Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, said the UK could become the first “truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon” after Labour won the election, it can be revealed.
Vance, the junior senator of Ohio and author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was speaking at a conference for US Conservatives when he made the comments.
The jibe is likely to be embarrassing for the UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, who has attempted to build bridges with Vance in recent months, comparing their impoverished childhoods.
Vance was speaking at the National Conservatism conference on Thursday, where he said: “I have to beat up on the UK – just one additional thing. I was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about, you know, one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though, of course, the Biden administration doesn’t care about it.
“And I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon, and we were like, maybe it’s Iran, you know, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK, since Labour just took over.”
Lammy described Vance as a friend in a short speech he gave at the Hudson Institute in May when he was in opposition.
During his time as a backbench MP, he had often been highly critical of the former US president. “Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath,” he wrote at the time. “He is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of western progress for so long.”
He has since suggested the US and UK must find ways to work together under a potential return to the presidency for Trump, saying of his past remarks: “You’re going to struggle to find any politician in the western world who hasn’t had things to say in response to Donald Trump.”
Asked about Vance’s comments on Tuesday, the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, said she “doesn’t recognise” his characterisation of the UK under a Labour government. She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I think he said quite a lot of fruity things in the past as well.
“Look, I don’t recognise that characterisation. I’m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently. We won votes across all different communities, across the whole of the country. And we’re interested in governing on behalf of Britain and also working with our international allies.”
Vance was announced as Trump’s choice for vice-president on Monday night, days after the former president narrowly escaped an assassination attempt at a campaign rally. Vance was previously a harsh critic of Trump as the Republican nominee and condemned his Islamophobic rhetoric.
“Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us,” he wrote in October 2016.
But Vance has become one of the most prominent young Conservatives on the New Right who are now big backers of Trump, having gained Trump’s endorsement for his senate run in Ohio.
He is a fierce critic of Washington’s support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion and his appointment is likely to be met with apprehension in Brussels. Vance played an important role in a failed attempt to block a bill for more Ukrainian aid this year in the Senate.
He said in a speech at the time that he did not believe the extent of the threat the Russian president posed to Europe.
“For three years, the Europeans have told us that Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to Europe. And for three years, they have failed to respond as if that were actually true,” Vance said.
“Donald Trump famously told European nations they have to spend more on their own defence. He was chastised by members of this chamber for having the audacity to suggest that Germany should step up and pay for its own defence.”
