‘Sociopath’ and ‘sad little man’: What UK politicians have said about Donald Trump

UK political leaders have been quick to congratulate Donald Trump as he appears set to win the 2024 US presidential election.

Sir Keir Starmer said the UK-US special relationship will “continue to prosper”, but the Prime Minister and other top Labour politicians have not always been complimentary about Mr Trump.

Keir Starmer also today sidestepped a call to apologise for his foreign secretary dubbing Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising’ sociopath”.

David Lammy made the comment in an article when he was a backbench MP in 2018.

A year before he also tweeted: “Yes, if Trump comes to the UK I will be out protesting on the streets. He is a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser.”

Meanwhile, London mayor Sadiq Khan refused to congratulate the Republican on his election win.

Here were look at what prominent Labour figures have said in the past.

In 2021, Sir Keir declared himself to be “anti-Trump but pro-American”.

Last year, Sir Keir compared the Conservative Party with Mr Trump as he accused the Tories of falling far from Churchillian values.

“Is there anybody in the Government now who feels a sense of obligation to anything other than their own self-interest? To democracy, the rule of law, serving our country?” he asked in a speech in Buckinghamshire.

“An entitlement to power totally unchecked by any sense of service or responsibility – that’s the cultural stain that runs through the modern Conservative Party.”

He added: “These aren’t Churchill’s Tories any more. If anything they behave more and more like Donald Trump. They look at the politics of America and they want to bring that here.

“It’s all woke, woke, woke. Wedge, wedge, wedge. Divide, divide, divide.”

In June, the prime minister said following Mr Trump’s hush money trial conviction that it was an “unprecedented situation”.

“We will work with whoever is elected president … that’s what you’d expect,” Sir Keir said.

“We have a special relationship with the US that transcends whoever the president is, but it is an unprecedented situation, there is no doubt about that.”

In the lead up to this year’s US presidential election, Sir Keir maintained that the Government will work with whoever is president.

In 2017, Mr Lammy called Mr Trump a “racist and KKK/neo-Nazi sympathiser”.

A year later, the Tottenham MP wrote in Time magazine that he would be protesting against the then-government’s “capitulation to this tyrant in a toupee”, in reference to Mr Trump’s first official visit to the UK.

“Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath,” Mr Lammy wrote, “he is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long.”

Asked about his past comments earlier this year, Mr Lammy said: “Where I can find common cause with Donald Trump, I will find common cause”.

He offered his congratulations to Mr Trump on Wednesday morning, saying: “We look forward to working with you and @JDVance in the years ahead.”

Ms Rayner has publicly criticised Mr Trump more than once in posts on X, formerly Twitter.

On the day of the Capitol Hill riots in 2021, she tweeted: “The violence that Donald Trump has unleashed is terrifying, and the Republicans who stood by him have blood on their hands.”

Later in January that year, Ms Rayner said of the inauguration of Joe Biden as president: “I am so happy to see the back of Donald Trump, but even more so to see @KamalaHarris as VP.”

In 2017, Mr Streeting called Trump an “odious, sad little man” in a post on X.

“Imagine being proud to have that as your president,” he added.

Asked on Tuesday about the social media post, the Health Secretary told Good Morning Britain: “The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have been working hard to build a relationship with President Trump and his team, so that in the event that he is elected as the next president of the United States, we start with the strong working relationship which is in our national interest and in the interests of the United States as well.”

Mr Miliband labelled Mr Trump a “groper” and a “racist” in November 2016.

“The idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief,” Mr Miliband told the BBC.

“And I think we should be deeply worried about the implications for many of the things that we care about. Tackling climate change – he says it’s invented by the Chinese, climate change, it’s a hoax. His attitude to Russia.

“And then this fantasy about trade. I mean, this guy is anti-trade. He’s an odd combination of protectionism, plus the old trickle-down formula that has got us into a lot of this mess in the first place.”