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The UK/US Special Relationship
A dozen members of Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet have criticised Donald Trump in recent years, with chastisements that include calling him “inflammatory and ignorant”, “a sociopath”, an “absolute moron”, “a profound threat”, “a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper”, and “the worst president in history”.
Starmer himself, who became Labour leader in 2020, lambasted the former president in 2021 after the attack on the US Congress by a mob attempting to undo Biden’s win in the 2020 election. He said Trump “has to take responsibility” for the incident, though the Labour leader has since avoided direct rebukes.
In 2018, Lammy as a backbench MP said: “Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath, he is also a profound threat to the international order.” The following year he called Trump a “serial liar and a cheat” who was also “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic and . . . no friend of Britain”. In January 2021 he said that “Joe Biden replacing Donald Trump as president fills me with joy”. Later that year he was appointed as shadow foreign secretary.
Angela Rayner, deputy prime minister, said in 2021 after the Capitol Hill riots that Conservative ministers were “spineless” and “toadying” for failing to call out Trump’s “lies”. She added: “The violence that Donald Trump has unleashed is terrifying, and the Republicans who stood by him have blood on their hands.”
Cooper joined a women’s march in 2017 to “take a stand against Donald Trump”, saying: “We are marching because the most powerful man in the [US] thinks it’s OK to grab women ‘by the pussy’.”
The same year, the now-home secretary argued against the British government giving Trump a state visit with its ceremonial “endorsement”.
Ed Miliband, energy secretary, wrote in 2016: “The idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief.” A year later he called Trump an “absolute moron”, and in 2018 castigated “his racist attacks . . . his lies, his admiration for dictators”.
Welsh secretary Jo Stevens said in 2019 that Trump was a “racist, sexist, sharer of extremist ideology, a serial liar and a cheat”.
Other now-cabinet ministers including health secretary Wes Streeting, culture secretary Lisa Nandy, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall, Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn and environment secretary Steve Reed have all written stinging criticisms about Trump.
As Trump prepared to leave office in early 2021, Ian Murray, now Scotland secretary, said: “Fourteen days until the worst president in history exits the stage. He leaves with no dignity and a legacy that’s an embarrassment to the world.”
Labour Cabinet Ministers Called Donald Trump ‘Sociopath’ and ‘Absolute Moron’
Vance was speaking at the National Conservatism conference last week, where he said: “I have to beat up on the UK – just one additional thing. I was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about, you know, one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though, of course, the Biden administration doesn’t care about it.
“And I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon, and we were like, maybe it’s Iran, you know, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK, since Labour just took over.”
The Treasury minister James Murray said: “I don’t know what he was driving at in that comment, to be honest. I mean, in Britain, we’re very proud of our diversity.”
Labour also found an unlikely ally in the form of Andrew Bowie, the shadow veterans minister, who said he “absolutely” disagreed with the claim that Labour would create an “Islamist country”. “I disagree with the Labour party fundamentally on many issues, but I do not agree with that view, quite frankly. I think it’s actually quite offensive, frankly, to my colleagues in the Labour party,” he told Times Radio.
Labour Rejects JD Vance ‘First Islamist Country With Nuclear Weapons’ Remarks
