UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer dined with Donald Trump for two hours as he sought to move past previous criticism of the former president to burnish personal relations ahead of a US election that may return him to power.
The meal at Trump Tower in New York capped off a two-day visit by the new premier to attend the United Nations General Assembly. The two men discussed the longstanding friendship between their two nations and the importance of maintaining an enduring partnership, according to Starmer’s office.
With UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy also in attendance, there was potential for awkwardness given both he and Starmer had criticized Trump while their left-leaning Labour Party was in opposition. Now in government, and with a tight presidential race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on the other side of the Atlantic, they face the prospect of having to work closely with him.
“It’ll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us,” Starmer told reporters before meeting Trump. “I’m a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and you know personally, get to know them face-to-face.”
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While the British premier had hoped to also meet with Harris on the visit, reporters traveling with him to New York were told that “diary challenges” had prevented it. That raises the chance he may cross the Atlantic again before the US vote, since he’s never met the vice president.
A Harris win would clearly be preferable to Starmer, whose Labour Party has longstanding ties with the vice president’s Democrats. Starmer denounced the “the politics of noisy performance, the weak and cowardly fantasy of populism” in his speech to Labour’s annual conference earlier this week, without naming any populist in particular.
Trump remains unpopular in the UK, disliked by 67% of the British public, according to the latest polling by YouGov. But Starmer insisted that the UK would continue to work closely with whoever won the presidential vote in November. The so-called special relationship between the US and UK “always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK,” he said.
Trump has said he wants to condition US security guarantees on European nations hitting goals for defense spending, raising questions about his commitment to allies. Thursday’s meeting provided Starmer with an opportunity to speak about areas of importance to Britain, including support for Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as well as a commitment to fighting climate change. Starmer declined to comment on his key messages to Trump.
“It’s probably as strong now as it’s ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine,” the premier said about the relationship with the US. “You’ve seen how closely I’ve been working with the US in relation to both of those issues. The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect. I’m not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be the other side of the election.”
As leader of the opposition in early 2021 Starmer said Trump needed to “take responsibility” for his role in the attack by protesters on the Capitol following the last presidential vote. Moreover, several of his ministers — including Foreign Secretary David Lammy — have criticized Trump in the past also.
“Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath,” Lammy wrote as an opposition lawmaker in 2018. “He is also a profound threat to the international order.”
But none of that seemed to deter Trump, who told reporters in New York shortly before meeting Starmer: “I’m going to see him in about an hour so I have to be nice, right?”
“I actually think he’s very nice,” Trump said. “I think he ran a great race, he did very well. It’s very early, but he’s very popular.”
