President Joe Biden will not attend the coronation of King Charles III
President Joe Biden will not join world leaders at the coronation of King Charles III but may send Jill Biden or Kamala Harris to London in show of support
- The coronation of King Charles III will be held on May 6 at Westminster Abbey
- President Joe Biden is not expected to attend the ceremony
- A source said the White House was likely to send Jill Biden or Kamala Harris
President Joe Biden is not expected to attend the coronation of King Charles III, according to a source familiar with the planning, but is expected to send first lady Jill or Vice President Kamala Harris instead.
Guests, including world leaders, have already been emailed by Buckingham Palace to ‘save the date’ of the May ceremony.
But the American president will not be among them.
It means it is the second time that Biden will avoid a meeting with Charles. He is expected to visit Northern Ireland next month, leaving days before the new British monarch arrives to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of violence.
British officials do not see a snub, and have said privately for months that no U.S. president has ever attended a British coronation.
President Joe Biden is not expected to attend the coronation of King Charles III in May, according to a source. He is likely to send first lady Jill or Vice President Kamala Harris
Charles became king on the death of his mother, Elizabeth II, in September but will be crowned in a ceremony with 1000 years of tradition on May 6 at Westminster Abbey
‘We think the representative will be the first lady or the vice president,’ said a source familiar with the arrangements.
‘For the Queen it was the Governor of California and the U.S. Army chief of staff.’
The Daily Telegraph newspaper, which was first to report the news, added that Dame Karen Pierce, the British ambassador to the US, and Buckingham Palace aides had held ‘cordial and diplomatic’ talks with the White House about the delegation.
A White House official said only that a delegation will be announced in the coming weeks.
Charles became king on the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in September last year.
On May 6 he will be crowned at Westminster Abbey.
The ceremony reflects a thousand years of tradition and the service will be conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
However, Charles has overhauled some aspects, cutting its length from three hours to one hour and reducing the guest list from more than 8000, for his mother, to 2000.
The White House says it will make a decision on its delegation in the coming weeks. It is understood that it is likely to be headed by first lady Jill Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris
The coronation of Elizabeth II took place on June 2, 1953. The U.S. delegation included Earl Warren, the governor of California, and George C. Marshall, the US Army chief of staff
Biden and the first lady attended the Queen’s funeral in September last year
He has also revamped the guest list so that members of other royal houses and heads of state can attend, rather than keeping the ceremony as one between a monarch and his British subjects.
The event will be attended several heads of state, including those of France, Spain, Ireland, Japan and Monaco.
The absence of Biden may be used by critics to suggest his sympathies lie not with Charles and the United Kingdom, but with Ireland, from anti-British feeling.
He is due to visit Northern Ireland and Ireland, where he has distant relatives, next month.
And he has made much of his Irish ancestry and occasionally played up the idea that it makes him anti-British.
When a reporter for the BBC tried to ask him a question in 2020, he responded: ‘The BBC? I’m Irish.’
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