Joe Biden jets off for UK to meet Boris Johnson and Queen and attend G7 summit

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Joe Biden has left the White House for the G7 Summit in Cornwall, where he will arrive this evening as he begins his first overseas trip as US President. 

Mr Biden and his wife Jill, a university professor, are expected to land at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk in Air Force One as they kick off an eight-day trip to Europe.

He will meet US military personnel stationed at the base before heading to Carbis Bay near St Ives where the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada will gather over the weekend.

The President is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Boris Johnson for face-to-face talks tomorrow – the first time the two men will have met in person – before the summit formally gets underway on Friday. 

When the summit ends on Sunday, the President and First Lady will meet the Queen at Windsor Castle.

Mr Biden will then depart for Brussels where he will attend a NATO summit and a joint US-EU summit before then heading to Geneva in Switzerland for a bilateral showdown with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

In an article for the Washington Post, Mr Biden announced that the trip is about ‘realising America’s renewed commitment to our allies and partners’ as he attempts to mend relations with Britain and the EU.

His predecessor Donald Trump engaged in a bitter trade row with the EU and slamming NATO members for failing to spend more on defence – sparking fears that he would pull the US out of the alliance – during his single fractious term in the White House.

The Republican president also sparked anger after he formally withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and the Paris Agreement – both negotiated by Barack Obama. One of Mr Biden’s first acts as President was to rejoin the climate accord and renegotiate with Iran. 

Mr Biden also said that he would meet with Mr Johnson to ‘affirm the special relationship between our nations’ – a term which the British premier reportedly told the President that he hates because it is ‘too needy’. 

Whitehall is understood to have viewed the President’s decision to make the UK his first overseas destination as a major diplomatic victory for Mr Johnson, who has been described as ‘physical and emotional clone’ of Mr Trump by the sitting US President. 

Mr Johnson and his ministers have lavished praised on Mr Biden since he won power last year, amid fears the Prime Minister and the President may not get along. 

Democratic sources previously questioned whether Mr Johnson was an ‘ally’, and there was also speculation the pair could struggle to work together because of Mr Johnson’s past criticism of Mr Obama, in whose administration Mr Biden served as vice president. 

Mr Johnson was criticised at home over his relationship with Mr Trump, but repeatedly defended the ties as he insisted in January that prime ministers should always have the ‘best possible’ ties with the president.  

Mr Biden is also expected to put pressure on the British government to abide by the Northern Ireland Protocol established during Brexit negotiations with the EU to protect the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told the BBC: ‘President Biden believes and has said that the Northern Ireland Protocol, as part of the agreement between the UK and the European Union, is critical to ensuring that the spirit, promise and future of the Good Friday Agreement is protected.

‘That being said, of course the UK and EU need to work out the specifics and the modalities on that, need to find some way to proceed that works both for the EU and the UK. But whatever way they find to proceed must, at its core, fundamentally protect the gains of the Good Friday Agreement and not imperil that.

‘And that is the message that President Biden will send when he is in Cornwall.’ 

Mr Johnson told the Liaison Committee at the start of the year: ‘I am in favour of the Prime Minister of the UK having the best possible relationship with the President of the United States and I had an excellent conversation very recently with president-elect Joe Biden.’ 

This week reports suggested Mr Johnson is not a fan of the phrase ‘special relationship’ after an American magazine reported he told aides he does not like the seemingly ‘needy and weak’ term.

Downing Street aides reportedly said he ‘prefers not to use the phrase’ and is instead intent on fostering a ‘close relationship’ with Washington.

The PM hopes that part of that will include a new free trade deal with the US. However, the US President as well as a host of other politicians in Washington have raised concerns about Brexit’s impact on Northern Ireland amid fears the UK’s split from Brussels could derail a potential trade agreement. 

Mr Biden will join others from the G7 group of leading economies in Carbis Bay on Friday, where there is the prospect of some protests.

Mr Johnson plans to use the summit to urge the members – also including Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy – to ‘defeat’ Covid-19 by helping to vaccinate the world by the end of next year.  

The White House said in April when it confirmed the trip to Europe that Mr Biden will ‘highlight his commitment to restoring our alliances, revitalizing the Transatlantic relationship, and working in close cooperation with our allies and multilateral partners to address global challenges and better secure America’s interests’. 

There were positive signs in March this year of the ‘special relationship’ warming up after Mr Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry visited London for talks with Mr Johnson. The positive trend continued in May when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington has ‘no closer partner’ than the UK.  

Mr Blinken said during an official visit to the UK that the ‘special relationship’ is ‘enduring’, ‘effective’ and ‘dynamic’ as well as being ‘close to the hearts of the American people’. 

Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street alongside Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Mr Blinken said: ‘It is also the 75th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s famous speech at Westminster College in Missouri where he described the Special Relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States and how vital it is for our two countries and many others around the world.

‘Three quarters of a century later, that Special Relationship is enduring, it is effective, it is dynamic and it is close to the hearts of the American people. The United States has no closer ally, no closer partner, than the United Kingdom and I am very glad for the chance to say that again here today.’  

The US President’s security team for the Summit is so vast they will have to stay in more than 50 hired luxury camper vans because there is not enough accommodation.

The recrational vehicles have been delivered to St Mawgan airbase near Newquay, 20 miles from where the meeting of leaders takes place in the tiny Cornish resort of Carbis Bay at the weekend.

A 400-strong contingent of Secret Service agents and support staff will be at the summit, but with thousands of holidaymakers already in the area, almost every hotel and B&B in a 30-mile radius of the summit has been booked.

Meanwhile, video footage showed two Sea King and three V-22 Osprey helicopters soaring above Cornwall and Devon as they practiced the route the President will take from the airbase to Tregenna Castle Resort, St Ives, after Air Force One lands at RAF Mildenhall and then Newquay airport on Wednesday. 

Some 1,000 police will be staying on a cruise liner docked in Falmouth harbour and others will stay in RVs currently parked up at the RAF airbase near Newquay.

It comes after a long line of caravans clogged up the A30 on Monday as holidaymakers made their way to the southern-most point of England. 

One photograph shared on social media showed heavy traffic that had been ‘crawling’ for around 20 minutes near the Devon-Cornwall border.   

Meanwhile for the summit, some 30 vehicles have been leased from a Somerset company called Empire RV, which usually supplies luxury vehicles for film shoots and Grand Prix events.

The US camper vans are so large that the company warns many can only be driven by one of their experienced staff and are not available for self-drive hire. The most luxurious ones – some the size of an articulated lorry – can sleep up to eight people and come equipped with satellite TV and other comforts.

The RVsare expected to be driven to the Tregenna Hotel in Carbis Bay where the US President is due to stay during the three-day conference. The castle boasts 98 bedrooms and is the grandest hotel in the county, featuring a 72-acre estate and an 18-hole golf course.

The US motor homes have been rented for £2,500 each for a week by the US Embassy in London and include the 45ft long former RV used by Jensen Button when he was racing in Formula 1.  

A spokesman for Bristol based Empire RV said they had set up a mini village at the St Mawgan airbase. 

A helicopter, which is dubbed Marine One when the US president is onboard, practised landing on the golf course at the Tregenna Castle Resort – where President Biden and the other leaders will stay – on Monday. 

Pilots familiarising the route they will take after Air Force One lands at Newquay Airport later this week have taken to the skies above Cornwall in recent days.  Three US Marine Osprey aircraft have been seen over St Michael Mount and the Carbis Bay area.

The aircrafts’ purpose is to fly White House staff during the President’s trips abroad. They also transport Secret Service agents that follow Marine One in case the helicopter goes down.   

Ospreys were seen over Haldon Hills near Exeter at 8pm on Monday, where it is thought they may have just left Exeter Airport. By 8.40pm the aircraft were spotted landing at Tregenna Castle Resort. 

The helicopters were seen landing at Carlyon Bay, St Austell, at 9.45pm, before descending onto Tregenna Castle Resort at 10.15pm.    The aircraft were brought to the UK on the US Air Force’s Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. 

They were offloaded at the Royal Navy airbase Culdrose, near Helston, on Sunday. The impressive US-military aircraft flew high over the steep sand dunes of Hayle beach, St Ives, at around 9.30pm on Monday.

Ospreys have helicopter-style propellers so they can take-off and land vertically. Stephen Park, 37 from, Stockport, Greater Manchester was on holiday when his 14-year-old son Harry Park took a video of the machines.

Mr Park said: ‘They really thunder past, and it kind of rattles through you, so you know when they’re going to come overhead. It’s quite an impressive thing to see and unique because I think we were the only people on the beach at the time.

‘The whole thing seemed like an exercise – maybe a dummy run for the real thing. Harry was really excited about all the military planes and world leaders being here at the same time as us.’