Leaders across the UK’s political spectrum have congratulated Donald Trump as he claimed victory in the US presidential election.
Sir Keir Starmer said the UK-US special relationship would “continue to prosper”, but the Prime Minister and other top Labour politicians have not always been so complimentary about Mr Trump…
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer
In 2021, Sir Keir declared himself to be “anti-Trump but pro-American”.
Last year he likened the Conservative Party to Mr Trump as he accused the Tories of falling far from Churchillian values. He asked: “Is there anybody in the Government now who feels a sense of obligation to anything other than their own self-interest? To democracy, the rule of law, serving our country?
“An entitlement to power unchecked by any sense of service or responsibility – that’s the cultural stain that runs through the modern Conservative Party.”
He added: “These aren’t Churchill’s Tories any more. If anything they behave more and more like Donald Trump.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy in 2017
Mr Lammy called Mr Trump a “racist KKK and neo-Nazi sympathiser”.
A year later, referring to Mr Trump’s first official UK visit, the Tottenham MP wrote in Time magazine that he would be protesting against the then government’s “capitulation to this tyrant in a toupee”.
He added: “Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath, he is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long.”
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner
Ms Rayner has publicly criticised Mr Trump in posts on X, formerly Twitter, more than once.
On the day of the Capitol Hill riots in January 2021, she tweeted: “The violence that Donald Trump has unleashed is terrifying, and the Republicans who stood by him have blood on their hands.”
Later that month she said of the inauguration of Joe Biden as president: “I am so happy to see the back of Donald Trump.”
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper
In 2017, Ms Cooper said Mr Trump’s approach to politics was “normalising hatred”.
Referring to his use of Twitter, she said: “This is the bully pulpit of the most powerful man on the planet.”
A few months later she said Britain could not “simply roll out a red carpet and give a platform” for Mr Trump to “sow discord in our communities”.
In July 2019 she signed an open letter from Hope Not Hate in solidarity with four US congresswomen told by Mr Trump to “go back” to the “broken and crime-infested places from which they came” – calling his words “racist attacks”.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband
Mr Miliband said of Mr Trump in 2016: “The idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief.” He told the BBC: “And I think we should be deeply worried about the implications for many of the things that we care about. Tackling climate change…His attitude to Russia. And then this fantasy about trade. I mean, this guy is anti-trade. He’s an odd combination of protectionism, plus the old trickledown formula that has got us into a lot of this mess in the first place.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting
In 2017, Mr Streeting called Trump an “odious, sad little man”, adding on X: “Imagine being proud to have that as your president.”
