What David Lammy said about Donald Trump and why he has backtracked

Foreign secretary David Lammy has dismissed comments he made about Donald Trump previously as “old news”.

The row over the Labour politician’s years-old comments has rolled on since he congratulated Trump on his historic win in the US presidential election.

In 2017, Lammy called 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 Trump’s first official visit to the UK.

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

But in his first interview since Trump won the US presidential election this week, Lammy told the BBC’s Newscast podcast that the comments were “old news”, saying people would “struggle to find any politician” who had not said some “pretty ripe things” about the president-elect.

He insisted he would be able to find common ground with Trump, adding: “What you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the real duty of public office are two different things.”

Lammy’s assurances come after new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch asked the prime minister to apologise for his past comments – an opportunity Starmer declined to accept.

The following day, Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden faced awkward questioning on the issue during an appearance on LBC, refusing three times to answer presenter Nick Ferrari’s question of whether he thought Trump “has KKK or Nazi sympathies”, instead commenting on the relationship between Britain and the US.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves was also grilled about the comments, but told reporters that they were “in the past”, adding: “I have absolutely no doubt we will be able to work constructively with the new US administration under president-elect Donald Trump.”

What did David Lammy say about Trump?

Lammy is not the only senior Labour politician to have been highly critical of Trump in the past.

However since becoming foreign secretary in July, Lammy in particular has come under spotlight, with critics saying his previous comments could damage any potential relationship with Trump in the event of him being re-elected president.

Lammy’s strident comments in Time in 2018 followed a tweet he posted in September 2017 branding Trump “a racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser”.

He also previously called the president-elect a “troll” for his criticism of London mayor Sadiq Khan, as well as a “liar” and a “coward” for cancelling a visit to a US war cemetery in France to mark Armistice Day in 2018 because of bad weather.

Trump’s mantra of “make America great again” was also criticised by Lammy in 2019. At the time, Lammy appeared to compare Trump to Hitler in his use of the phrase.

He wrote on X: “Hitler said the same about Germany in a speech in February 1940. In fact he said it on numerous occasions. It was cover for the most detestable human acts. We see you Mr Trump.”

Also in 2019, when then-prime minister Theresa May extended a state visit invite to Trump, Lammy described the president as “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and “no friend of Britain”. He wrote on X that Trump was “not fit to hold public office” and that May was “selling out the UK to a serial liar and a cheat”.

In 2021, as Trump prepared to leave office, Lammy called Trump’s administration “morally bankrupt”, adding on X: “Good riddance Donald. The world is relieved to see the back of you.”

Other senior Labour MPs have also criticised Trump in the past. In 2021, Starmer declared himself to be “anti-Trump but pro-American”.

In 2017, health secretary Wes Streeting called Trump an “odious, sad little man” in a post on X, while in the same year, home secretary Yvette Cooper said Trump’s approach to politics was “normalising hatred”.

What’s the reaction been?

Badenoch jumped on Lammy’s comments during her first PMQs as leader on 6 November, demanding to know if the prime minister had apologised to Trump “for making derogatory and scatological references”.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride backed Badenoch, saying it was “quite right” that she called for Starmer to apologise. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday: “I do think it’s material the fact that this government has ended up in a position where it is in a difficult position already with the Trump administration, based on the comments that have been made.“

Thursday’s edition of The Times focused its editorial ire on Lammy’s approach to Trump and his incoming administration.

The paper wrote: “Labour has not helped itself by appointing a foreign secretary whose distaste for the new president is a matter of record, or by publicising its help for the Democrats during the campaign.

“Fence mending will be necessary, together with the realisation that the US blank cheque for European defence is about to be withdrawn and replaced with a hefty bill.”

Number 10 is refusing to publicly chastise Lammy, and on Wednesday attempted to draw a line under the row by stating that he would remain in post as foreign secretary for the entire parliamentary term of up to five years.

When questioned over his previous comments about Trump in the past, Lammy has pointed out that several MPs – from all parties – had been critical of the president in the past.

In July this year – shortly after Lammy was made foreign secretary – he told the BBC: “You are going to struggle to find any politician who has not had things to say about Donald Trump in his first term, particularly on Twitter. You’d have struggled with our last foreign secretary David Cameron who described him as a xenophobe and a misogynist.”

Lammy said he would “work with [Trump] as closely where we can” and “will seek to influence him where we disagree” in the event of him winning. He added: “There is a lot of common cause with whoever Americans select to be in the White House.”

Lammy also said he had “common ground” with Trump’s running mate and vice president-elect, JD Vance, telling the BBC that the pair had “similar working class backgrounds” and are “both Christians”.

Vance himself was once critical of Trump, previously describing himself as a “never Trump guy”, and saying the president was “America’s Hitler”, before changing his stance. Lammy defended his own comments by saying that Trump had “just picked a vice president who’s had some pretty choice language about him in the past”.

While there may be concerns that Lammy’s relationship with the White House will be fractured due to his previous comments, the foreign secretary has reportedly been “repairing the damage”, according to Tim Shipman, the chief political commentator at The Times.

He wrote on X: “Lot of people digging up previous David Lammy quotes about Trump. They were unwise but to be fair he has spent several months privately repairing the damage with Trump’s advisers and even seems to have won the president-elect over at dinner with [Keir] Starmer.”

No details or photographs were released about the two-hour dinner that took place in New York in September, but the prime minister said it was “good” that he had met Trump.

Starmer said their meeting was “really to establish a relationship between” the two of them. He added in his reply to Badenoch: ”The foreign secretary and I did meet president elect Trump just a few weeks ago for dinner for about a couple of hours and we discussed a number of issues of global significance. It was a very constructive exercise.”