UK Foreign Secretary Lammy Refuses to Apologise for Branding Trump a ‘Neo-Nazi-Sympathising Sociopath’

Britain’s newly installed top diplomat has refused to back down from his past comments branding Donald Trump as a “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” despite likely needing to negotiate with the frontrunner in this year’s presidential election.

David Lammy, the leftist Labour Party MP from Tottenham who now serves as Sir Keir Starmer’s Foreign Secretary, was confronted on Thursday with his history of harsh criticism of the former and potential future president of the United States.

In 2018, for example, Lammy as a backbencher wrote of Trump: “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.”

Confronted on Wednesday with his controversial remarks on the American leader, the foreign secretary refused to walk back or apologise, telling Sky News: “You are going to struggle to find any politician who didn’t have things to say about Donald Trump back in the day.”

He told BBC Breakfast that Mr Trump has the “thickest of skins”, adding: “Donald Trump is the biggest, in many ways, of political characters we have at this point on the planet.”

When pressed on whether his comments would jeopardise the “special relationship” between the United States and the UK, the top British diplomat said: “Lots of people have had things to say, but in our common interests, with security as a central challenge in the global community – war in the Middle East, war in Europe – with tremendous challenges for costs of living across the globe, there is a lot of common cause that the UK can strike with the US, and we will do that with whomever is in the White House.”

Lammy continued: “There is a lot of rhetoric, but look at the action. He was the first to give Javelins to Ukraine after 2015. He talked about withdrawing from Nato, he actually increased troops to Nato.

“So in a grown-up world, in the national interests of this country, of course, if the American people choose Donald Trump as their president, we will work as closely with him as we can, and we will seek to influence him where we disagree.”

Lammy has sought to forge relationships with Republicans in the United States, including Ohio Senator JD Vance, who was selected by Donald Trump to be his vice presidential running mate this week.

The foreign secretary said on Wednesday that he could find “common ground” with Vance, highlighting both of their impoverished upbringings.

“I’ve met him now on several occasions, we share a similar working-class backgrounds with addiction issues in our family,” Lammy said. “We’ve written books on that, we’ve talked about that, and we’re both Christians. So I think I can find common ground with JD Vance.”

Remarks from Vance prior to his selection as VP candidate also caused a stir in Britain this week, with the Hillbilly Elegy author having joked at the National Conservatism conference in Washington that the UK might become the first Islamist country to become a nuclear power after Labour’s victory at the general election.

Lammy said that he did not “recognise” those comments to be true.

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