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Keir Starmer has sidestepped a call to apologise for his foreign secretary dubbing Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising’ sociopath”.
David Lammy made the comment in an article when he was a backbench MP in 2018.
A year before he also tweeted: “Yes, if Trump comes to the UK I will be out protesting on the streets. He is a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser.”
Mr Lammy has sought to build links with the Trump campaign since becoming foreign secretary, but the election result has shone a new spotlight on his comments, raising questions about his ability to work with the next US president.
The prime minister came under pressure over the issue at prime minister’s questions in the Commons from the new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
She asked him about the meeting he and Mr Lammy had with Mr Trump in September.
In her first outing at PMQs since winning her party’s top job, she asked: “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?”
Sir Keir dodged the question, saying that they had “discussed a number of issues of global significance. It was a very constructive exercise”.
Earlier this year Mr Lammy defended calling Mr Trump a neo-Nazi sociopath, saying all politicians had something to say about him “back in the day”.
He also said he had met Mr Trump’s vice president JD Vance and that they two men had “common ground”.
“We’re both from poor backgrounds, both suffered from addiction issues in our family which we’ve written about… both of us Christians. And now I’ve met him on a few occasions, and we have been able to find common ground and get on,” he said.
The Labour leader had opened PMQs by congratulating the president-elect on his victory.
He added: “As the closest of allies, the UK and US will continue to work together to protect our shared values of freedom and democracy.
“And having had dinner with President-elect Trump just a few weeks ago, I look forward to working with him in the years to come.”
