Sir Keir Starmer drew flak on Friday for meeting Donald Trump, with Conservatives accusing the PM of hypocrisy and senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry attacking the “racist” former president.
The Prime Minister and Republican presidential candidate met for the first time over a two-hour dinner in New York, where Sir Keir has been attending the UN General Assembly this week.
They were joined by Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who has previously called Trump a "racist" and a "neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath".
In June 2019, when Boris Johnson was running to be Tory leader, he was endorsed as an “excellent” candidate by Trump.
Then, Sir Keir tweeted: “An endorsement from Donald Trump tells you everything you need to know about what is wrong with Boris Johnson’s politics and why he isn’t fit to be Prime Minister.”
That tweet returned to haunt the PM on Friday with Huntingdon MP Ben Obese-Jecty issuing an attack on that was reposted by current leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch, among other Conservatives.
“The Prime Minister’s disingenuous hypocrisy and u-turn on seemingly every issue is fast becoming a running joke,” Mr Obese-Jecty commented.
“He believes in nothing and will tell anybody what he thinks they want to hear.”
Ms Thornberry, who has become chairwoman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee after failing to win a job in Sir Keir’s new Cabinet, was asked if she stood by remarks in 2019 when she said of Trump: “He is a sexual predator. He is a racist.”
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Yes. And if I was at dinner with someone who said things like that, then I would call it out.
“But I don’t imagine that the conversation moved on to things like that at that dinner [in New York],” the Islington South and Finsbury MP said.
She stressed: “Donald Trump may be the president of the United States in a couple of months’ time so of course, it’s important to have meetings with him and to build a relationship with him.”
But Ms Thornberry added: “I do think that if there are things the American president does or says that we disagree with, then we shouldn’t pull our punches.” Such things would include “caging Mexican children” or closing US borders to people from Muslim countries, the MP said.
Ahead of November’s US election, Sir Keir visited Trump Tower for the meeting, explaining he wanted to meet Trump face to face because “I’m a great believer in personal relationships on the world stage”.
The meeting had the potential to be diplomatically awkward also because Sir Keir was unable to schedule a similar appointment with Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, with both sides saying they couldn’t find the time in crammed diaries.
A UK government source said the PM and Trump "discussed the longstanding friendship between the UK and the US and the importance of continuing to develop the strong and enduring partnership between our two countries".
Speaking at a press conference before they met, Trump said he thought Sir Keir was “very nice”.
He said: “I actually think he’s very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it’s very early, he’s very popular.”
The presidential candidate added praise for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
He said: “I think Nigel is great, I’ve known him for a long time. He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually. They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you don’t get them.”
Ahead of the meeting, Sir Keir told reporters: “I’ve said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates.
“We’ve now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good.
“Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well.
“But you know, the usual diary challenges, but it’s good that this one now has been fixed.
“It’ll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us.
“I’m a great believer in personal relations on the international stage.
“I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them personally, get to know them face to face.”
Re: Daily Mail story today. Yes, if Trump comes to the UK I will be out protesting on the streets. He is a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) September 26, 2017
Sir Keir said the UK embassy team, led by Ambassador Dame Karen Pierce, “has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time”.
“So it’s not the sort of start of something, it’s the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and that’s a really good thing that the embassy has been doing.”
Asked whether he would be prepared to stand up to Trump on issues such as support for Ukraine, Sir Keir said: “The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is we’ve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances.
“That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK.
“And it is really important.
“I think it’s probably as strong now as it’s ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine.
“And you’ve seen how closely I’ve been working with the US in relation to both of those issues.
“The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect.
“I’m not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be the other side of the election.”
