UK must handle Trump relationship ‘correctly’, says senior minister

Sir Keir Starmer is due to meet Donald Trump in Washington next week amid growing concern about US support for Ukraine.

Donald Trump gesticulates during a speech — A senior minister has said the UK is in a ‘potentially good position’ with its relationship with Donald Trump, provided it handles the US administration ‘correctly’ (Pool via AP)

The UK needs to “handle” its relationship with the White House correctly, a senior Cabinet minister has said as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to meet Donald Trump in Washington.

The Prime Minister has faced pressure to take a firm line with Mr Trump on support for Ukraine after the US president began negotiations on ending the conflict with Russia, but excluded Kyiv from the talks on Tuesday.

On Friday, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey accused Mr Trump of plotting a “stitch-up” with Russian President Vladimir Putin that “amounts to a betrayal of Ukraine” and urged the Prime Minister to speak “honestly and openly” with him.

Sir Ed added: “I think we’re all astonished and deeply alarmed, and if the British Prime Minister doesn’t reflect that, he’s not reflecting the views of the British people.”

But addressing a fringe event at the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow on Friday, senior minister Pat McFadden stressed the importance of maintaining a “good and constructive relationship” with the White House.

He said: “I think the UK is potentially in a good position with this administration, if we handle it correctly.

Pat McFadden speaks outside BBC headquarters — Pat McFadden said the Government should not follow ‘every twist and turn of every comment’ made by Donald Trump, but focus on ‘what will actually happen’ (Victoria Jones/PA)

“Handling it correctly doesn’t mean following every twist and turn of every comment, but is focusing on what will actually happen as well as what was said.”

Sir Keir will have to walk a tricky line when he meets Mr Trump in Washington next week, balancing the UK’s support for Ukraine with the need to keep the US onside.

That task appears to have been made harder in the past week by the growing rift between Mr Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom the US leader has described as a “dictator”.

The Ukrainian president had claimed Mr Trump was living in a Russian “disinformation space”, which led White House officials to accuse Mr Zelensky of “insulting” his counterpart.

The Americans also cancelled a planned joint press conference in Kyiv, in a sign of a deepening feud between the two countries.

Businessman Elon Musk, who is acting as an adviser on federal spending to Mr Trump, meanwhile suggested Mr Zelensky is running a “fraud machine feeding off the dead bodies of soldiers”, suggesting limited appetite for continued American support for Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Sir Keir Starmer shake hands in Kyiv, as a soldier salutes in the background — Sir Keir Starmer has reiterated the UK’s support for Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky, despite the apparent rift between the Ukrainian president and Donald Trump (Carl Court/PA)

However, Mr Trump’s Ukraine envoy, retired general Keith Kellogg, praised Mr Zelensky on Friday as an “embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war” following what he described as “extensive and positive discussions” between the two men.

Sir Keir’s visit to the White House will follow a meeting between Mr Trump and Emmanuel Macron on Monday, at which the French president has said he intends to tell his American counterpart not to “be weak” in the face of Mr Putin.

In an hour-long question-and-answer session on social media, Mr Macron said he would tell Mr Trump: “It’s not you, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest.

“How can you then be credible in the face of China if you’re weak in the face of Putin?”