UK politics live: Davey accuses Badenoch of ‘cheerleading’ for Trump after Starmer snubs her call for apology
Lib Dems leader Ed Davey has Kemi Badenoch ‘s support for Trump shows she doesn’t reflect British values
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Lib Dems leader Ed Davey has accused Kemi Badenoch of “cheerleading” for US president-elect Donald Trump during PMQs after Keir Starmer snubbed emphatic calls from the new Tories leader to apologise over a minister’s inflammatory comments.
Mr Davey took to X to say her overt support of Trump showed she didn’t reflect values connected with human rights and the rule of law, while Downing Street said the prime minister would welcome a future Donald Trump visit after congratulating him on his victory.
Earlier, an energised Badenoch seized on Trump’s victory to haul Sir Keir over foreign secretary David Lammy’s previous comments that Trump was “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”.
But the Prime Minister dodged the opposition leader’s demand to apologise, assuring his relationship with Trump was strong, and sidestepped a question about whether he would invite the Republican to speak in parliament.
But Labour is divided over the impending presidency, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s congratulations and celebration of close US ties coming up against comments from former Labour frontbencher Emily Thornberry, who has labelled Trump a racist and a predator.
Badenoch to grill Starmer in first PMQs for new-look opposition
Sir Keir Starmer insists he has responded to Sir Alan Bates’ Post Office letters after postmaster rebuke
What a Donald Trump victory in the US election could mean for the UK
I owe £84,000 in university tuition fees – and that’s before they go up...
Kemi Badenoch congratulates Trump on victory
New Conversative leader Kemi Badenoch has also congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory.
“The world faces many serious challenges and I look forward to our two countries working together to confront them,” Ms Badenoch posted on X earlier this morning.
Badenoch, who was recently chosen to lead the opposition party months after its electoral defeat, is due to face Prime Minister Keir Starmer in her first PMQs as leader, and we will bring you blow-by-blow coverage of those moments after midday.
Rory Stewart says ‘I was wrong’ about Harris
Former Conservative MP and podcasters Rory Stewart has taken to social media platform X this morning to express his misery at a Donald Trump victory.
“For the record - I was completely wrong about Kamala Harris. It is heartbreaking that Trump is now the President,” posted Stewart, who cohosts the popular Rest is Politics podcast with former Blair government adviser Alistair Campbell.
While he didn’t elaborate, he recently told an event in Sydney, Australia, Democratic candidate Harris would win comfortably.
‘Disappointed’ Labour MP Emily Thornberry says the government has to work with Trump
Back to BBC 4’s interview with former Labour frontbencher Emily Thornberry, who’s views on Donald Trump were made plain in 2019 when she called the then-US president a racist and predator.
After acknowledging her previous commentary, she said the UK still had to work with the US, and offered a cautionary way forward for the country as British MPs take stock of the election results.
“We need to work with him,” Thornberry acknowledged, adding “we need to look after our interests”.
She said the UK needed to work “multilaterally” with its friends and allies. “I think we also need to stick close to those whose values are simialr to ours,” she said.
“There may well be times when we don’t agree with Donald Trump and we need to stick to our friends.”
‘A predator and a racist’: former Labour frontbencher Emily Thornberry doubles down on previous comments
Former Labour frontbencher Emily Thornberry has deepened the split in the governing party over Donald Trump’s impending victory by doubling down on previous comments that the former US president is a racist and a predator.
Thornberry, who served as shadow attorney-general until the UK 2024 election, told BBC Radio 4 the foreshadowed US election result was “disappointing”.
“I think that across most of the west it was hoped the result would be Kamala Harris, not least because it would be predictable,” she said. “I think we wake up this morning in an unpredictable world.”
Thornberry said Britain’s relationship with thwe US under a Trump presidency would be “quite challenging” in terms of knowing how to approach the relationship.
In 2019, when she was shadow foreign secretary, Thornberry said during a BBC interview Trump was undeserving of the honour of a scheduled UK state visit.
“He is a sexual predator, he is a racist, and it’s right to say that. And I think we need to think about when is it that our country got so scared. Why can’t we start saying things as they are?” she said at the time.
When her previous comments were put to her on Tuesday morning, Thornberry doubled down. “Yes, well he is,” she said in response to her labelling of him as a predator and a racist.
Shadow cabinet is no government-in-waiting, says former minister
Sir Conor Burns, former minister of state for trade and for Northern Ireland, has weighed in on Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet.
Ms Badenoch named her full shadow cabinet this morning. But Sir Conor, who served as MP for Bournemouth West between 2010 and 2024, says it “won’t necessarily be a government-in-waiting”.
In a post on X, Sir Conor said: “Anyone watching the rest of the front bench formation @KemiBadenoch is doing and raising any eyebrows should remember: she only has 121 MPs.
“To fill the vacancies 3/4 of them will get jobs. Some are too old, uninterested or unappointable.
“So it won’t necessarily be a Govt-in-waiting. But it doesn’t have to be. It has to be an effective opposition to start with. And above all it has to be a team.”
How a Trump victory leaves Starmer isolated on the world stage
With an impending White House victory for Donald Trump, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now faced with a US adminstration he is not just far away from ideologically, but one which is openly hostile to a Labour government that Trump’s campaign team previously described as “far left”.
The Trump camp’s recent accusations of Labour interference in the US election lifted the lid on the deep animosity that the MAGA Republicans have for Starmer, his party and his government.
The fallout had undone months of meticulous diplomacy by Labour preparing for this possible eventuality, which had culminated a few weeks ago with what seemed to be a positive meeting between Starmer and Trump in New York.
But the problem Labour has always faced is that their efforts have been led by a foreign secretary David Lammy who described Trump “a neo-Nazi sociopath”.
Starmer also faces a problem that Britain will no longer be seen as Europe’s bridge to America with a Trump administration in the White House.
Read the Independent political editor David Maddox’s full analysis of what a Trump presidency means for Starmer and the UK here.
John Rentoul | Kemi cosies up to her Tory leadership rival – what can she be thinking?
One of the funniest lines in the comic subplot that was the Conservative leadership contest was the “yellow card” system: a rule announced by Bob Blackman, the chair of the 1922 Committee, which ran the MPs’ stage of the ballot, to deter personal attacks.
Blackman said: “The constant backfighting and attacking was one of the contributing reasons why the party did so badly at the general election. We are determined we will not tolerate that.”
In the end, no yellow cards were issued – not even when Kemi Badenoch brought her opponent down with a cynical professional foul in the dying moments of the contest. She said, in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph the weekend before the close of voting: “With me you’d have a leader where there’s no scandal. I was never sacked for anything, I didn’t have to resign in disgrace or, you know, because there was a whiff of impropriety.”
The Independent’s chief political commentator John Rentoul writes:
Kemi cosies up to her Tory leadership rival – what can she be thinking?
The new Conservative leader has hugged her erstwhile enemy Robert Jenrick uncomfortably close, despite their major disagreements – cue drama, dissent and distraction, writes John Rentoul
Tariffs are likely first thing UK will notice about a Trump presidency, says analyst
Tariffs are “probably one of the first things that Britain will notice” under a Donald Trump presidency, Bronwen Maddox, director of the Chatham House think-tank, has suggested.
Ms Maddox warned that tariffs will be “not good” for the “economic growth that Keir Starmer is putting so much weight on”, saying: “We don’t know how quickly Trump will move on it, but I would think very quickly - it’s one of the things he’s promised his followers.”
She added: “We don’t quite know what the tariffs will be and on which goods. Goods on China going into the US will hit global growth and tariffs on other countries like Europe and the UK, they will affect our ability to sell things to the US.
“So it’s not good for exactly the kind of economic growth that Keir Starmer is putting so much weight on.”
‘Asserting progressive values more important than ever’, says Sadiq Khan
Sadiq Khan – who is no stranger to trans-Atlantic spats with Donald Trump, having branded the Republican a racist and homophobe – has warned that “asserting our progressive values is more important than ever”.
The London mayor said: “I know that many Londoners will be anxious about the outcome of the US Presidential election. Many will be fearful about what it will mean for democracy and for women’s rights, or how the result impacts the situation in the Middle East or the fate of Ukraine. Others will be worried about the future of Nato or tackling the climate crisis.
“London is – and will always be – for everyone. We will always be pro-women, pro-diversity, pro-climate and pro-human rights.
“London is a place where we’re proud of our diversity, proud of the contribution of all our communities and proud of our spirit of unity. These are some of the values that will continue to bind us together as Londoners.”
“The lesson of today is that progress is not inevitable. But asserting our progressive values is more important than ever - re-committing to building a world where racism and hatred is rejected, the fundamental rights of women and girls are upheld, and where we continue to tackle the crisis of climate change head on.”
Trump will be ‘magnanimous’ in victory with UK, analyst predicts
Bronwen Maddox, director of the Chatham House international affairs think-tank, has predicted that Donald Trump will be “magnanimous” in victory with the UK – but warned there could be a “fly in the ointment”.
She said: “Keir Starmer’s got his statement out very quickly using the phrase ‘special relationship’, talking about all the ways the UK wants to work with the US.
“He and David Lammy have put in quite a lot of time getting to know Republicans around Trump as well as Trump himself.
“But Trump does bear a grudge, so whether David Lammy’s past remarks ... or the Labour activists going over, it is possible that that is a fly in the ointment.
“But my guess is that Trump will be magnanimous and receive with pleasure all these calls he gets from other heads of state.”
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments