How Rishi Sunak can reset the US-UK special relationship

British politics may be lurching from crisis to crisis, but the ascent of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak represents an opportunity to reset the “special relationship,” which has frayed in recent years.  

While our two governments have some policy differences, such as how to maintain peace in Northern Ireland, one irritant is personal. In 2016, then-London Mayor Boris Johnson picked a fight with Barack Obama by insinuating that the president moved a Churchill bust from the Oval Office because he was “part-Kenyan” with an “ancestral dislike of the British empire.” Johnson also became known in the U.S., fairly or not, as the British equivalent of Donald Trump. As a result, British relations soured not only with Obama but also with President Biden and congressional Democrats. 

While the special relationship has never been as smooth as the name suggests, both nations benefit from close economic, military and diplomatic ties. This is particularly true for a Britain trying to navigate life after Brexit. At stake is whether it continues its long slide from global superpower to “Mississippi on the Atlantic” (with apologies to the Magnolia State). 

Because history can turn on singular events, the replacement of Johnson with Sunak (after the Liz Truss misadventure) provides an opportunity to turn the page on an awkward time in transatlantic relations. The parallels between Obama and Sunak are notable; not only is each the first non-white leader of their nations, but in a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction coincidence, both of their fathers are from Kenya. Sunak no doubt understands how Johnson’s “part-Kenyan” criticism of Obama set back the special relationship, and he is uniquely positioned to make diplomatic amends. 

Sunak and Biden could then better focus on projects of mutual interest, such as restarting trade agreement negotiations, which are currently dead in the water. Free trade may not be overly popular today, but contrary to populist rumor, it is a win-win in the long run, and usually sooner.

A trade deal would help Sunak to increase economic growth in a traditional way that does not cause further economic turmoil. It would also allow the Tories to claim they are making good on “Brexit opportunities,” which have been few and far between, and signal that the British political class will “stop doing stupid stuff.”

Biden has shown little interest in a trade deal, but he could change his mind because of shifting domestic politics. A Republican-led House will likely stall his domestic agenda, and presidents facing roadblocks at home often turn to the international stage. 

The Churchill bust story

A missing sculpture with international intrigue sounds like the plot of a Dashiell Hammett novel, but this is a cautionary tale of diplomatic self-sabotage (not to mention a complicated story of two busts that have been moved into, out of and around the White House across four administrations).

In 2016, President Obama visited Britain for the queen’s 90th birthday. The Brexit referendum was two months away, and Obama wrote a column urging the UK to remain. The outgoing London mayor, Boris Johnson, responded with a column that criticized Obama for joining the debate and made gratuitous claims about the alleged bust removal:  

“Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

Conservative member of Parliament Nicholas Soames, a grandson of Churchill, described Johnson’s essay as “deeply offensive” and tweeted “Appalling article by @BorisJohnson in Sun totally wrong on almost everything. Inconceivable WSC wld not have welcomed Presidents views.” Others accused Johnson of “dog whistle racism” that was “demeaning to the debate,” although some saw his words as “ill advised but not racist.”

Ben Rhodes recounted in 2018 that Obama was furious about the incident and that it “really did grate on him.” Unsurprisingly, Johnson and the Tories have been in the Democratic Party’s doghouse ever since.

Trump returned the bust to the Oval Office, but when Biden became president, it disappeared. Johnson did not invoke Biden’s Irish ancestry to explain this change.   

The way forward

Johnson could have defused this controversy by apologizing to Obama, but he apparently never did. Instead, he circumlocuted the following: “I’m afraid there is such a rich thesaurus of things I have said that have been somehow misconstrued that it would take me too long to engage in a full global itinerary of apology.” Such smart-alecky remarks may win applause at the Oxford Union but only make things worse in the real world.

Prime Minister Sunak might therefore consider the following New Year’s resolution — to make an overture to Obama and Biden that expresses regret that Johnson criticized an American president based on his ancestry. While this will not magically resolve areas of disagreement, it can ameliorate a personal and partisan irritant in transatlantic relations.

David L. Leal is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.