Boris Johnson has claimed the UK has an “indestructible relationship” with the US, after his bilateral meeting on Thursday with President Joe Biden.

The prime minister is known not to be keen on the well-worn phrase “special relationship”, believing it makes the UK look weak.

But in an interview with the BBC after the pair met, he sought to underscore the closeness between the two nations, despite Biden’s concerns about the damaging standoff with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol.

“Look, I don’t mind the phrase ‘special relationship’ because it is special. But you know, it encompasses a reality which is that the UK and the US have a real congruence of views on some stuff that really matters to the world. And so we believe very strongly in democracy, we believe in human rights, we believe in the rules-based international order, we believe in the transatlantic alliance,” Johnson said.