TOI correspondent from London: Britain’s govt is scrambling to smooth over tensions in the UK-US special relationship after 100 Labour party staff flew to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris in the presidential election and old scathing comments surfaced from Labour frontbenchers heavily criticising the US president-elect.
Donald Trump’s lawyers wrote to the Federal Election Commission last month requesting an investigation into foreign interference and alleging illegal foreign contributions by Labour to the Harris campaign.
Starmer wrote on ‘X’ in 2019: “An endorsement from Donald Trump tells you everything you need to know about Boris Johnson’s politics and why he isn’t fit to be prime minister.”
In a 2018 Time article UK foreign secretary David Lammy described Trump as a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”, a “tyrant” and a “profound threat to the international order”.
In a 2019 tweet Lammy wrote: “Deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic, Donald Trump is no friend of Britain. He is not fit to hold public office” and “Donald Trump lies more times a day than the average person goes to the bathroom.”
Starmer tweeted to congratulate Trump on the day he won the election, as did Lammy, and Starmer rushed to phone Trump on Wednesday too.
Insiders told Bloomberg that Trump has repeatedly told associates he thinks the UK’s new PM is “very left-wing” and Starmer’s policies have been heavily criticised on ‘X’ by Elon Musk in recent months.
Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary, told ITV that Trump does not forget Lammy’s type of comments, but that he had seen the Labour govt try and “walk back those remarks” and with Trump there is “always negotiation”.
Four years ago deputy PM Angela Rayner had described Trump as a “buffoon” who had “no place in the White House”.
On Thursday she was quick to call up vice president-elect J D Vance, who during the election campaign had said: “Under Labour the UK could be the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon.”
Rayner tweeted after the call it was good to speak to Vance. “We spoke about our plans for the future and how, working together, we will build on the special relationship between our great countries.”
Questioned about his tirade of abuse at Trump on BBC Newscast, Lammy dismissed the tweets as “old news”.
“In that period lots of things were said about Trump on Twitter. It was a daily occurrence. Now I am foreign secretary, I have had a meal with Donald Trump.” He said it never came up in their conversation, “not even vaguely”, and that he found him to be a “very gracious, generous host”.
“What you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the real duty of public office are two different things…” Lammy said.