The rubber is about to hit the road for the leftist Labour Party government in Britain as it looks towards dealing with its most important ally in the United States with Donald Trump at the helm, a man who top cabinet members and even the prime minister have publicly insulted for years.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls to personally apologise to President-Elect Donald Trump for the venomous rhetoric spouted by him and his deputies for the sake of the “special relationship” between the U.S. and the UK, with a potential trade deal being on the line.
Following Mr Trump’s stunning victory in the early hours of Wednesday morning, his closest ally in Britain, Brexit leader Nigel Farage, implored the Labour government to “roll out the red carpet for the incoming U.S. President,” arguing that “President Donald Trump is a genuine friend of the United Kingdom. This is a huge opportunity to be grasped for our country.”
This call was echoed by recently-made Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who pressed Starmer during her first Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) to formally apologise to the president-elect for the disparaging remarks made about Trump from his team, including from his top diplomat, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who signed a motion to bar then-President Trump from addressing Parliament during a state visit, the Daily Mail reported.
Mrs Badenoch said at the House of Commons dispatch box: “I would like to start by congratulating President-elect Trump on his impressive victory this morning.
“The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary met him in September. Did the Foreign Secretary take that opportunity to apologise for making derogatory and scatological references, including, and I quote, ‘Trump is not only a woman-hating Neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath, he is also a profound threat to the international order’, and if he did not apologise, will the Prime Minister do so now on his behalf?”
Rather than taking the opportunity to mend fences with the incoming leader of the free world, Starmer ignored the issue outright, merely claiming that a recent meeting with Trump was “constructive”.
Starmer has also expressed anti-Trump sentiment, including as recently as last year. While criticising the then-governing Tory party, he accused them of acting “more and more like Donald Trump” in shirking commitment to “democracy, the rule of law, serving our country” in favour of “self-interest”.
“They look at the politics of America and they want to bring that here,” Starmer added.
The PM’s deputy, far-left MP Angela Rayner, had also previously taken pot-shots at the American leader, pronouncing during Joe Biden’s inauguration that she was ” so happy to see the back of Donald Trump, but even more so to see Kamala Harris as VP.”
Perhaps the most forthright of Starmer’s allies is his pick for Britain’s top diplomat — somewhat ironically, given how undiplomatic he can be — David Lammy, who had previously called Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”, a “racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser”, and “tyrant in a toupee”. Lammy had called him at times “a serial liar and a cheat” and “morally bankrupt”.
Yet this morning, Lammy struck a different tune, writing: “Congratulations to [Donald Trump] on your victory… We look forward to working with you and [JD Vance] in the years ahead.”
The simmering spat between the prime minister’s party and Mr Trump erupted into a full-blown feud after it emerged that nearly 100 Labour staffers were dispatched to the United States to campaign for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign against Trump. Additionally, senior Labour Party advisors attended the Democrat National Convention over the summer.
The move prompted the Trump campaign to file an official complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging illegal foreign “contributions” to the Harris campaign by the Labour volunteering efforts.
The row threatens to sour the incoming president’s desire to craft a post-Brexit bilateral trade agreement between Britain and America. Mr Trump, a staunch Anglophile, had been eager to sign a deal with London during his first term in office. However, dithering from Boris Johnson’s Conservatives meant nothing was inked before Trump left office in 2020.