David Lammy tells US Republicans he can find ‘common cause’ with Trump
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
Wed, 8 May 2024
Lammy, who has called Trump a ‘Nazi sympathiser’, spoke at a thinktank and met with Republican politicians in Washington DC.Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA
David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has set out in a Washington DC speech his credentials as a British foreign secretary capable of working with a Trump presidency, saying he “gets the agenda that drives America First”, and insisting he would seek to find “common cause” with Donald Trump.
He vowed a Labour government “will always work with the United States, whatever the weather and whoever wins” and in government he said he would work in the national interest.
Speaking at the Hudson Institute, a right-of-centre thinktank, Lammy also said Trump’s demands to see higher European defence spending had been effective and driven by geo-political reality, though he said he found the way Trump expressed that view “shocking”.
Lammy, known for his strong links with leading Democrats, is trying to redress a perceived imbalance by making a concentrated if risky push to woo US Republicans, including by meeting a group of Republican politicians in Washington.
He claimed Trump’s attitude to European security is often misunderstood. “I do not believe that he is arguing that the US should abandon Europe. He wants Europeans to do more to ensure a better defended Europe,” he said. “Were his words in office shocking? Yes, they were. Would we have used them? No. But US spending on European defence actually grew under President Trump, as did the defence spending of the wider alliance, during his tenure.”
Lammy pointed out that when Trump began his campaign, only four countries were spending 2% of GDP on defence. The number was 10 by the time he left office and it is 18 today, he said.
He urged European partners not to personalise the debate about defence spending, saying it is driven as much by the US’s need to shift its focus to the Indo-Pacific region.
Asked about his own remarks in 2017 that Trump was a “racist Ku Klux Klan and Nazi sympathiser”, and that he vowed to “chain myself to the door of Number 10” if the UK welcomed the US president on a state visit to the UK, Lammy said he had made those remarks as a backbencher.
He added: “You are going to struggle to find any politician in the western world who has not had things to say about Donald Trump.”
Asked about the protests on campuses over the Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, he said “there is a difference between peaceful protest of the kind Mandela would have advocated, and violence and rioting”. He added that he was concerned that the bandwidth of western democracies was growing slimmer. “I am outraged at what is happening to ordinary folk in Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Yemen, in Haiti. Why are we really not up in arms about these issues as well?
“I say gently to those who concentrate singly on a very ancient and terrible, terrible war that is taking place in Gaza: but let us not crowd out a lot of people suffering in our world today and underlining that the US and UK have to stand firm on so many fronts today.”
Stressing his personal background as someone who had been helped to Harvard Law School through Jewish sponsors, Lammy said the lowest point of his political life had been Labour’s failure to tackle antisemitism under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
He said struggling working-class communities in middle England and middle America were demanding of their politicians that they tend to basic issues such as inflation and public services. He said: “That means domestic is everything. You win and lose on that basis. I get the agenda that drives America First.”
Lammy gently urged Trump to shift away from his heavy use of social media, saying: “I hope we are moving away from the tendency to talk about absolutely everything in the moment and we are a little bit more conscious how opponents are really winding up the system in relation to that.”
He added: “There will be tensions, but in the end the nature of our shared intelligence capability and our military endeavour – and we saw that recently above the skies of Israel and Jordan – and our shared interest in pushing back against this authoritarian cabal that is coming together, means that I think we will survive the wrinkles when they appear.
He also called on the US and UK to stand firm in alliance with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to confront Iran and Russia. He urged China to recognise that it was not in Beijing’s interest to forge an alliance with Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang.
David Lammy meets Trump adviser in Labour’s first contact with his campaign team
Tony Diver
Wed, 8 May 2024
David Lammy held talks with Chris LaCivita, Donald Trump's most senior adviser, in Washington - BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS
David Lammy has met Donald Trump’s campaign manager, in the first official contact between Labour and the former president in the run-up to the 2024 election, The Telegraph understands.
The shadow foreign secretary met Chris LaCivita, Mr Trump’s most senior adviser, on a trip to Washington DC on Wednesday.
Mr Lammy has spent the past six months wooing members of the former president’s inner circle, ahead of an expected victory of the Labour Party at the next election.
Chris LaCivita (centre), the veteran strategist, is spearheading Republican efforts to get Donald Trump re-elected - JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
The meeting marks the first time that a Labour politician has met a member of Mr Trump’s official team, as Mr Lammy rows back on his previous comments describing him as a “racist” and a “Nazi sympathiser”.
Speaking at a think tank in Washington, Mr Lammy said on Wednesday that he and Mr Trump could find “common cause” and suggested that as a “good Christian boy” and “small-C conservative” that he shared some views with Republicans.
“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,” he said.
“If I have the privilege of becoming foreign secretary, I am acting in what is in the UK’s national interest as a frontbench MP.
‘Common cause’
“And I take that very, very seriously – particularly in relation to the portfolio I have. I’ve said where I can find common cause with Donald Trump, I will find common cause.”
He added that Mr Trump’s aggressive stance towards other Nato members was “often misunderstood” and praised his lobbying effort for European countries to raise defence spending between 2016 and 2020.
While in the US, Mr Lammy is also meeting members of Joe Biden’s administration, including Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser.
He will also meet senior Republicans, including the senators JD Vance and Lindsey Graham, and Elbridge Colby, Mr Trump’s former deputy assistant secretary of defence.
Last week, Mr Colby said he would rather work with Labour than Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, whom he described as “panda hugging” and soft on China.
“Based on what I can see, David Lammy is far preferable to David Cameron, obviously. I mean absolutely,” he told Politico.
‘Less talk and more delivery’
“Lammy is laying out a more compatible vision to what people like me are talking about, which is an increase in defence, spending more of a UK focus on Europe. I’d rather have a lot less talk and haranguing and more delivery.”
The meeting with Mr LaCivita is the culmination of a months-long effort to woo Mr Trump.
Mr Lammy’s office has briefed the staff of more than a dozen Republican congressmen on Labour foreign policy, which is built on a doctrine he describes as “progressive realism”.
Mr LaCivita is a senior aide to Mr Trump who serves as his co-campaign manager.
Mr Lammy’s charm offensive is a marked departure from his position on the former president during his time in office.
In 2019, when Mr Trump visited London, Mr Lammy said he would join protesters on Trafalgar Square demonstrating against his welcome by the UK government.
He said at the time that Mr Trump was a “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”, described him as a “racist” and a “disgrace” and his comments about crime in London as “insulting”.
Addressing his previous criticism, Mr Lammy said: “Were [Trump’s] words in office a little shocking? Yes they were. Would I have used them? Probably not.
“But US spending on defence actually grew under President Trump, as did the defence spending of the wider alliance, during his tenure.”
At an event at the Hudson Institute on Wednesday, the shadow foreign secretary also suggested that Labour would try to hit the Government’s defence spending target of 2.5 per cent of GDP sooner than expected.
Arguing that the UK and European countries must “shoulder our part of the burden” of defending the West against Russia and China, he called for defence spending to increase.
‘Fiscally responsible’
“I’m long enough in the tooth to know that when the Labour Party either gets kicked out of office, or doesn’t achieve office, it’s usually because the public have concerns about how fiscally responsible we are,” he said.
“And I’m really grateful that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been quite as fiscally responsible as they are.
“We’re not in office. We haven’t been able to look at the books. What we’ve said is that we will have a strategic defence review on day one. We may get to the 2.5 per cent before 2030.”
Responding to the suggestion of an earlier funding uplift, a Conservative source said: “We’ll believe it when we see it. David Lammy can say what he wants, but he’s not Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves.
“We have a Prime Minister and Defence Secretary who can take tough decisions and commit to 2.5 per cent in a fully funded way, but Labour don’t want to do that. Rachel Reeves doesn’t think that is a priority.”
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