How to watch Carney and Burnham’s first meeting like a pro

LONDON — Mark Carney and Andy Burnham meet for the first time Wednesday — and it’s not just a love of Everton Football Club uniting the Canadian prime minister and his newly-installed British counterpart.

The meeting of the two world leaders is set to mark Burnham’s return to public duty since the death of his father on Monday. The bereavement for the British prime minister meant final details of the visit were being nailed down at the time of publication, but No.10 Downing Street confirmed it would still include a chance for the pair to bond over their support for the Premier League side.

After televised opening remarks — and as journalists try and decipher a written readout of the behind-closed-doors meeting — there are plans for the pair to retire to the Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool.

There they’ll watch the Toffees play Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Carabao Cup third round, at 7.45 p.m. U.K. time.

Comeback kids

Beyond the football, it is hard to think of two leaders with more in common.

At 61, Carney is just five years older than Burnham. 

Both men did big jobs before their stints at the top of politics. Carney ran the Bank of Canada, and was tapped up to do the same job at the Bank of England during the tumultuous Brexit years. He returned to Canada to succeed a struggling Justin Trudeau and turn around the Liberal Party’s fortunes. 

Burnham is the former mayor of Greater Manchester who came back to Westminster politics to replace a flailing Keir Starmer, and try to save Labour from the electoral abyss.

Crucially, both men are now at the helm of middle powers trying to work out how to live in Donald Trump’s world.

After a punchy Davos speech in January called for smaller nations to band together in a world of unpredictable superpowers, Carney is on a goodwill tour of Europe to hammer that point home.

So what’s on the table?

Ahead of the meeting, the Canadian prime minister’s office said talks would focus on “priorities for the Canada-UK relationship” — including defense and security, energy, artificial intelligence, and critical minerals.

Handily, there’s an agreement already in the works on many of these issues. In the shadow of Trump’s tariffs on a host of global allies last summer, Carney and then British Prime Minister Starmer promised to craft a new strategic partnership between the two nations.

But experts and officials say there’s a need to inject momentum into those efforts after Burnham’s new government took the reins in July.

Since then “there has been some progress,” according to Vina Nadjibulla, co-founder and CEO of the new Canadian foreign policy Centre for Strategic Statecraft think tank. That includes the entry into force of the CPTPP trade agreement between Canada and the U.K. at the start of September.

“The U.K. is particularly valuable because it sits at the intersection of several Canadian priorities,” Nadjibulla says. The “next phase should be about converting a broad strategic partnership into concrete projects and deliverables,” Nadjibulla said, adding that defense industrial cooperation and critical minerals “stand out as the areas with the greatest immediate potential.” 

Canada has vast reserves of critical minerals — including 11 of the 12 deemed critical for defense by NATO. 

Britain is trying to safeguard its own supply in the face of Chinese attempts to hoover up global supplies, and Canada is working on plans to help European partners process and stockpile minerals.

Getting defensive

The two Commonwealth nations and NATO members are already locking arms on a number of defense projects.

The U.K., Italy and Japan recently welcomed Canada into the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) as its first “observer” nation. The next-generation fighter jet scheme is an example of middle powers trying to flex their combined muscle, and Ottawa will be looking to flesh out its involvement in the program and potentially push for full membership.

Canada’s Defense Minister David McGuinty told POLITICO earlier this year that his country is looking to see if there are any gaps in the project that have space for “Canadian know-how” — including on AI, quantum, testing and aeronautics.

With Trump rattling NATO allies in his second term, boosting domestic defense spending is a hot-button issue in both countries. 

In Britain, a cash-strapped Treasury under Starmer resisted calls to join the Carney-backed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB), which aims to help allies rearm by providing loans to governments and defense firms. Britain has separately partnered with the Netherlands, Finland and Poland on its own Multilateral Defence Mechanism — geared towards joint procurement rather than to lending capital.

But McGuinty told POLITICO earlier this year he doesn’t see “any reason why creative negotiation and smart thinking” cannot pull the work of the two schemes together.

Indeed, Burnham and Carney agreed in July to step up work to improve defense investment through their two funding schemes. There is still no formal tie-in between the programs, as they are not yet fully operational or investing in projects.

It would be seen as a coup for Canada to add a second G7 member — and Burnham is seen as more sympathetic to the initiative than his predecessor.

Other legacy proposals from the Starmer administration that could come up include developing the British Army’s training unit in Suffield, Canada, and deepening Canadian involvement in the U.K.-led Joint Expeditionary Force, which focuses on the Arctic.

Power play

When it comes to energy, Burnham may take some pointers from Carney on the fine art of riding two horses at once.

In his past life, Carney was a true green, holding the post of United Nations special envoy on climate finance from 2019 to 2025. He still likes to go big on clean energy, announcing investments in hydroelectric and wind projects just last month. Yet at the same time he’s embraced Canada’s significant fossil fuel resources, backing a major pipeline project and declaring that as long as the world continues using “conventional energy” (read, oil and gas) “as much of that energy as possible should come from Canada.”

There’s a parallel for Burnham in the U.K., who’s vowed his commitment to Labour’s net zero agenda and climate action, but who is also expected to approve new drilling for gas in the North Sea via the Jackdaw project.

The U.K. is not in Canada’s league when it comes to fossil fuel resources. But Burnham may want to seek his ally’s advice on how you sell a two-pronged energy strategy to voters.

Rise of the robots

Thanks to some very trendy panic about human extinction, artificial intelligence is also high on the agenda Wednesday. 

Carney’s “middle powers” message at Davos seemed to hit home with the Labour government before Burnham took the top seat. 

In a speech a couple of months after Carney’s, the U.K.’s then Tech Minister Liz Kendall vowed to work more closely with middle power countries to reduce the concentration of power in AI, while maintaining this was also in the interests of the U.S. Kendall called on mid-range economies to invest more in the “parts of the AI value chain where we share an advantage and competitive edge.” 

The two countries already have a host of official channels for discussing tech, and a drawer full of AI and tech agreements in place. 

They include partnerships between the two nations’ AI safety institutes (albeit in a triangle with the U.S.), research agreements on semiconductors and quantum and, most recently, a commitment to share knowledge on using AI in public services — perfect light fodder for half-time banter between two leaders.

This article has been updated with further reporting.