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    Starmer congratulates Trump and says ‘we stand shoulder to shoulder’ – UK politics live

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    Good morning. Keir Starmer has just issued a statement congratulating Donald Trump on his election victory, which now appears all but certain. Starmer said:
    Congratulations President-elect Trump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead.
    As the closest of allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of our shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.
    From growth and security to innovation and tech, I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come.
    There will be plenty, plenty more UK reaction to the US election to come. I’ll be covering it here.And it is an important day in UK politics too, with Kemi Badenoch taking PMQs for the first time since her election as the new Conservative party leader.Here is the agenda for the day.Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.2.30pm: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the budget.If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative leader, and Priti Patel, the new shadow foreign secretary, have not yet issued a statement following Donald Trump supporting victory. Badenoch has not been as overtly pro-Trump as some Tories, like Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, but it is fairly clear where her sympathies lie. In a GB News hustings during the Tory leadership debate, asked if she favoured Trump or Kamala Harris, she replied: “I like both of them equally.” But she also laughed, implying it was a diplomatic answer, not a truthful one. She has also said she is a “huge fan” of Elon Musk, Trump’s richest and most influential supporter.But one Conservative MP, the rightwinger Nick Timothy, has been commenting on Trump’s win in detail. He has put a series of posts on social media highlighting the challenges raised for Labour. A lot of these are questions they will probably be asking in Downing Street this morning.
    I’m not into America-brained punditry but the US election poses questions of our government.
    1. Trump has made clear America will not subsidise European defence any longer. The Govt has refused to put a timeline on an increase in defence spending. What’s it’s plan? (1/n).

    2. American subsidies and the enormity of its equity market have drawn British talent and businesses across the Atlantic, even under Joe Biden. What is the response?
    3. Trump will adopt a more confrontational approach to trade with China. How will we handle that?

    4. We don’t know his Ukraine policy but it’s likely Trump will push for a deal. Does our Government back a deal or is its Ukraine policy independent?
    5. Trump will take a hard line towards Iran. Our Government won’t even proscribe the IRGC. What’s the policy?

    6. In the UN the UK has recently voted with European countries not America on eg Iran. Will that change?
    7. The constant in Trump’s career is his concern about the US trade deficit. If he goes protectionist with British produce, goods and services, what’s our response?

    8. On the many other issues that arise between the two countries – eg security cooperation, extradition, diplomacy – what’s the plan to ensure good relations?
    9. Who will be our next ambassador in DC? Labour blocked a skilled diplomat in Tim Barrow and have flirted with options including Mandelson, Miliband and Baroness Amos, who thinks we should consider paying reparations to Caribbean countries.

    11. How wise was it to appoint Lammy to this position when this election result was always a possibility?
    12. How wise was it to send armies of Labour activists to fight against Trump in the election?
    The Green party says Donald Trump is a “bigot, bully and liar”, and that people around the world must fight the “politics of hate” he represents. In a statement from the party, Carla Denyer, the co-leader, said:
    A dangerous bigot, bully, and liar is once again set to become the leader of the most powerful country in the world. A climate change denier, a proud racist and misogynist, and a man who has sought to subvert elections and incite insurrection.
    On this dark day, we stand in solidarity with all US citizens who fear a convicted criminal and a fascist in the White House. And we stand with all those around the world who dreaded this moment and must now live with its consequences, including those in Gaza and Ukraine.
    Together, those of us who believe in democracy must work together to overcome authoritarianism and the politics of hate.
    Another Labour politician who has criticised Donald Trump strongly in the past is Emily Thornberry, shadow foreign secretary when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader and now chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee. In an interview on the Today programme this morning she said Trump’s victory (or apparent victory – he still has not officially hit 270 electoral college votes) was “disappointing”, and that it made the world “unpredictable”.When it was put to her that she described him as a “racist, sexual predator” when he visited the UK during his first term as president, she replied:
    Well, he is. But he is the president of the United States, and we need to work with him.
    Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, has put out a statement saying people in the capital will feel “anxious” about the results of the US presidential elections. He said:
    I know that many Londoners will be anxious about the outcome of the US presidential election. Many will be fearful about what it will mean for democracy and for women’s rights, or how the result impacts the situation in the Middle East or the fate of Ukraine. Others will be worried about the future of NATO or tackling the climate crisis …
    The lesson of today is that progress is not inevitable. But asserting our progressive values is more important than ever – re-committing to building a world where racism and hatred is rejected, the fundamental rights of women and girls are upheld, and where we continue to tackle the crisis of climate change head on.
    During Trump’s first term as US president, Trump publicly criticised Khan on various occasions, prompting Khan to respond robustly.The most detailed account of Keir Starmer’s private dinner with Donald Trump in New York in September (see 8.44am) appeared in an article by Tim Shipman in the Sunday Times at the weekend. Here is an extract.
    Twice during Sir Keir Starmer’s first dinner with Donald Trump at the end of September, the former president turned to the prime minister and said: “You’re a liberal, so we won’t always agree but we can work together.” At the end of the meal, he looked at Starmer and said: “You and I are friends.” Starmer’s team breathed a sigh of relief. With America set to choose a new commander-in-chief, personal relationships could define the future of the transatlantic alliance.
    An even bigger hit with Trump than the buttoned-up Starmer, however, was David Lammy, the foreign secretary. Lammy laughed in the right places at Trump’s jokes and the former president personally offered him a second portion of food, a moment of both levity and symbolism as a man accused of neo-fascist tendencies bonded with the descendant of slaves.
    Lammy, who attended Harvard Law School and has relatives in the United States, is given to the kind of back-slapping bonhomie that goes a long way in Washington. “David gets American politicians,” said one diplomatic source.
    The Stand Up to Racism campaign says it is organising a “No to Trump” protest at 6pm tonight at the US embassy in London. Weyman Bennett, co-convenor of of the group, said:
    Trump is a racist who gives every fascist and far-right activist a boost. His last presidency saw millions march against him. We are coming out to oppose him – and his racism, sexism, bigotry and Islamophobia again.
    Other organisations supporting the protest include the Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and the Abortion Rights CampaignUK growth would be halved in the event Donald Trump wins the US presidential race and imposes the swingeing new tariffs he has threatened, a leading thinktank warned in a report published as the US election results starting coming in. Larry Elliott has the story.Opposition party politicians have scope to criticise Donald Trump in a way that members of a government that will have to deal with the Trump administration do not, and that is evident from the Liberal Democrats’ reaction to Trump’s election victory (which still have not been officially confirmed, but which seems very certain).Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, released a statement shortly after Keir Starmer’s (see 8.32am) saying that Trump declaring victory was a “dark, dark day” for the world and that it made fixing the UK’s relationship with the EU “even more urgent”.
    This is a dark, dark day for people around the globe. The world’s largest economy and most powerful military will be led by a dangerous, destructive demagogue.
    The next president of the United States is a man who actively undermines the rule of law, human rights, international trade, climate action and global security.
    Millions of Americans – especially women and minorities – will be incredibly fearful about what comes next. We stand with them.
    Families across the UK will also be worrying about the damage Trump will do to our economy and our national security, given his record of starting trade wars, undermining NATO and emboldening tyrants like Putin.
    Fixing the UK’s broken relationship with the EU is even more urgent than before. We must strengthen trade and defence cooperation across Europe to help protect ourselves from the damage Trump will do.
    Now more than ever, we must stand up for the core liberal values of equality, democracy, human rights and the rule of law – at home and around the world.
    Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, told the Today programme this morning that Donald Trump would be “a genuine radical”. Farage, who counts Trump as a friend and who is in the US to attend Trump’s election day party in Florida, said:
    What you are going to see from this Trump administration, and I’m guessing that Elon Musk will be the man that is tasked to do it – is there will be a big fightback against the administrative bureaucratic state which is far too big, far too powerful and actually very undemocratic.
    He also claimed Trump was “bringing Americans together”.
    What is very interesting about the Trump movement is that it’s critics call it all sorts of nasty names, the truth is in many ways it’s bringing Americans together.
    David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has posted a message on social media congratulating Donald Trump.
    Congratulations to @realDonaldTrump on your victory.The UK has no greater friend than the US, with the special relationship being cherished on both sides of the Atlantic for more than 80 years.We look forward to working with you and @JDVance in the years ahead.
    Lammy is one of several senior Labour figures who made very critical comments about Trump in public in the past. Lammy’s comments included describing Trump as a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”, a “profound threat to the international order” and a “dangerous clown”.Kamala Harris has not conceded yet in the US presidential contest, and Donald Trump has not quite secured the necessary 270 electoral college votes needed to make him president. But Downing Street sent out a message from Keir Starmer congratulating Trump anyway at 8.16am. By that point other word leaders, like the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, had already offered Trump their congratulations and Starmer will have decided that it was best not to hang around.Most Labour MPs are horrified by Trump’s politics. But Starmer knows he has to work with him and as Labour leader in opposition he was scrupulous about talking about him respectfully, and as PM he has made an effort to cultivate a good relationship, calling him to express support after the assasination attempt and arranging a private ‘get to know you dinner’ when he was in New York for the UN general assembly meeting recently.Good morning. Keir Starmer has just issued a statement congratulating Donald Trump on his election victory, which now appears all but certain. Starmer said:
    Congratulations President-elect Trump on your historic election victory. I look forward to working with you in the years ahead.
    As the closest of allies, we stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of our shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.
    From growth and security to innovation and tech, I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come.
    There will be plenty, plenty more UK reaction to the US election to come. I’ll be covering it here.And it is an important day in UK politics too, with Kemi Badenoch taking PMQs for the first time since her election as the new Conservative party leader.Here is the agenda for the day.Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.2.30pm: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the budget.If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog. More

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      There’s a fair way to ensure third-party candidates don’t ‘spoil’ the US election | David Daley

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr has suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump, in part because he did not want to be a spoiler across competitive swing states. The third-party “spoiler problem”, unfortunately, will not vanish with him.Three committed independents and third-party nominees remain: progressive activist Cornel West, Libertarian Chase Oliver, and Jill Stein of the Green party. They could still tip the balance: the White House looks likely to be won by the tiniest margins across just seven swing states, just as it was in 2016 and 2020.The next president should not be decided by whether Stein earns 0.4% in Michigan or 0.2%, or if Oliver claims 1.1% or 0.8% in Libertarian-friendly Georgia and Arizona. But under our current system, that’s very much possible.We need a modern fix that recognizes that third parties are here to stay, but also that a nation with a guiding principle of majority rule deserves winners who earn more than 50% of their fellow Americans’ votes. The best solution to the urgent “spoiler” problem – which we’ve been exhaustingly debating since Ross Perot’s run in 1992 – is ranked-choice voting (RCV).Two states – Maine and Alaska – have already adopted this common-sense, nonpartisan fix for fairer results and will vote for president this fall with RCV. Others should follow their lead. RCV has lots of benefits. But most crucially, by giving voters the power to rank the field, it fixes the spoiler effect that emerges in any race with more than two candidates.A RCV election works much like an instant runoff. If someone wins a majority of voters’ first choices, they win – like any other election. If not, the last-place finishers are eliminated, one by one, and their supporters’ second choices come into play to identify a majority winner.In other words, a Democrat in Michigan who wants a different approach in Gaza could feel free to rank West or Stein first, and Kamala Harris second. A Sun belt conservative who thinks the national debt grew too quickly under Trump could put Oliver first and the former president second. They could make their voice heard – without worrying that their vote would elect someone they fear could be worse on the issue most important to them.Currently, despite our political nuances and the increasing number of registered independents, the spoiler problem continues to be the prism through which every third-party run is considered. Kennedy never seemed likely to win, but pundits agonized for months over whether he drew more from Democrats or the Republican party. It’s no surprise that serious independent candidates or anti-Trump conservatives such as Larry Hogan and Chris Christie rejected entreaties to run this year, when such a run would be reduced to the question of who they’d “siphon” votes from.It’s too early to judge the effect that Kennedy’s exit will have on the race. His support had softened in recent weeks. Yet almost no matter how his supporters break, the most competitive states remain extremely close.As of 21 August, Harris leads Arizona by 1.2%, Pennsylvania by 1.6%, and North Carolina by 0.2%. Trump holds a lead of 0.8% in Georgia. Any of the remaining third-party candidates could easily exceed the margin of victory in competitive states. It’s not just Florida in 2000, when George W Bush carried the electoral college tipping-point by 537 votes, a margin far surpassed by Ralph Nader voters. In Wisconsin in 2020, the Libertarian Jo Jorgensen and conservative-leaning independents took more than twice as many votes as the margin between Joe Biden and Trump.It’s easy to imagine something similar this year, perhaps even an election night 2024 where the electoral college is knotted up. Harris and Trump each have 251 electoral votes. Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin remain too close to call, each separated by a handful of votes. A tense nation awaits the verdict.Wouldn’t the result have more legitimacy if everyone knew that the electoral votes in those states went to a winner with more than 50% of the vote?Kennedy might have left the scene, but third-party candidates are not going away. Nor should they be forced out. We can adjust to that reality, or we can dig in our heels, repeat this tired debate, blame Ralph Nader and Jill Stein for everything, forever, and – at a time when the country feels ever more polarized – risk electing a president without a majority in the decisive states, leaving us even more divided than we are now.There’s no silver bullet to everything that ails our civic spirit. Yet the road out of this toxicity might begin with embracing values that most of us hold dear: more individual choice is good, all of us should be heard and majorities must rule. Ranked-choice voting makes that possible.

      David Daley is the author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count and Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy. He is a senior fellow at FairVote More

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      in US Politics

      Third party candidates will help Trump win | Robert Reich

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      Whether they intend to be or not, third-party groups such as No Labels and the Green party are in effect front groups for Trump in 2024.No Labels has pledged to spend $70m to support a third-party candidate in 2024 who could easily draw enough votes from President Biden to tip the presidential election to Trump.No Labels has already qualified as a presidential party that can run candidates on the ballot in 10 states, including in both Arizona and Florida.It claims to be a centrist organization seeking a new bipartisanship, but it will not reveal its donors, one of whom is reportedly the conservative mega-donor Harlan Crow. Politico reports that No Labels has brought on a major Trump donor as an adviser in the pivotal battleground state of Florida.If you believe that No Labels exists in order to encourage bipartisanship, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.No Labels will only help elect Trump.So will every other third party claiming to be in the “center” or on the “left” – including the Green party, which is already on the ballot in the two key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin and whose most likely candidate for president is Cornel West.And the People’s party, especially if Robert F Kennedy Jr becomes its nominee.The reason they’re all front groups for Donald Trump is that the upcoming 2024 election is likely to be nail-bitingly close even as a two-way race between Trump and Biden.The good news is that Trump loyalists don’t represent a majority of the electorate – which is why Trump has lost the popular vote in both his presidential runs and did not top 47% in either.So, as long as the anti-Trump vote is unified behind Biden, Trump cannot win, as Biden demonstrated in 2020.But if a third-party candidate takes even a small part of the anti-Trump vote away from Biden, Trump is likely to be returned to the White House.Consider the five states most likely to decide the 2024 election in the electoral college – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In 2016, Trump narrowly won each of them, giving him the presidency. In 2020, these five states narrowly tipped in the other direction, giving Biden the presidency.Biden’s razor-thin margins in these five states in 2020 came from a massive anti-Trump vote.In all of these states, at least 1 in 3 Biden voters said they voted mainly against Trump.In Wisconsin (where the Green party has already secured a spot on the 2024 ballot), 38% of Biden voters said they voted mainly against Trump.In Arizona (where No Labels has already secured a spot on the 2024 ballot), 45% of Biden voters said they voted mainly against Trump.Biden has no margin for error. Even a small drop-off from his 2020 anti-Trump vote would make him vulnerable.Just 44,000 votes out of more than 10m cast in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin – less than half of 1% – were the difference between the Biden presidency and a tie in the electoral college that would have thrown the election to the House of Representatives, and hence to Trump.If candidates from No Labels, the Green party and the People’s party peel off just 15% of the anti-Trump vote from Biden, and Trump’s base stays with him, Trump would win all five swing states comfortably and return to the Oval Office.These third parties are urging people to “vote your conscience”, “give the people a real choice” and “not settle for the lesser of two evils”.If the upcoming election were an ordinary one – pitting a conservative Republican against a liberal Democrat – I’d say the more the merrier. If people want to vote for a third-party candidate, fine.But the upcoming election isn’t an ordinary one. We’ve already witnessed what Trump has tried to do to remain in power. If he’s re-elected, 2024 could mark America’s last democratic election.The reality is that any anti-Trump votes these third parties pull away from Biden will only help ensure a Trump victory.The risk to the future of American democracy is enormous. If No Labels were a legitimate third party rather than a Trump front, it would withdraw from all ballots for the 2024 election, and try again in 2028. If Cornel West and the Green party had positive intentions, they would do the same.The rest of us must spread the word about what’s at stake.If Trump wins the Republican nomination for president, as seems highly likely despite (or because of) his coming trials, all Americans who believe in democracy must unite behind Joe Biden – to ensure that Trump, in the words of then representative Liz Cheney, “never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office”.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More