What did David Lammy say about Trump? Keir Starmer stands by foreign secretary who called Trump a ‘neo-Nazi’

Sir Keir Starmer has defended his international secretary David Lammy, who up to now known as Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.

Mr Lammy will stay in his put up till the subsequent election, Downing Road mentioned on Wednesday simply hours after Mr Trump’s victory was secured.

The vote of confidence got here after the prime minister was requested to apologise for his frontbencher’s assault in an article written when he was a backbench MP in 2018.

A yr earlier Mr Lammy additionally tweeted: “Sure, if Trump involves the UK I will probably be out protesting on the streets. He’s a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser.”

Mr Lammy has sought to construct hyperlinks with the Trump regime since turning into international secretary, however the election end result has shone a brand new highlight on his feedback, prompting questions on his potential to work with the subsequent US president.

In the identical article in 2018, the Tottenham MP wrote about Mr Trump’s first official go to to the UK, saying that he can be protesting in opposition to the then-government’s “capitulation to this tyrant in a toupee”.

“Trump is just not solely a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath,” he wrote, “he’s additionally a profound menace to the worldwide order that has been the inspiration of Western progress for therefore lengthy.”

The prime minister got here below strain over the feedback at Prime Minister’s Questions within the Commons from the brand new Tory chief Kemi Badenoch.

Referring to a dinner between the PM, Mr Lammy and Mr Trump in September, she requested: “Did the international secretary take that chance to apologise for making derogatory and scatological references, together with, and I quote, ‘Trump is just not solely a woman-hating Neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath, he’s additionally a profound menace to the worldwide order’, and if he didn’t apologise, will the prime minister accomplish that now on his behalf?”

Sir Keir dodged the query, saying that the assembly had been “very constructive”.

Earlier this yr Mr Lammy defended calling Mr Trump a neo-Nazi sociopath, saying all politicians had one thing to say about him “again within the day”.

He additionally mentioned he had met Mr Trump’s vice-president JD Vance and that the 2 males had “widespread floor”.

“We’re each from poor backgrounds, each suffered from habit points in our household which we’ve written about… each of us [are] Christians. And now I’ve met him on a number of events, and we now have been capable of finding widespread floor and get on,” he mentioned.

Sir Keir opened PMQs by congratulating the president-elect on his victory.

He added: “Because the closest of allies, the UK and US will proceed to work collectively to guard our shared values of freedom and democracy.

“And having had dinner with president-elect Trump just some weeks in the past, I look ahead to working with him within the years to return.”