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 attorneys wrote to the FEC last month asking for an investigation into possible international interference and allegations that Labour had made unlawful unusual contributions to the Harris campaign.
In 2019, Starmer wrote on” X” that” an endorsement from Donald Trump tells you everything you need to know about Boris Johnson’s politics and why he is n’t the right candidate to be prime minister.”
In a 2018 Time content UK foreign minister David Lammy described Trump as a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”, a “tyrant” and a “profound risk to the global order”.
In a 2019 post Lammy wrote:” Deluded, unscrupulous, racist, selfish, Donald Trump is no companion of Britain. ” Donald Trump lies more frequently than the average person uses the restroom,” and “he is hardly fit to hold public office.”
Starmer and Lammy both rushed to call Trump on Wednesday to express their congratulations on the day that he had won the election.
Elon Musk has recently harshly criticized Starmer’s policies on” X” and he has frequently told affiliates he thinks the UK’s fresh pm is “very left-wing,” according to officials.
Sean Spicer, former White House press director, told ITV that Trump does not miss Lammy’s type of comments, but that he had seen the Labour govt test and “walk up those notes” and with Trump it is “always bargaining”.
Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner once referred to Trump as a “buffoon” who had” no position in the White House.”
She made a quick call to up J D Vance, the vice president-elect, who had earlier stated in the campaign that” under Labour the UK could be the first really Islamist nation to receive a nuclear weapon.”
After the visit, Rayner stated that speaking with Vance was excellent. We discussed our future strategies and how we can continue to strengthen our unique partnerships with our wonderful nations.
Lammy dismissed the comments as “old media” after being questioned about his abuse of Donald Trump on BBC Newscast.
” Two tweets were exchanged during that time about Trump.” It was a normal occurrence. Today I am foreign minister, I have had a dinner with Donald Trump”. He said it always came up in their talk,” not yet vaguely”, and that he found him to be a “very polite, good number”.
What you say as a parliamentarian and what you do in public office are two distinct items, Lammy said.
