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Louise Thomas
Editor
Donald Trump’s choice for vice-president has provoked fury by describing the UK under Labour as an “Islamist country” with nuclear weapons.
Author and Ohio senator JD Vance was announced as Mr Trump’s running mate on Monday, just two days after an attempt to assassinate the former president, who is challenging Joe Biden for the White House in November.
Politicians from across the spectrum have condemned Mr Vance’s comments, with former Tory co-chair Sayeeda Warsi suggesting the special relationship between the UK and the US has “become no more than a racist joke”. Writing for The Independent, she added: “It bodes for really dangerous times ahead.”
Labour MP Rosie Duffield said Mr Vance had made “obviously a pretty ignorant and racist comment”, while Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said: “We need to call that out for what it is, it’s Islamophobic.”
In a speech for the National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC, Mr Vance recounted a conversation with a friend.
“I was talking about, you know: what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon?” he said. “Maybe it is Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we finally decided that it’s actually the UK – since Labour just took over.”
Even Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, a supporter and friend of Mr Trump, disagreed but warned: “The truth is that Islamists are not within Labour but without and that will cost them the next general election.”
Mr Vance’s comments met with a chorus of laughter from the crowd.
Mr Vance told the audience: “American leaders should look out for Americans... and for the Brits, UK leaders should look out for citizens of the UK or subjects or whatever you guys call yourselves.”
He said the Labour government has left Britain as the “first truly Islamist country that will gain a nuclear weapon”.
“To our Tory friends, I have to say, you guys have got to get a handle on this,” he said.
The intervention came just weeks after foreign secretary David Lammy visited Mr Vance in the US.
In a promotional clip, Mr Lammy said he was “meeting senior White House officials and meeting friends” before being filmed embracing and shaking hands with Mr Vance.
Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet, said Mr Vance’s comments represented “the everyday Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism which is casually thrown around by some of the most powerful in our societies”.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner 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.
“So I look forward to that meeting, if that is the result and it’s up to the American people to decide.”
She added: “I think political leaders across the world all have different opinions but we govern in the interests of our countries. And the US is a key ally of ours, and if the American people decide who their president and vice-president is, we will work with them, of course we will.
“And I’m sure they’ll have opinions on what we do and suggest, and we’ll work together constructively and I look forward to those meetings and being able to do that. That’s grown-up politics. That’s what we do.”
Shadow veterans minister Andrew Bowie told Times Radio: “I disagree with the Labour Party fundamentally on many issues, but I do not agree with that view, quite frankly. I think it's actually quite offensive, frankly, to my colleagues in the Labour Party.”
Green co-leader Carla Denyer told the BBC’s Politics Live: "We need to call that out for what it is: it’s Islamophobic. It's worrying that the US could end up with a president who's a convicted criminal and a vice-president who's more aligned with Russian foreign policy than with supporting Ukraine."
Treasury minister James Murray said: “I genuinely heard that comment, and I don’t know what he was driving at in that comment, to be honest. I mean, in Britain, we’re very proud of our diversity.
“I’m very proud that we have a new government. I’m very proud that our Labour government is committed to national security and economic growth.”
Norwich South Labour MP Clive Lewis told The Independent: “I think it shows we now need to prepare for the worst-case scenario of a Trump/Vance presidency.
“We are seeing this sort of far-right politics, not just in America but across Europe whether it is National Rally in France, Meloni in Italy, what’s happening in the Netherlands, or Reform in the UK.
“There is no doubt that Vance’s comments were aimed at the sort of Islamophobic sentiments we have seen online and elsewhere aimed at Sadiq Khan in particular. We have seen it from Reform.”
He said Labour needs to prepare the country’s institutions to ensure they are “robust and strong enough to be able to withstand an onslaught from the far right should they win power”.
He added: “We need to take a lead role internationally to show that social democratic values work and remain strong.
“Of course, we have seen the likes of Suella Braverman at the same conference as Vance spoke at and Liz Truss failing to push back on comments praising Tommy Robinson. Indeed she is at the Republican National Convention this week.”
Muslim Council of Britain secretary general Zara Mohammed said: “They serve as a stark reminder of how populist, Islamophobic sentiment is used to garner votes.
“Closer to home, we have seen this language mirrored by former home secretary Suella Braverman and former deputy chair of the Conservatives and current Reform MP Lee Anderson.
“Such inflammatory speech has no place in our politics and should be called out for what it is by our government."
Suella Braverman was among the other speakers at the NatCon conference.
Last year, Ms Braverman was accused of inciting the far right when she decried the pro-Palestine demonstrations in the UK as “hate marches” and called for the protesters to be banned from action on Armistice Day, when a far-right mob assembled and was involved in skirmishes with police.
A spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain told The Independent at the time that Ms Braverman’s comments had created “quite a lot of fear among some Muslim communities” who viewed it as a direct attack on their solidarity with Palestinians, many of whom are also Muslim.
Reform MP Lee Anderson, who was kicked out of the Tories over allegedly Islamophobic remarks about London mayor Sadiq Khan, said: “We are not an Islamist country but we do have Islamists living here, which is a massive concern. I genuinely worry for the future of our country as these extremists grow in number. We are sleepwalking into dangerous territories.”
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