Starmer meets Trump in New York

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Sir Keir Starmer met Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for two hours over dinner in New York on Thursday in the pair’s first face-to-face encounter.

But the UK prime minister was not able to meet US vice-president Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, during his trip because of what he said were “diary challenges”.

Starmer travelled to New York this week to attend the UN General Assembly and had scheduled meetings with senior executives such as Larry Fink of BlackRock and Brad Smith of Microsoft.

Speaking to reporters earlier on Thursday, the prime minister stressed his wish to meet both Trump and Harris.

“We’ve now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well but, you know, the usual diary challenges [have occurred],” he said.

Before his talks with Trump, Starmer said they were about trying to “establish a relationship between the two of us”.

“I’m a great believer in personal relations on the international stage,” he said.

Attitudes towards Trump in the Labour party have often been deeply hostile.

A dozen members of Starmer’s cabinet have criticised Trump in the past, describing him as a “sociopath”, an “absolute moron” and “a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper”.

Starmer said it was up to the US electorate to decide who their next leader would be and insisted “we will work with whoever is president”.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump told a press conference that he thought Starmer was “very nice”. He said of the UK leader’s recent election campaign and early administration: “He ran a great race, he did very well, it’s very early, he’s very popular.”

Asked whether Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader with whom he has a friendship, should play a bigger role in British politics, Trump said: “I think Nigel is great, I’ve known him for a long time. He had a great election, too.”

Trump claimed that Farage’s party “picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually”, arguing the UK’s “strange system” distorted the election result.

He appeared to be referring to the fact that Reform UK only won five MPs — less than 1 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons — but 14 per cent of the popular vote.

The meeting took place after Starmer made his first address to the UN General Assembly, in which he said that under his leadership, the UK would move “from the paternalism of the past towards partnership for the future”.

He said this would involve Britain “listening a lot more, speaking a bit less”, while still continuing to offer “game-changing British expertise and working together in a spirit of equal respect”.

Starmer also reiterated UK calls for reform of the UN Security Council, insisting that Brazil, India, Japan and Germany should become permanent members, with further seats for elected members and permanent representation from Africa.

Calling for reform of the international financial system to better support developing nations, he also announced the creation of a new facility within British International Investment, the UK’s development finance institution.

He said it would “work with the City of London to mobilise billions in pension and insurance funds to invest in boosting development and fighting climate change”.