ANDY Burnham is “extremely liberal” and so “probably won’t open up the North Sea” for oil exploration, Donald Trump has said.
In his first public comments about Burnham, the US president described him as “the mayor of a town”.
Trump also spoke at his disappointment at the UK’s response to the Iran conflict, but noted Keir Starmer had “now gone”.
The president had repeatedly lambasted the Prime Minister over his energy policy and for not allowing further oil drilling in the North Sea, while permitting wind turbines.
Asked at the White House what he knew about Burnham, Trump said: “I don’t know, I think I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town.
“I hear he’s extremely liberal, extremely, so that means he probably won’t open up the North Sea.
“I gave Keir Starmer some pretty good advice. I said, open up the North Sea, go to Aberdeen, which was the hottest city of the whole continent.
“It was the oil city of Europe, and they closed everything. It was terrible. I couldn’t believe it.
“The North Sea is loaded. I have had every oil company come to see me ‘Sir. could you give us access to the UK? We would do anything to drill in the North Sea’.
“The amazing thing is, they buy their oil from Norway, which gets the oil from the North Sea. Think of it, and they pay a big premium.
“Norway’s got now two trillion dollars in the bank, and the UK is dying, so they should open up the North Sea, and it’s an easy one, and a lot of good things are going to happen. It’s among the greatest deals in the world.”
Trump made his comments during a meeting with Nato chief Mark Rutte ahead of a crucial summit of the military alliance in Turkey.
The president has been scathing of allies, including the UK, for their refusal to be drawn into the war with Iran or help reopen the Strait of Hormuz waterway after the US-Israeli offensive against Tehran effectively shut the key oil supply route.
Starmer initially denied the US use of British military bases to conduct the bombing campaign against Iran, although limited permission was subsequently granted for defensive strikes.
The conflict served to fuel existing tensions over Nato, with Trump arguing America had been bankrolling the defence of other countries.
A row over UK military spending led John Healey to recently quit as defence secretary.
Starmer said “not today” when asked if he was meeting Burnham at the beginning of Prime Minister’s Questions.
The soon-to-be ex-PM laughed as he was heckled by a Tory MP, when someone from the Conservative benches could be heard saying “Andy?”, after the Prime Minister said: “This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. I shall have further such meetings later today.”
