United States: Keir Starmer, the newly elected prime minister of Great Britain, is in Washington for his first international summit since winning last week’s general election, and Joe Biden held a private conversation with him at the White House.
At the NATO meeting in Washington, President Biden is hosting foreign leaders despite increasing calls from Democrats to withdraw from the presidential contest.
Though they did not mention the president’s challenging few weeks in politics, the two leaders talked about football, the NATO alliance, and their “special relationship” between their two countries.
As he met with the new prime minister in the Oval Office, the US president referred to the US and the UK as the “best of allies” and described Britain as the “knot” that held the transatlantic alliance together.
He proposed that the knot would be tighter the closer the UK was to Europe.“I kind of see you guys as the knot tying the transatlantic alliance together, the closer you are with Europe,” he said to Starmer.
Biden has long been closely involved in Brexit, announcing time and time again that the UK’s decision to leave the EU should not produce problems that could endanger peace in Northern Ireland.
During the NATO meeting in Washington, Starmer reaffirmed that the UK will continue to defend Ukraine and the alliance by allocating at least £3 billion annually for military assistance to Kyiv for “as long as is it takes” in the country’s struggle with Russia.
Along with him on the trip is his minister for European relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds, as he is attempting to forge contacts with European leaders in order to finalize an EU-UK security accord.
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