DUBLIN — U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday appointed the late Robert Kennedy’s grandson Joe to be the next U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland, setting the stage for an increased American focus on the divided U.K. region in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of its troubled Good Friday peace agreement.
After the news of his appointment — first reported by POLITICO — Joe Kennedy III pledged to “reaffirm U.S. commitment to Northern Ireland and to promote economic prosperity and opportunity for all its people.”
Kennedy previously served as a Massachusetts congressman before losing a Senate bid in 2020. In his new role, he will have, in historical terms, big shoes to fill. The 1998 Good Friday deal was overseen by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the first and by far most important U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland. Mitchell was appointed by Bill Clinton, the only U.S. president to adopt a hands-on interest in ending a three-decade conflict that left more than 3,600 dead.
American envoys have wielded progressively less influence since the days of President George W. Bush, when his State Department appointees Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss focused on pushing the outlawed Irish Republican Army to disarm and renounce violence and its allied Sinn Féin party to accept the lawful authority of Northern Ireland’s police force.
Those once unthinkable moves, achieved in 2005 and 2007 respectively, paved the way for the revival of a power-sharing government uniting British unionists and Irish nationalists — a core goal of the Good Friday accord that once again has collapsed amid Brexit-driven divisions.
But Barack Obama’s envoy, former Senator Gary Hart, and Donald Trump’s man, former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, both came and went without recording any tangible gains. The position has been idle for nearly two years, during which the breakdown-prone Northern Ireland Executive has fallen apart again.
U.S. officials briefed that Kennedy would avoid the political stalemate and focus on economic matters, particularly the prospect of wooing more U.S. corporate investment and jobs to Northern Ireland.
That was also the initial line taken when Clinton — facing British opposition to any direct U.S. intervention within a part of the United Kingdom — first appointed Mitchell to a Belfast role in December 1994. Gradually, Mitchell won enough cross-community trust to become the chairman of the talks, a role that required disciplined and patient diplomacy, including for years after the Good Friday breakthrough.
Officially, all sides welcomed the much-leaked news of Kennedy’s appointment, which is widely seen in Washington circles as a Biden effort to give Kennedy a new political platform following his failed Senate bid.
“The U.S. has been pivotal in supporting peace, stability and prosperity for Northern Ireland. We will continue working together to make Northern Ireland a great place to live, work and do business,” said Chris Heaton-Harris, Britain’s secretary of state for Northern Ireland. “I look forward to welcoming Joe to Belfast in the near future.”
Behind the scenes, some in unionist and British government circles said the Biden administration hadn’t learned a key lesson from the high-profile triumph of Mitchell and low-key effectiveness of the Bush-era envoys — to avoid appointing figures firmly rooted in Irish America and the Catholic side of the traditional divide.
“We seem to be getting one of these classic Irish-American envoys who has no idea what we’re about — that we’re British, not Irish,” one unionist politician involved in the Good Friday negotiations told POLITICO. “We will be polite, even if we have to grit our teeth at times.”
Northern Ireland’s main pro-Brexit party, the Democratic Unionists, offered no comment. The party, which spent a decade opposing the Good Friday deal, has refused to revive power-sharing since May’s Northern Ireland Assembly election, which left them trailing Sinn Féin for the first time.
DUP leaders insist their veto on cooperation has nothing to do with this election setback and everything to do with the post-Brexit trade protocol, which keeps Northern Ireland subject to EU goods rules and makes it harder to receive shipments from Britain. The party recently denounced a visiting U.S. congressional delegation as biased against them.
Unsurprisingly, Sinn Féin and the Irish government offered fulsome praise for Biden’s appointment of a Kennedy.
“I want to thank President Biden and his administration for this appointment. It is a clear demonstration of the president’s direct engagement with Ireland as well as the enduring U.S. commitment to supporting peace in, and building the prosperity of, Northern Ireland,” said Micheál Martin who, until this past weekend, was Ireland’s prime minister. He has just been appointed foreign minister — responsible for leading diplomatic efforts in Northern Ireland — as part of his government’s coalition agreement in Dublin.
“Joe Kennedy has a strong record in promoting the interests of the north and I look forward to working with him,” said Sinn Féin’s would-be first minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill.
The DUP’s moderate rival for unionist votes, Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie, said his community needed to keep an open mind and see Kennedy’s arrival as an opportunity, not a threat.
“Unionism has suffered from not engaging fully with the U.S.A. and this has been something my party has been keen to rebalance,” said Beattie, who welcomed Kennedy’s stated “focus on economic ties.”
President Joe Biden will announce Monday morning that former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III will serve as the US envoy to Northern Ireland, according to a source with knowledge.
CNN reported last week that Kennedy would be named to the post, which was has been vacant since former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney resigned in 2021.
Kennedy will be taking the post as the British government and the European Union clash over the Northern Ireland protocol, which dictates cross-border trade regulations between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Biden has been an active follower of the discussions and has pressed London and Brussels to come to an agreement that would not threaten the hard-fought peace in Northern Ireland. He has pressed the matter with the last three British prime ministers, including the current leader Rishi Sunak, arguing that an agreement should be reached by the anniversary of the 1998 Good Friday agreement in April.
Kennedy is expected to focus primarily on economic matters, not political ones, though Northern Ireland has been without a fully functioning government for months.
Former President Bill Clinton appointed the first US special envoy to Northern Ireland, Sen. George Mitchell, to help broker the Good Friday agreement.
President Joe Biden is expected to name former congressman Joe Kennedy III as his special envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs, according to two people familiar with the plans, installing a member of one of the United States’ most famous political families to the post at a critical moment for the region.
The role has been vacant since Mick Mulvaney, also a former congressman and White House chief of staff, left the post at the end of the Trump administration.
Biden is naming the former Massachusetts lawmaker at a moment of Brexit-related tension in Northern Ireland, months ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement which ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
The British government and the European Union have clashed over the Northern Ireland protocol, which dictates cross-border trade regulations between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Biden has been an active follower of the discussions and has pressed London and Brussels to come to an agreement that would not threaten the hard-fought peace in Northern Ireland. He has pressed the matter with the last three British Prime Ministers, including the current leader Rishi Sunak, arguing an agreement should be reached by the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement in April.
The role of US special envoy to Northern Ireland has been in place for decades, since Sen. George Mitchell was installed by President Bill Clinton and helped broker the Good Friday agreement.
Kennedy is expected to focus primarily on economic matters, not political ones, though Northern Ireland has been without a fully functioning government for months.
He will be the third member of the Kennedy family serving in a diplomatic post under Biden. Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, is Biden’s ambassador to Australia, and Victoria Kennedy, the widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, is currently ambassador to Austria.
U.S. President Joe Biden is poised to name former Congressman Joe Kennedy as special envoy to Northern Ireland.
The 42 year-old politician, who hails from the Kennedy political dynasty, will fill the post which has been vacant since January 2021 when Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney stepped down from the role.
It comes at a sensitive time for Northern Ireland, which has been without a sitting executive, and has found itself at the center of a standoff between the U.K. and the EU over Brexit trade arrangements.
Kennedy is the grandson of former U.S. Senator and Attorney General Robert Kennedy who was assassinated in 1968. He represented Massachusetts in Congress between 2013 and 2021. He chose not to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2020 elections, instead challenging Senator Ed Markey for his seat in the U.S. Senate. But in a blow to his political career, he lost the Democratic primary contest to Markey, paving the way for his exit from frontline politics.
Two officials told POLITICO that an announcement is imminent from the White House. From January, new rules mean that all special envoy roles must be approved by the U.S. Senate — a procedural requirement that could delay any appointment.
Negotiations are continuing between British and EU officials over the Northern Ireland protocol — the part of the Brexit agreement that deals with trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Unionists, who support Northern Ireland’s status as part of the U.K., oppose the protocol which they say erects barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But the EU argues that the British government committed to the arrangement which is now set out in international law during earlier negotiations, and that the protocol preserves Northern Ireland’s place in the EU’s single market.
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly met European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič for high-level talks in Brussels on the protocol, amid indications that a deal could be agreed by February next year.
After six years of chaos and recrimination since Britons voted to leave the European Union, there are signs the country is showing an unexpected outbreak of common sense in its approach to the bloc.
In his first weeks in office, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — a Brexiteer himself — has sent clear signals that he wants a more constructive relationship with Brussels and Paris, and to avoid a trade war with Britain’s biggest economic partner.
Gone are the nationalist bombast of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the sheer havoc wrought by his successor Liz Truss crashing the economy in pursuit of a Brexit dividend. Instead, they have both given way to a sudden burst of pragmatism, as Sunak is seeking practical solutions to festering problems.
This change in outlook may be partly due to the realization that Europe needs to stand united in the face of a threat to its common security from Russian President Vladimir Putin — although that hadn’t stopped Johnson from bragging about how leaving the EU had supposedly freed the United Kingdom to be more supportive of Ukraine than France or Germany.
It may also be due to the dire economic straits Britain is in after the collapse of Truss’ short-lived experiment for a deregulated, low-tax Singapore-on-the-Thames. Or, perhaps, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s hard line on any EU deal with the U.K. has had a sobering effect. As may have the shift in British public opinion, which now thinks leaving the bloc was a mistake by a margin of 56 percent to 32 percent.
For whatever reason, it is a welcome start.
In just three weeks, Sunak has signed up to an EU defense initiative to make it easier to move armed forces around the Continent, he’s acted to improve Britain’s relations with Ireland, and he’s created political space for a possible compromise on the vexed issue of trade with Northern Ireland, which has bedeviled relations with Brussels since the U.K.’s exit from the EU.
At their first meeting, Sunak told United States President Joe Biden that he wants to have a negotiated settlement on the Northern Ireland Protocol in place by next April — the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement. So, sustained pressure from Washington is starting to pay off as well.
The prime minister has also sought to thaw frosty relations with France, clinching an agreement with Paris to clamp down on migrants crossing the Channel from northern France in small boats. Europe’s only two nuclear powers have now agreed to hold their first bilateral summit since 2018 early next year, focusing on strengthening defense cooperation.
To be fair, after saying “the jury is still out” on whether Macron was a friend or foe of the U.K., Truss had already taken a symbolic first step toward reconciliation by agreeing to attend the first meeting of the European Political Community last month. The geopolitical grouping was dreamed up by Macron to bring the entire European family together — except Russia and Belarus.
What’s more, the torrent of Europe-bashing rhetoric from Conservative ministers has almost dried up — at least for now. Suddenly, making nice with the neighbors is back in fashion, if only to ensure they don’t turn the lights off on the U.K. by cutting energy exports when supplies get tight this winter.
The tone of contrition adopted by Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker, once the hardest of Brexit hardliners, was one of the most striking signals of this new humility. “I recognize in my own determination and struggle to get the U.K. out of the European Union that I caused a great deal of inconvenience and pain and difficulty,” he told Ireland’s RTÉ radio recently. “Some of our actions were not very respectful of Ireland’s legitimate interests. And I want to put that right.”
Meanwhile, encouragingly, Sunak is reportedly considering deprioritizing a bill by ousted Brexit ideologue Jacob Rees-Mogg to review, reform or automatically scrap some 2,400 retained EU laws, standards and regulations by the end of 2023 — a massive bureaucratic exercise that has rattled business confidence and angered almost everyone. The prime minister now seems receptive to pleas from business to give the review much more time and avoid a regulatory vacuum.
A bonfire of EU rules would inevitably provoke new trade tensions with Brussels — and at a time when the Office of Budget Responsibility, Britain’s independent fiscal watchdog, has just confirmed the growth-shredding damage inflicted by Brexit.
This isn’t the end of Britain’s traumatic rupture with the bloc. Just how neuralgic the issue remains was highlighted when earlier this week, Sunak had to deny reports that senior government figures were considering a Swiss-style relationship with the EU to ensure frictionless trade. He vowed there would be no alignment with EU rules on his watch.
To paraphrase Churchill, it may not even be the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Puncturing the illusion of a deregulated fiscal paradise fueled by borrowing without new revenue has had a sobering effect on the U.K. — offering Sunak a political window of opportunity to start fixing EU ties. After all, the Conservative Party can’t afford to defenestrate yet another prime minister after Theresa May, Johnson and Truss, can it?
But beyond the conciliatory tone, the real test still lies ahead.
Sunak will have to confront the hard-line Protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to push through any compromise with the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol.
As the province remains part of the EU single market under the withdrawal treaty, any such deal is bound to involve some customs checks in Northern Ireland on goods arriving from Great Britain — even if they are scaled down from the original plan. It’s also bound to involve a role for the Court of Justice of the European Union as the ultimate arbiter of EU law. Both are anathema to the DUP.
But securing such an agreement would at least open the door to a calmer, more cooperative and sustainable relationship between London and Brussels.
LONDON — If his key appointments are any indication, the Rishi Sunak era in Britain could actually be … kind of dull.
The new U.K. leader reappointed existing ministers, brought back old hands and largely kept critics on side as he sought to reassure nervous markets, allies and enemies that the U.K. is no longer a hotbed of chaos.
But the prime minister did, at least, have room to take revenge on a number of his most vocal detractors, and refused to offer any kind of promotion to his defeated leadership rival, Penny Mordaunt.
Sunak entered No. 10 Downing Street Tuesday with a promise to “fix” the “mistakes” made by his predecessor Liz Truss, after her radical economic prospectus spooked financial markets and helped jack up U.K. borrowing costs — swiftly bringing down her government amid bitter Tory recriminations and sparking a second Tory leadership race in two months.
Emerging from the wreckage of the Conservative Party, Sunak had pledged to put politics aside and “build a government that represents the very best traditions of my party.”
Nothing to see here
The biggest news of the reshuffle was that there wasn’t much news. Multiple figures who served under Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss, including some who backed his rival Boris Johnson in the latest Conservative leadership race, kept their posts or were moved to other senior roles.
Sunak’s most important appointment was to keep Jeremy Hunt in post as chancellor, sticking by a Cabinet veteran who Truss had brought in from the cold just two weeks earlier to rip up her failed economic agenda.
James Cleverly was kept on as foreign secretary, while Ben Wallace remained as defense secretary — keeping two key ministries tasked with shaping Britain’s foreign policy intact. Chris Heaton-Harris stayed on as Northern Ireland secretary, while Nadhim Zahawi was moved from the Cabinet Office to become the Conservative Party chairman. All four men had backed Johnson in the leadership contest last week, leaving fellow Boris supporters in the party relieved.
“At this early stage of the reshuffle it looks as if Rishi is aiming to unite the party rather than divide it,” said Tory MP and Johnson ally Michael Fabricant. “Perhaps one of the mistakes Liz Truss made was to pack the Cabinet only with her supporters. That always creates a volatile situation.”
In an eyebrow-raising move, Suella Braverman, a darling of the party’s right who made her own bid for the leadership earlier this year, returned as home secretary less than a week after being fired over a sensitive information leak. Her reappointment looked like a debt being repaid following her unexpected backing of Sunak at the weekend.
Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan, both Truss picks over the summer, kept their jobs too.
One Cabinet minister who did not back Sunak in either leadership race said the appointments were clearly a bid for unity: “He has put people in positions with a track record of delivery.”
Senior figures from other wings of the party were impressed too. “The new prime minister is clearly serious about including people from all sides of the party in his new Cabinet,” said Nicky Morgan, a former chair of the centrist One Nation Conservatives grouping in parliament and now a member of the House of Lords. “This is a very encouraging start to his term.”
Soft revenge
Others key allies of Sunak’s opponents were handed demotions, but allowed to remain in Sunak’s top team.
Thérèse Coffey, a close friend of Truss who served as her deputy prime minister and health secretary, was demoted to the environment, food and farming brief. Alok Sharma, who backed Johnson in the second race, kept his job overseeing the COP climate summits, but will no longer attend Cabinet — a clear step down.
But it was the treatment of Mordaunt, the last candidate standing against Sunak in the latest leadership race, that most ruffled feathers. She kept her relatively junior Cabinet-attending job as leader of the House of Commons, a decision seen in Westminster as a snub given widespread expectations that she was due a major promotion.
One former Cabinet minister argued the failure to promote Mordaunt looked like “an act of revenge, or small-mindedness.” Mordaunt had refused to drop out of the latest leadership race until it was clear she did not have sufficient nominations from fellow MPs to make the next round.
Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt leaves No. 10 Downing Street following Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Yet some argued the very act of keeping her in post was in itself an olive branch, while one person familiar with the discussions on her appointment said she had been offered a different role, but refused it. One of Mordaunt’s allies insisted she was pleased to keep her existing brief.
A Downing Street official insisted: “This Cabinet brings the talents of the party together. It reflects a unified party and a Cabinet with significant experience, ensuring that at this uncertain time there is continuity at the heart of government.”
But there were plenty of rewards too for key Sunak supporters. Close allies Oliver Dowden, Michael Gove and Steve Barclay were handed roles in the Cabinet Office, communities department and health department respectively, just weeks after Truss made clear they had no place in her administration.
Simon Hart was made chief whip, while Gillian Keegan was promoted to the Cabinet for the first time as education secretary and Grant Shapps was moved from his week-long stint heading up the Home Office (to replace the sacked Braverman) to the business department.
To make space for the new appointments, Sunak allowed himself a few ruthless sackings — although he did permit Cabinet ministers to technically resign to spare their blushes.
Ministers seen as close to Johnson, including Brandon Lewis and Kit Malthouse, were fired, as was Robert Buckland, who supported Sunak in the first leadership race only to shamelessly switch to Truss when it became clear she would win.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of Sunak’s most vocal critics and a cheerleader for Johnson, was also dispensed with, as well as top Truss lieutenants Ranil Jayawarenda and Simon Clarke. Rees-Mogg had once branded Sunak a “socialist” — although he hastily recanted that criticism Tuesday morning as the new PM picked his top team.
Having told the Tories at the weekend they must “Back Boris” or go “bust”, it was not enough to save him from his fate.
An earlier version of this story included an inaccurate previous ministerial brief.
LONDON — It took one bruising campaign defeat and six weeks of exile — but on Tuesday, Rishi Sunak will finally become U.K. prime minister.
He faces the toughest in-tray of any British leader since World War II, entering No. 10 Downing Street as the country hurtles into winter with energy bills, hospital waiting lists, borrowing costs and inflation all soaring.
The challenge has been magnified by Liz Truss’ brief crash-and-burn premiership. As a result of her now-infamous mini-budget, which was scrapped almost in its entirety after causing chaos in financial markets, the Conservatives are trailing the opposition Labour Party by over 30 percentage points in opinion polls.
On Monday, Sunak told MPs he was ready to hit the ground running as he addressed them for the first time since becoming Tory leader. Over the days and months ahead, he will need to carry out his first ministerial reshuffle without further fracturing his party; oversee the first budget since the last one wreaked havoc on the economy; and determine what support to offer voters with their energy bills past this spring.
Prime ministers tend to think of their first 100 days as a way to set the tone for their premierships. For Sunak, who has just over two years to govern before he is required to face a general election, that first impression is going to be particularly important.
October 25 — Meeting with the king and first speech outside No. 10 Downing Street
Sunak will become the prime minister Tuesday after an audience with King Charles III, where he will ask the monarch for permission to form a government.
Sunak will then address the country for the first time as prime minister from the steps outside No. 10 Downing Street at around 11.35 a.m.
To much of the British public, the former chancellor is a familiar face who announced the wildly-popular furlough scheme during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
His task now will be to reassure people that the government will support them during another difficult economic period — only this time he is in a much tougher position. The popularity he gained during the pandemic has waned, and he is taking over after a major government crisis — the third Tory prime minister to hold office within three months.
October 25 — First reshuffle
The first big political test for Sunak will be his Cabinet reshuffle. Tory MPs believe he will learn the lesson from Truss’ first and only one, where she divvied up roles between her allies and left almost everyone who didn’t back her out in the cold.
“I think his reshuffle will be more unifying, bringing in people from all wings and will not be as destabilizing as Liz’s,” an MP who did not back Sunak predicted.
Sunak’s leadership rival Penny Mordaunt is expected to be handed a major Cabinet position | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Sunak is likely to make at least his major Cabinet appointments Tuesday afternoon, so they are in place to line up alongside him on the House of Commons’ front bench when MPs grill him during so-called prime minister’s questions (PMQs) on Wednesday.
His biggest decision will be whether to keep Jeremy Hunt — who was drafted in by Truss in a last-ditch effort to save her premiership — as chancellor. He is also likely to hand a big job to his leadership rival Penny Mordaunt.
Close Sunak allies who are likely to get promotions include Mel Stride, the current chairman of the Treasury select committee, Craig Williams, Claire Coutinho and Laura Trott. Tory big beast Michael Gove could see a return to Cabinet.
October 26 — First PMQs
Sunak will go head-to-head as prime minister with Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, for the first time on Wednesday.
Unlike his predecessor, Sunak won’t have much to worry about from his own side — Tory MPs have largely rowed behind him since he became their leader on Monday, with many expressing relief that the perpetual state of crisis of the Truss government has ended.
But MPs will want him to demonstrate that he can land blows against Starmer at a time when Labour is streets ahead in the polls. Sunak told Tory MPs on Tuesday that their party faced an “existential threat” as a result of its low poll ratings.
October 28 — Deadline to form a government in Belfast
If a power-sharing arrangement is not in place at Stormont by Friday, a fresh set of elections to the Northern Irish assembly will have to be triggered.
Calling these elections — the second set in seven months — could be one of the Sunak government’s first acts and an indication of successive Tory prime ministers’ failure to deal with the political crisis in Northern Ireland.
The Democratic Unionist Party issued a fresh warning on Monday night that it would not participate in the assembly unless Sunak takes action on the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol agreed with the EU.
October 31 — First budget
The next budget was penciled in for October 31 by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Truss-era chancellor who wanted to use it to reassure financial markets still reeling from his last one.
The timing of the budget — widely derided by Tory MPs because of the optics of holding it on Halloween — was intended to give the Bank of England time to react before its own key meeting on November 3, where it will set interest rate levels for the weeks ahead.
In its biggest test so far, Sunak’s government will have to decide whether to stick with that date; what actions to take to reassure the markets; and how to fill the enormous hole in the U.K. public finances.
Carl Emmerson, deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “If his chancellor is Jeremy Hunt and Sunak is comfortable with the way things are proceeding for next Monday, then going ahead has lots of advantages.
“You get the announcement out before the Bank of England makes its next inflation figure, and you get the Office for Budgetary Responsibility forecasts out there, which helps show the markets you are serious about them.
“The case for changing that date is much stronger if Sunak says, ‘Actually, I want to do something different to what Jeremy Hunt has been planning, and I need more time,’” Emmerson added.
November 3 — Bank of England rates meeting
The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee is expected to raise interest rates at its meeting on November 3, triggering a fresh hike in people’s mortgages.
This is the point when many people will realize for the first time that they will have to make much larger mortgage repayments once their current fixed-rate deals come to an end.
Sunak made combating inflation and keeping mortgages low a central theme of his leadership campaign over the summer. Reacting to the rates decision and ensuring the government works closely with the Bank of England to combat inflation will be a key test of his premiership.
November 6 — COP27 summit in Egypt
Sunak made a point of telling Tory MPs on Tuesday that he is committed to the U.K.’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The question now is whether he attends the COP27 climate summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Truss reportedly planned to go, despite her skepticism of aspects of the net-zero agenda.
If Sunak does go to Egypt, it could be his first foreign trip in office (unless he decides to make a quick visit to Ukraine beforehand) and his first opportunity to present himself on the world stage.
November 8 — Boundary changes
The Boundary Commission for England will publish its new constituency map on November 8.
At this point, some Tory MPs will know with near certainty that their constituencies are being carved up between neighboring areas, with some forced to jostle with colleagues over who will get to stand where.
It will be a political headache for Sunak to deal with, and any MPs whose safe seats become marginal will sense their political careers coming to an end — and will have less of an incentive to support him in key votes in the months ahead.
November 13 — G20 meeting in Indonesia
The next big foreign trip coming down the track is the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
The meeting will be an opportunity for Western powers to present a united front against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine and against China’s increased aggression toward Taiwan, but also to hold talks behind closed doors. There have been reports that both China’s Xi Jinping and Russian Vladimir Putin will attend.
Sophia Gaston, the head of foreign policy at the Policy Exchange think tank, said this was shaping up to be “one of the most extraordinary summits of modern history, with a violent war raging in Ukraine and the leading protagonist, Vladimir Putin, on the guest list alongside other autocratic leaders and outraged democratic allies.”
“As well as promoting free trade and the rules-based international order, Sunak would likely see the G20 as an opportunity to build support for his proposed ‘NATO-style’ technology alliance,” Gaston said. “He may well also debut a new U.K. message on the net-zero transition.”
Late November or early December — Chester by-election
Labour whips are preparing to trigger a by-election in the city of Chester in late November or December.
The by-election is taking place because the city’s MP Christian Matheson resigned after a parliamentary watchdog recommended he be suspended for sexual misconduct.
Matheson sits on a 6,164-vote majority, and the seat has traditionally been a swing seat flipping between the Tories and Labour. It was Conservative up until 2010.
Based on current polling figures, Labour should win a significantly larger majority than it currently has, though by-elections do suffer from small turnouts and so unexpected results are not uncommon. A dramatic Tory defeat would set alarm bells ringing in the party.
Another by-election could be triggered in the coming months if, as expected, Boris Johnson elevates his ally and MP Nadine Dorries to the House of Lords in his resignation honors. That would likely be the first by-election in a Tory-held seat fought with Sunak as party leader.
December 31 — U.K. deadline for joining trans-Pacific trade bloc
The U.K. government has said it hopes to conclude negotiations on joining the CPTPP — a trade agreement signed by 11 countries including Australia and New Zealand — by the end of the year.
Securing this deal was one of Truss’ priorities. For Sunak it would represent both a concrete foreign policy achievement and an indication that the U.K. is successfully building closer diplomatic ties with countries in the Indo-Pacific after Brexit.
Talks around the partnership have thrown up some diplomatic obstacles, with China reacting angrily to U.K. trade officials meeting Taiwanese counterparts. Both China and Taiwan have applied to join the CPTPP.
There have been suggestions that the evidence against him is so damning that Johnson could face temporary suspension from parliament or even be kicked out as an MP. The inquiry may have formed part of Johnson’s decision not to stand for the Tory leadership contest.
If the privileges committee says Johnson should be sanctioned once it concludes its inquiry, Sunak will have to judge his response and decide whether to whip Tory MPs to back its recommendations even if that provokes Johnson’s ire. There is also the risk that Sunak himself will be dragged into the probe, given he too was fined over the Partygate scandal.
Among other things, the probe will examine the impact of the economic policies that Sunak designed as chancellor during the pandemic, putting his decisions under scrutiny.
His “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme — which encouraged people to dine in restaurants during the post-lockdown summer of 2020 — could become a focus, with critics claiming it drove up coronavirus-related infections and deaths.
February — Energy support nears its end
By the time Sunak’s first 100 days are up, there will be pressure on the government to explain how it will support people with their energy bills past the spring if wholesale gas prices haven’t drastically fallen. Hunt has already rolled back the Truss government’s two-year guarantee and instead capped people’s energy bills at an average of £2,500 for just six months. That policy ends in April.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Emmerson said: “We’ve got a big generous offer from the government through this winter — although prices are still a lot higher than they were last year, they will be nowhere near as high as they would have otherwise been.
“The prime minister and chancellor will spend a lot of time thinking about how they replace that scheme. In some ways, it’s very similar to the kind of furlough scheme that Sunak had during the pandemic — very generous, big scheme with lots of crude edges to it,” he said.
“It’s understandable wanting to get in place quickly to support people, but how do you get out of it? Do it too quickly and that’s too much pain for too many people — keep it in place for too long, and that’s very expensive to the government.”
It’s just one of so many enormous decisions the new PM faces in his first 100 days.
When United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited the White House on Thursday, he hoped a shared perspective on Ukraine and a new push for economic partnership could reinforce what has been a steady, if rather business-like, working relationship.
For President Joe Biden and his team, a relatively low-key prime minister whose term has outlasted a wilting head of lettuce – unlike his predecessor’s – is reason enough for celebration.
“There is no issue of global importance, none, that our nations are not leading together and where we’re not sharing our common values to make things better,” Biden said at the start of a news conference, during which the leaders unveiled a new economic partnership that stopped short of a free trade agreement.
Stability in 10 Downing Street has allowed for better coordination on Ukraine, according to officials, and helped resolve a festering dispute over Northern Ireland trade rules. Sunak’s pragmatic approach in some ways mirrors Biden’s, even if they hold opposing ideological outlooks.
That made Thursday’s meeting in the Oval Office – Sunak’s first since taking office – a key moment for the men as they look to deepen their relationship.
As the meeting got underway, Biden thanked Sunak for his partnership on Ukraine, and hailed the relationship between their two countries.
“You know Prime Minister Churchill and Roosevelt met here a little over 70 years ago and they asserted that the strength of the partnership between Great Britain and the United States was strength of the free world. I still think there’s truth to that assertion,” Biden said.
The talks come at a turning point in the Russia-Ukraine war, following the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam and ahead of a widely expected counteroffensive meant to retake territory. The White House said Ukraine would be “top of mind” in Thursday’s meeting.
In his news conference, Biden said he was confident that Congress would continue providing support for Ukraine, despite a divide among Republicans.
“The fact of the matter is that I believe we’ll have the funding necessary to support Ukraine as long as it takes,” Biden said. “I believe that we’re going to get that support, it will be real.”
As he began his visit in Washington, Sunak said Wednesday it is “too early” to determine what caused the destruction of the dam in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region.
“Our military and security services are currently investigating it. But if it is intentional, it would represent an unprecedented level of barbarism,” he told Sky News in Washington.
The US and UK have been the leading contributors of military aid to Ukraine, and are coordinating on providing F-16 fighter jets to reinforce long-term deterrence against Russia.
At the same time, Sunak is coming into the meeting with major economic priorities, including a push for closer investment links and more resilient supply chains.
He’s also expected to deliver a pitch on making Britain a world leader on developing and regulating artificial intelligence – an area that a British official said was “very much on the prime minister’s mind” and that Biden’s aides are also watching closely. Because of Britain’s exit from the EU, the country has been left out of talks with the US and Europe on the emerging technology. Sunak, who studied in Silicon Valley and views tech as a key issue, is proposing a summit meeting in the fall to discuss AI.
Biden said he was looking at “watermarks on everything that has to do with, produced by AI,” and acknowledged the technology’s potential for both good but also “great damage.”
Ahead of the visit, Sunak cast his economic objectives as directly linked to the security agenda.
“The UK and US have always worked in lockstep to protect our people and uphold our way of life. As the challenges and threats we face change, we need to build an alliance that also protects our economies,” he said. “Just as interoperability between our militaries has given us a battlefield advantage over our adversaries, greater economic interoperability will give us a crucial edge in the decades ahead.”
Not on the agenda, according to US and UK officials, is a new bilateral trade deal, which had been discussed under former President Donald Trump but now remains on ice.
The broad agenda reflects the typically extensive list of issues between the two nations, whose partnership is nearly always described by their leaders as a “special relationship.” Indeed, officials in London and Washington both describe the bond between Biden and Sunak as warm and friendly, as would be expected between the leaders of two countries so closely aligned.
When Biden met Sunak in San Diego earlier this year, he made reference to the condo the Stanford MBA graduate maintains in California.
“That’s why I’m being very nice to you, maybe you can invite me to your home,” Biden said, perhaps unknowingly raising what has been a controversial issue for the prime minister.
Still, there are undeniable differences between the two men, not least on issues of government economic intervention and the complicated exit of Britain from the European Union.
Few see Biden and Sunak developing a transatlantic friendship akin to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, or Barack Obama and David Cameron (who called each other “bro”).
While the two men have encountered each other several times over the past year, including last month at the Group of 7 summit in Japan, it will be Sunak’s first time at the White House for formal talks since he assumed the premiership in October.
Sunak traveled to San Diego in March for a three-way defense summit and met with Biden in Belfast during the president’s visit to Northern Ireland in April. Yet that meeting was only a brief chat over tea; Biden spent most of his visit to Ireland exploring his ancestral roots.
There is little question the two men hold very different political ideologies, even if they share a pragmatic, low-drama style – at least compared with their predecessors.
Some members of Sunak’s government have openly criticized Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, calling green subsidies included in the package protectionist and warning they would harm American allies. And Sunak has voiced a more limited view of government’s role in the economy, akin to his ideological predecessor Thatcher.
Biden’s intense interest in resolving a long-festering dispute in Northern Ireland over trade rules has also caused tension. He said after visiting the island in April his trip was intended “to make sure the Brits didn’t screw around” with the region’s peace structure – a comment that only intensified views among unionists of his pro-Irish allegiances.
There are also generational differences; at 43, Sunak is the youngest leader in the G7 club of industrial democracies while Biden is the oldest at 80.
Still, Sunak has acted as a stabilizing force at 10 Downing Street after a tumultuous period that saw three prime ministers take the job over the course of two months.
Biden and his aides made little attempt to disguise their frustrations with Boris Johnson, a top Brexit proponent. His successor, Liz Truss, was barely in office long enough for Biden to form a full opinion.
By comparison, Sunak has sought to resolve some of the sticky issues that felled his predecessors. He did strike an agreement with the European Union on trade rules in Northern Ireland, though the deal wasn’t enough to bring unionists back to a power sharing government
And he has been a staunch proponent of economic and military support for Ukraine, most recently in a pledge to help train Ukrainian pilots on western fighter jets.
One area of discussion likely to arise will be NATO’s next secretary general. Sunak has been lobbying for the British defense secretary Ben Wallace, but other candidates are also thought to be under consideration. The job is typically reserved for a European but would require Biden’s sign-off.
This story has been updated with additional information.
