Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Thursday played down comments by Republican vice presidential pick JD Vance about “Islamist” nuclear Britain, and stressed their “common ground” coming from troubled backgrounds.
Mr Lammy again vowed to work with whoever is elected by US voters in November after he previously called Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” and a “tyrant in a toupee”, when the then president visited Britain in 2018.
“You are going to struggle to find any politician who didn't have things to say about Donald Trump back in the day,” the Labour politician told Sky News.
He stressed that as both shadow and now serving Foreign Secretary, he had travelled to Washington DC eight times to build alliances on both sides of the political aisle.
After comments emerged from Ohio Senator Vance quipping that Britain was now the first “Islamist” country with nuclear weapons, since Labour was returned to power, Mr Lammy said: “I don't recognize those comments.
“We got votes in the election from all corners of the country and all sorts of people,” he said.
Mr Lammy stressed that he had got on with Mr Vance on his visits to Washington, having previously described how the senator’s memoir Hillybilly Elegy had reduced him to tears.
The MP for Tottenham said: “We're both from poor backgrounds, both suffered from addiction issues in our family which we've written about, both of us Christians.
“And now I've met him on a few occasions and we have been able to find common ground and get on. I congratulate him for becoming the vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party.”
Mr Vance, who was chosen as Mr Trump’s running mate on Monday night, made the contentious comments in an address to the National Conservatism conference in Washington DC last week.
Saying he had to “beat up on the UK”, he told the conference he had been discussing with a friend which would be “the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon”.
He said: “We were like maybe it’s Iran, maybe Pakistan kind of counts, and then we sort of decided maybe it’s actually the UK since Labour just took over.
“But to my Tory friends, I have to say, you guys have got to get a handle on this.”
The comments have been dismissed by other Labour Cabinet members and also by Andrew Bowie, the Conservatives’ shadow veterans minister, who said he “absolutely” disagreed with them.
