The new Andy Burnham government in London means there is another front bench of ministers with years of anti-Trump virtue-signalling behind them, which will now have to be spun away once again by diplomats.
The arrival of the Keir Starmer government in 2024 prompted a flurry of retractions and emollients from London as the new Prime Minister and his colleagues attempted to ingratiate themselves with President Trump, whom they had spent years disparaging. Now it’s déjà vu for British diplomats, as the start of the Andy Burnham ministry this week brings a new tranche of top Labour figures into contact with the U.S., inevitably bringing historic anti-Trump comments back into the spotlight.
The new Prime Minister, former Manchester Mayor and Blair-Brown-era Labour operative, Andy Burnham, made sure his first telephone call as Prime Minister this week was to President Trump, but will have likely understood that the U.S. leader would have been briefed on his past remarks. In 2017, speaking as the Mayor of Manchester, Burnham said that because President Trump was involved with “hateful, extremist” politics, he would refuse to meet with him at all on principle.
At the time, Burnham called for the government to block Trump from travelling to the United Kingdom, saying the American leader’s “extreme views” go against “the values that people here stand for”. In 2021, Burnham again spoke out against Trump, opining that “any UK politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now.”
Britain’s state broadcaster, the BBC, reports that as recently as this summer, while Burnham was running in the Parliamentary election to make him eligible to be Prime Minister, the now-leader expressed his distaste for America, calling American politics “poisonous”.
Starting his term as Prime Minister with an immediate ‘U-turn’, Burnham went back on wanting to block Trump from Manchester when he was mayor, to now immediately inviting him to the city next year in his first call with the President on Monday, suggesting the damage control is already underway.
If Burnham was an unknown to Trump until now, Britain’s new Foreign Minister — the country’s most senior diplomat, and a crucial figure in the Anglo-American alliance — is certainly a known quantity. Ed Miliband has been given a major promotion to that office, having hitherto pushed his radical net-zero decarbonisation views through the Ministry for Energy.
A subject on which President Trump frequently urges Britain to consider a change in direction for the sake of its own survival, Trump’s warnings have repeatedly focused on what is understood to be Miliband’s obsession with stopping Britain from taking advantage of its own enormous natural wealth in energy, be it natural gas, oil, coal, or fracking.
Now, The Daily Telegraph reports, the Trump administration has gone so far as to warn that this eco-zealot taking a top position is unwelcome and potentially damaging. The newspaper states Washington officials privately told London they would ‘find it difficult to work with him’ and his appointment is a “point of friction” between the allies.
Of course, beyond the mismatch in policy, there is also — as seems to be all but inevitable with senior Labour politicians — there is also a legacy of historic anti-Trump comments. Miliband has previously characterised “Trumpism” as something Britain has to “resist”, said President Trump has “lowered the bar for idiocy” in politics, and called the President a racist misogynist and an “absolute moron”.
In a resurfaced 2018 interview with a magazine, Miliband said of President Trump that he has a “peculiar relationship with Russia… and the truth” and that because the UK is “joined at the hip” with the U.S., it’s valuable for British politicians to criticise Trump, because American voters may take notice.
Also joining the British government is Wes Streeting — otherwise known for a history of apparent homicidal ideation — as Minister of Defence. Again, a key ministry in Britain’s relationship with the U.S., and again, the new minister has a history with President Trump.
Streeting wrote in 2017 “Trump is such an odious, sad, little man. Imagine being proud to have that as your President” and in 2019 said he “is not a friend” of Britain.
Despite the evident bad blood — and the behind-closed doors warnings about the wisdom of appointing eco-zealot Miliband to a top cabinet role — President Trump has at least appeared determined to put a positive spin on things. The President hailed a “very good” call with the Briton, noting the “Prime Minister has got a big job ahead of him, but he will be able to do it”.
President Trump said he had wished Burnham good luck and Godspeed.