-daily anti-Trump activities have been rumbling since the 45th president was inaugurated. Some have argued for a “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/not-my-presidents-day_us_589346d6e4b01a7d8e512b9f">Not My President Day</a>,” a nationwide protest against Trump to capitalise on the popular <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/president-donald-trump-wins-protests-photos-america-marches-a7409081.html">#notmypresident</a> meme.</p>
<p>But it wasn’t always this complicated. For many years, Presidents’ Day was a celebration of one president in particular, usually ranked as the “greatest”: George Washington. Held on Washington’s birthday (February 22), the holiday was officially added to the calendar in 1879 as a unique tribute, but many states also honoured Abraham Lincoln on his birthday (February 12) and contended that Lincoln was due the same esteem as Washington. Come 1951, the government considered appeals for a joint Washington-Lincoln birthday but settled instead on a holiday that recognised the office and all its officeholders, rather than the two most often revered as great presidents. </p>
<p>It never really took off. Go into a car dealership on Presidents’ Day and you won’t see glossy posters featuring <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1879648_1879646_1879696,00.html">Warren G. Harding</a>, <a href="http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/04/james-buchanan-why-is-he-considered-americas-worst-president/">James Buchanan</a>, or <a href="http://millercenter.org/president/biography/cleveland-impact-and-legacy">Grover Cleveland</a>. Lincoln and Washington remain exceptional. They are also remembered for uniting the country, even if Lincoln’s election first divided it. Advertisers tend to ignore the flops and purposely avoid presidents with lospided fanbases. Ronald Reagan remains a popular former president, but only on one side of a great partisan divide.</p>
<p>This raises a perpetually interesting question: how do we measure success and failure in presidential leadership? Do we follow our gut? Perhaps we can use Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous criteria for what constitutes <a href="http://corporate.findlaw.com/litigation-disputes/movie-day-at-the-supreme-court-or-i-know-it-when-i-see-it-a.html">obscenity</a>: “I know it when I see it.” Or perhaps – if we dare – we could ask the experts.</p>
<p>In 1948, Harvard professor, Arthur Schlesinger, Sr, introduced the “<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1741-5705.2012.03966.x/asset/j.1741-5705.2012.03966.x.pdf;jsessionid=1FF5E4998584B929D835429614E09129.f03t03?v=1&t=iza1nzov&s=cda114effc024d737a7b9e4cf41d01befb61a7b2">ranking game</a>”, a survey that asked American history and politics scholars to categorise presidents from “greats” to “failures”. He repeated the survey in 1962, and his namesake son continued the practice until 1996. Tapping into our all-too-human desire to classify and compare, surveys of presidential leadership are now produced almost annually by organisations as diverse as <a href="https://www.siena.edu/centers-institutes/siena-research-institute/social-cultural-polls/us-presidents-study">Sienna College</a>, Washington-based <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2015/02/13/measuring-obama-against-the-great-presidents/">The Brookings Institution</a>, <a href="http://europe.newsweek.com/cspan-presidential-survey-rankings-obama-557957?rm=eu">Newsweek</a>, and <a href="https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/?page=overall">C-SPAN</a>. </p>
<p>These surveys have different methodologies and varying results, but they share one thing in common: they rank presidents from an American perspective. That is, participants are affiliated with American universities, think tanks, newspapers, or scholarly associations. </p>
<p>The first survey of scholars outside the US took place in 2011 and included academics from the UK and Ireland. Organised by the US Presidency Centre (now hosted at University College London) it offered an interim assessment of Barack Obama’s presidency, and prompted UK-based scholars to conduct a follow-up survey to make a final assessment of Obama and his predecessors. Compared to a range of recent US surveys, the results are plainly comparable in some ways, and startlingly different in others.</p>
<h2>At arm’s length</h2>
<p>Barack Obama fared far better from scholars in the UK: they ranked him 7th, putting him in the same league as near-greats such as Woodrow Wilson and Harry S. Truman. The Brookings Institution, on the other hand, ranked Obama 17th – one spot behind George H. W. Bush. Obama’s high ranking in the UK survey is a sign that foreigners viewed his presidency as a greater success than Americans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157498/original/image-20170220-15894-11v9ub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157498/original/image-20170220-15894-11v9ub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157498/original/image-20170220-15894-11v9ub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157498/original/image-20170220-15894-11v9ub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157498/original/image-20170220-15894-11v9ub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157498/original/image-20170220-15894-11v9ub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157498/original/image-20170220-15894-11v9ub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Britain’s favourite.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFranklin_D._Roosevelt_and_Churchill_in_Casablanca_-_NARA_-_196748.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/National Archives and Records Administration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Likewise, UK respondents put Franklin Roosevelt atop their table. Most American surveys do include him in the pantheon of greats, but few give him the top prize. That’s probably because American conservatives often complain that Roosevelt’s New Deal programme grossly over inflated the role of government, whereas a welfare state is far less controversial in the UK.</p>
<p>These differences aside, much of the UK survey aligns with its US counterparts, particularly at the top and bottom of the table. Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt rank highest; Buchanan, Harding, <a href="http://millercenter.org/president/biography/johnson-impact-and-legacy">Andrew Johnson</a> and <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/special-reports/the-worst-presidents/articles/2014/12/17/worst-presidents-franklin-pierce-1853-1857">Franklin Pierce</a> come last. This remarkable consistency might just mean that scholars on each end of the Atlantic share similar views on presidential leadership. Although critics of these ranking games complain that the historical juxtaposition of presidents is about as useful as comparing apples and oranges, the results show that over time and political cultures, our sense of success and failure is noticeably consistent.</p>
<p>If you want a full breakdown of the second UK Survey of US Presidents, visit the <a href="https://presidentialhistorynetwork.wordpress.com/survey/survey-results/">Presidential History Network site</a>. (A full analysis of the results will be available on March 8.) And if you’re an advertiser considering how best to market your wares on Presidents’ Day, you might want to consider adding Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the mix – especially if you do business in the UK.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J Simon Rofe receives funding from British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, British Library. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iwan Morgan and Michael Patrick Cullinane do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Thanks to the US’s polarised politics, presidents beloved abroad are controversial at home.Michael Patrick Cullinane, Reader in US History, Northumbria University, NewcastleIwan Morgan, Commonwealth Fund Professor of American History, UCLJ Simon Rofe, Senior Lecturer in Diplomacy and International Studies, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722182017-02-01T13:50:02Z2017-02-01T13:50:02ZTheresa May must decide: is she with Trump or against him?<p>It was not supposed to be like this. The broad grin on Theresa May’s face as she strode around the White House hand-in-hand with Donald Trump betrayed the delight the British prime minister clearly felt at being the first foreign leader to be invited to an audience with the new American president. The message from Downing Street was that May’s visit symbolised the UK’s commitment to the much-fabled “special relationship” with the United States. To top it all, an invitation for an official state visit to the UK was very publicly extended to Trump, and accepted. </p>
<p>Fast-forward a few days and May is under increasingly intense political pressure to distance the British government from the Trump administration. Before May’s plane had even left American soil, Donald Trump had signed an <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/trump-travel-ban-q-and-a/">executive order</a> banning citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, and placing a blanket ban on granting asylum to refugees.</p>
<p>Asked repeatedly to condemn Trump’s move during her next stop in Turkey, May dodged the issue. She simply stated that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-donald-trump-immigration-ban-muslim-turkey-refugee-refuses-to-condemn-latest-a7551121.html">“the United States is responsible for the United States’ policy on refugees”</a>. On her return to London, as global fury gathered pace in response to Trump’s actions, the best May could manage was a meek <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/28/may-under-pressure-to-condemn-trumps-immigration-ban">official statement</a> (delivered in the middle of the night) clarifying that the British government did “not agree” with Trump’s travel ban.</p>
<p>Neither this, nor Boris Johnson’s <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-confirms-donald-trumps-divisive-travel-ban-will-not-affect-uk-passport-holders-a3453601.html">vague assurance</a> that British citizens will not be affected by the measures, have proved enough to quell the growing anger. Monday saw <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/31/time-to-take-a-stand-thousands-across-uk-protest-at-trump-policy">protests</a> against Trump’s travel ban throughout the UK, including one of over 10,000 people in London.</p>
<p>Home secretary Amber Rudd used stronger language in a statement to MPs shortly afterwards, describing Trump’s travel ban as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/31/amber-rudd-trump-travel-ban-a-propaganda-opportunity-for-isis">divisive and wrong</a>. But this has done little to stem the growing wave of anger at the lacklustre response from the government. </p>
<p>The anger has been channelled into a call to cancel the state visit, with an <a href="https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/171928/">online petition</a> to this end having generated in excess of a million signatures in less than 36 hours after May issued the invitation. May is <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/29/petition-calling-donald-trumps-state-visit-uk-cancelled-gets/">holding firm</a>, claiming that to cancel the planned visit would undo all the good work in strengthening the special relationship achieved by her trip to Washington. </p>
<h2>Time to take a stand</h2>
<p>Clearly there are pragmatic reasons for the UK to maintain a strong working relationship with the US, regardless of who the American people choose to elect as president. Trade with the US is important for Britain and the United States is the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-remains-number-one-investment-destination-in-europe">largest source of foreign direct investment</a> into the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>The economic relationship with the US is likely to become more important for Britain as the country exits the European Union. Similarly, intelligence cooperation between the two countries has been extensive for many years. And while we now know (<a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/18/world/britains-gchq-the-brains-americas-nsa-the-money-behind-spy-alliance/#.WJCg_PIZnFA">thanks to Edward Snowden</a>) that this form of intelligence sharing is open to abuse, it can also be vital in protecting the UK against terrorist and other threats.</p>
<p>But May’s gushing attitude towards Trump during her Washington trip went much further than was needed to maintain the core elements of the UK’s relationship with the United States.</p>
<p>Having expressed her desire to form a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/26/opposites-attract-theresa-may-signals-strong-relationship-with-trump">close personal relationship</a> with Donald Trump, May declared a determination to work alongside the Trump administration in <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-britain-and-us-can-lead-the-world-again-special-relationship-republican-congress/">leading the world</a> together to promote the two countries’ shared values. With a president in the White House who has openly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/nov/26/donald-trump-appears-to-mock-disabled-reporter-video">mocked disabled people</a>, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/the-trump-tapes/503417/">boasted about sexually assaulting women</a>, and used his first week in office to confirm his intention to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/donald-trump-build-wall-immigration-executive-orders/">build a wall</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/donald-trump-announces-run-president">along the Mexican border</a>, people are quite reasonably asking exactly what shared values May has in mind. Her pledge to work with Trump to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-press-conference-with-us-president-donald-trump-27-january-2017">“deliver on the promises of freedom and prosperity”</a> in this context is patently absurd. </p>
<p>The state visit promised to Trump means an invitation to Buckingham Palace with all the pomp and ceremony that implies. As May deals with the increasingly toxic political fallout from this move, she faces a quandary entirely of her own making. That the offer of a state visit to Trump would incite such opposition was entirely predictable. The new occupant of the White House had made his intentions clear on torture, immigration and the wall long before taking office.</p>
<p>Commentators such as the former Foreign Office mandarin, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/donald-trump-state-visit-uk-delayed-three-years-lord-ricketts-former-head-foreign-office-queen-a7554566.html">Lord Ricketts</a>, counsel that the controversy around Trump will fade as the new administration finds its feet. That could allow May to postpone any state visit to a later date and a more politically hospitable climate. She could receive him without letting him see the Queen in the meantime. But the evidence of Trump’s first week in office suggests that such an optimistic outlook is based on wishful thinking. </p>
<p>Trump ran for office on a platform of misogyny, racism and bigotry. It is increasingly clear that it is on this basis that he will govern. There may never be a political climate hospitable enough to make a state visit acceptable from this president.</p>
<p>The British government needs to make a decision whether to support or oppose the Trump administration. The middle ground it seeks is disappearing with every executive order signed. To paraphrase a former American president: you are either with Trump or against him.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72218/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Mills is a member of the UK Labour Party.</span></em></p>There’s no middle ground when it comes to a president like this.Thomas Mills, Lecturer, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/720252017-01-27T19:13:03Z2017-01-27T19:13:03ZThe love is lost: why it’s time to drop the romance from the special relationship<p>Theresa May’s visit to the US as the first foreign leader to meet President Donald Trump has prompted much pondering about how the “special relationship” will fare in a new world order, in which past and precedent have been cast aside. One thing is certain – the characters involved mean it now needs to take on a less romantic tinge. </p>
<p>When Winston Churchill first coined the phrase back in 1946, the idea of the special relationship was simple, and found strength in a long history of transatlantic associations. From English settlement of the New World in the 17th century, to the more recent experiences of the world wars, there was more than enough to confirm a “special” closeness between the United States and United Kingdom. In fact, in the years before and after Churchill’s appeal, much had been written on both sides of the Atlantic about the nature of this unique tie.</p>
<p>For some, it was a product of shared language and culture. For others, especially in the early 20th century, it was a bond made of blood and biology: independent nations united by membership in the same “Anglo-Saxon family”.</p>
<p>But there was always another reading of the Anglo-American alliance – one which saw it tied to a romantic love. Churchill (himself a product of an Anglo-American love match) was very susceptible to this idea, famously declaring that he had purposefully set out to “woo” Franklin D Roosevelt. In late 1941, this “courtship” would even lead to an Anglo-American <a href="http://ww2today.com/10th-august-1941-churchill-and-roosevelt-pray-together">“marriage” ceremony</a> on the decks of HMS Prince of Wales.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154563/original/image-20170127-30413-1qhfidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154563/original/image-20170127-30413-1qhfidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154563/original/image-20170127-30413-1qhfidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154563/original/image-20170127-30413-1qhfidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154563/original/image-20170127-30413-1qhfidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154563/original/image-20170127-30413-1qhfidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154563/original/image-20170127-30413-1qhfidq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will we honeymoon in Casablanca?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Roosevelt_and_Winston_Churchill_seated_on_the_quarterdeck_of_HMS_PRINCE_OF_WALES_for_a_Sunday_service_during_the_Atlantic_Conference,_10_August_1941._A4815.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such ideas of Anglo-American courtship and love were equally popular in wartime and post-war cinema. From <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034405/">A Yank in the RAF</a> (1941) to <a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/477021/">The Way to the Stars</a> (1945) to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049117/">D-Day: Sixth of June</a> (1956), the Anglo-American alliance was frequently examined and celebrated via special relationships of the heart.</p>
<p>Notably, the dynamics of these love matches increasingly corresponded with the realities of contemporary transatlantic relations. As the United States became the “dominant” partner in the “relationship”, so too did fictional Americans increasingly out-compete their British love rivals for the hands of their British sweethearts. Of course, it was just such competition that famously strained the Anglo-American alliance during the war itself. The problem with the Yanks, so went the British wartime complaint, was that they were “overpaid, overfed, oversexed and over here”.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154555/original/image-20170127-30401-lbum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154555/original/image-20170127-30401-lbum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154555/original/image-20170127-30401-lbum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154555/original/image-20170127-30401-lbum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154555/original/image-20170127-30401-lbum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154555/original/image-20170127-30401-lbum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154555/original/image-20170127-30401-lbum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A slightly-too-special relationship?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/7115239689">Duncan Hull</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>This romanticised and occasionally sexualised special relationship continued to receive attention – and criticism – in the late 20th century. When, at the height of the 1980s Cold War, a <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76710/gone-with-the-wind-poster-houston-john/">famous poster</a> criticising the alliance between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher depicted the two in their own version of Gone with the Wind. Reagan, the B-movie actor, sweeps into his arms a swooning Thatcher. In the background, nuclear armageddon unfolds.</p>
<p>More recently, Tony Blair’s relationship with George W. Bush was often dismissed as that of a submissive “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/Iraq/cartoons/0,,912730,00.html">lapdog</a>” in thrall to a dominant master. It was just this idea that later led Richard Curtis to offer a very different vision of Anglo-American relations. In his 2003 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314331/">Love Actually</a>, Hugh Grant’s prime minister rediscovers his assertive manhood after a bullying American president makes sexual advances towards a member of his staff.</p>
<p>In the hands of Curtis, this insult to British womanhood is quickly remedied by Grant’s grandstanding at a press conference: his “girl” has been groped, and he mans up to hit back. In the film version of the special relationship, an act of misogyny paves the way for an improved era of “manly” Anglo-American relations.</p>
<p>But in the real world, the relationship is playing out rather differently now. As May meets Trump, more than seven decades of ideas and images celebrating a romanticised special relationship collide with an unpredictable president who is on record as having said things which, at best, are grossly misogynistic, and at worst constitute an admittance of sexual assault. During his election campaign, Trump revealed his misogyny further, once dismissing his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as a “nasty woman”.</p>
<p>No such issue was at stake in the era of Thatcher. Reagan, for all his faults, was a careful diplomat and an ideological ally.</p>
<p>To be sure, Trump will have conducted himself during May’s visit just as protocol and precedent demands – and there can be no suggestion of physical impropriety. But regardless, with this commander-in-chief, there can be little place left for the old language of transatlantic courtship and love. </p>
<p>As women march in America and beyond to protest infringements on their basic rights, as American funds for international abortion charities are withdrawn, and as misogyny is institutionalised in the Oval Office, it’s time to drop the pretence that there’s Anglo-American romance in the air. The relationship will no doubt continue, but the love is lost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Edwards has previously received funding from the ESRC, the British Association of American Studies, and the US-UK Fulbright Commission.</span></em></p>The ties between the US and UK have long been depicted in loving terms. But with these two in charge, it can only be a marriage of convenience from now on.Sam Edwards, Senior Lecturer in History, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719692017-01-27T18:45:27Z2017-01-27T18:45:27ZTheresa May meets Donald Trump: talking up a special relationship to hide problems beneath<p>British Prime minister Theresa May faces economic shock if London departs the European Union’s single market after Brexit. She needs the salvation – even if it’s distant and illusory – of a US-UK trade deal. She also needs to burnish the urn of the “special relationship”. This had been tarnished when Trump warmly embraced Nigel Farage, who he suggested would make a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/22/nigel-farage-uk-ambassador-us-donald-trump">good ambassador</a>, before he had a fleeting thought about 10 Downing Street.</p>
<p>Trump, after antagonising and insulting a series of leaders and their countries, was happy for a photo opportunity with someone whose name isn’t Vladimir Putin.</p>
<p>This was the backdrop to May’s first visit to meet newly inaugurated President Trump. She will have had the now-ritual <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/17/exclusive-britain-will-front-queue-trade-deal-us-donald-trumps/">“front of the queue”</a> mantra at the forefront of her mind. She has beseeched the Trump administration for a declaration of negotiations, even if they won’t take place for years. In return, Trump got the prime minister’s nod, smile and her discreet silence on the size of his inaugural crowd.</p>
<p>It was telling how high May was willing to leap to escape Europe for the welcoming shores of the US. “Dawn breaks on a new era of American renewal,” she proclaimed during her <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prime-ministers-speech-to-the-republican-party-conference-2017">speech to the Republican Party conference</a>, as “President Trump’s victory – achieved in defiance of all the pundits and the polls” came from “the hopes and aspirations of working men and women across this land”.</p>
<p>In that same speech, Churchill was invoked not once, twice, nor even thrice, but four times. Inevitably, May referred to his 1946 speech in which “Anglo-Saxon powers” defied the Iron Curtain. Now, again, the US and UK will lead, May declared, and all others will follow.</p>
<p>For this illusion, May was even willing to put aside inconveniences such as Trump’s endorsement of torture (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38753000">“it absolutely works”</a>). While telling British papers she would ensure Britain did not follow the waterboarding, not a word on the matter made it into her speech – nor did she answer a direct question on the subject from the BBC.</p>
<p>As the two leaders stood together after their initial meeting, Trump declared that the special relationship has been “one of the great forces for justice and peace” over the years. But none of this averts the problems down the road.</p>
<p>Indeed, May – despite carefully-placed references to NATO and a firm line against Russia – has probably stoked a bit more suspicion from Europe by cosying up to a man who thinks NATO is obsolete and Putin is a fine role model. She even pledged to keep working to convince her fellow European leaders to spend more on NATO, claiming to have received assurances that Trump is “100% behind” the defence alliance.</p>
<p>The bump of Brexit departure has in no way been softened by this meeting. European leaders are unlikely to be pleased by the implied meaning in Trump’s assertion that “a free and independent Britain is a blessing to the world” – nor by the very clear message in his view that “Brexit is going to be a wonderful thing for your country”.</p>
<p>Trump, for his part, will soon be beset by agencies who don’t like him, senators (both Democrat and Republican) ready to cut him down, and the burden of constructing a policy that is more than 140 characters.</p>
<p>And, of course, there is the grand deception. The US and UK will daily find that they not leading the world – as Trump and May strike their poses, other countries will be making their own arrangements.</p>
<p>But why quibble? This meeting was not about the long road. It was short-term politics to keep eyes off the horizon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Lucas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s all smiles as two leaders meet for the first time, but it’ll take more than warm words to navigate the choppy waters ahead.Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.