Afternoon Summary
Keir Starmer shrugged off comments made by Donald Trump that it was “very dangerous” for the UK to do business with China, suggesting that the US president “was talking more about Canada”. Trump was asked by reporters on Thursday for his reaction to Starmer’s visit to Beijing (you can read more about that in our earlier blogpost). He responded: “Well, it’s very dangerous for them to do that, and it’s even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China.” When asked by Sky News to respond to the comments, Starmer said the US president “was probably talking more about Canada than the United Kingdom”.
He said his visit to China had been discussed with Trump’s team ahead of time and that the US president has a scheduled trip to the country in April.-
China has lifted the sanctions it imposed on serving British MPs and peers in a significant sign of warming relations after Keir Starmer travelled to Beijing for landmark talks with Xi Jinping.Nine UK citizens were banned from China in 2021, including five Conservative MPs and two members of the House of Lords, targeted for highlighting human rights violations against the Muslim Uyghur community.
But those affected have said they take “no comfort” from the lifting of sanctions. The group of sanctioned parliamentarians said: “While British citizen Jimmy Lai remains imprisoned and Uyghurs continue to suffer atrocity crimes, we take no comfort in this decision and will not be silenced. We look forward to receiving urgent assurances from the government regarding those who were placed under sanction together with us, and take this opportunity to express our ongoing solidarity with the Uyghur people, whose cause we will not drop.”
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The Green party unveiled Hannah Spencer, a Trafford councillor and plumber, as its candidate to stand in the Gorton and Denton byeelection. Labour won the seat with a 13,000 majority in the 2024 general election, but next month’s byelection is widely touted as a referendum on prime minister Keir Starmer, whose approval rating has tanked to unprecedented lows. Labour party’s national executive committee’s also decided to block Andy Burnham from standing in the byelection next month. The Greater Manchester mayor is frequently dubbed the most popular Labour politician and is viewed as a potential leadership rival to prime minister Keir Starmer.
Hoping to bank on Labour’s dwindling support are Reform UK and the Greens. Reform has announced hard-right activist, Matthew Goodwin, to contest the seat. Goodwin has just been endorsed by far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.
Prominent Hong Kong and Uyghur activists living in exile in the UK have accused Starmer of seeking China’s desperate approval, after the prime minister visited Beijing for the first time in eight years this week. Pro-democracy campaigner and prominent critic of the Communist Party, Finn Lau said the Hong Kong community is disappointed by Starmer’s visit, but unsurprised by the government’s “short sightedness”.
Keir Starmer signalled British support for a US strike on Iran, saying he backed President Trump’s goal of preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. “The goal or the aim here is that Iran shouldn’t be able to develop nuclear weapons. That is hugely important and, of course, we need to deal with the fact they are repressing protesters, killing protesters,” Starmer told the BBC. “It is grotesque, what is happening, so that is where our focus is and we are working with allies to that end.”
Asked if he was backing strikes, Starmer said: “I am saying we support the goal and we are talking to allies about how we get to that goal.”Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he would “reflect on the implications” of the easing of Chinese sanctions on MPs, which he said he was “unfortunately” only made aware of through media reports.
Labour have accused the Reform UK candidate for the Gorton and Denton byelection, Matthew Goodwin, of representing “toxic politics” after he was endorsed by the far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.
The move will be uncomfortable for Nigel Farage, who has consistently kept the parties he leads separate from Robinson, an anti-Islam campaigner and one of the UK’s leading far-right figures.
In a post on X on Friday to his 1.8m followers, Robinson quoted a tweet by Hope Not Hate, which researches and campaigns against far-right politics, adding simply: “Vote for Matt.”
A Reform spokesperson said in response: “We have consistently been clear on this issue. He isn’t welcome in the party.”
But Labour, which is seeking to present itself as the only viable leftwing option for votes against Reform in the Greater Manchester constituency, said Robinson’s intervention showed that “the stakes couldn’t be higher” for the 26 February contest.
