FOREIGN Secretary David Lammy is "very much not the same politician" now as he was in opposition, Laura Kuenssberg has said.
It comes after Lammy refused to condemn Donald Trump over the controversial and false claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pet cats and dogs.
The former president, who hopes to return to the Oval Office after November’s US election, made the unproven claim during a debate with his White House rival Kamala Harris.
Asked about it on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show, Lammy said there was a “robust” political debate in the US and he would not comment on its domestic issues because he had to work with whoever was in the White House.
Lammy said: “I’m here as Foreign Secretary. America is one of the most robust democracies in the world. They have a lively debate.”
He went on: “The ups and downs of the American political system, the language that’s used is a matter for them.
“I will work with whomever the Americans produce as their leader, and, of course, the eventual secretary of state, for the interests of global security.”
“America is one of the most robust democracies in the world, they have a lively debate” Foreign Secretary David Lammy tells #BBCLauraK that he doesn’t want to comment on Donald Trump’s debunked claims about Haitian immigrants in the US eating petshttps://t.co/V8b1NWyW1V pic.twitter.com/SuPzKSu8mk
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 15, 2024
There is no evidence that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio community are eating pets.
NBC reported that the woman behind an early Facebook post containing the rumour has now deleted it, admitted she had no first-hand knowledge of it happening, and said she regrets ever writing it.
But during the debate with Harris, Trump specifically mentioned Springfield, Ohio, saying that immigrants were taking over the city.
“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said.
Lammy has not always been so reluctant to criticise Trump.
In 2017, he said the former president was a “racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser” and vowed to protest on the streets if he visited the UK.
The change led Kuenssberg to post on Twitter/X: "David Lammy as Foreign Sec, very much NOT the same politician as David Lammy as opposition front bencher."
Elsewhere on the BBC show, journalist Ava-Santina Evans noted that Lammy had also changed his rhetoric on Gaza since coming to power.
“David Lammy has been at every Palestine event for the last decade," she said. "I think I’ve been covering him at Palestine events for the last decade. The moment that he becomes Foreign Secretary, he goes quiet.
“What’s extraordinary, when he was in the shadow position, he lobbied David Cameron to publish those [Israel] arms export licences. He wanted to know the information.
“Now that he’s in power, now that he’s Foreign Secretary, he’s also refusing to publish that information.”
