Badenoch accused of ‘cheerleading’ for Trump after she says Starmer should invite him to parliament – UK politics live | Politics

Donald Trump, whose mother, Mary Anne Macleod, was born on the Isle of Lewis before emigrating to New York at the age of 18, has had a vexed relationship with Scotland’s political class: he clashed with Alex Salmond over his resort expansion plans in Aberdeen and described Nicola Sturgeon as a “failed woke extremist” after she refused to maintain a “diplomatic silence” on his intolerance and treatment of women.

The current first minster John Swinney’s backing for Kamala Harris last week was branded “an insult” to his investment in Scotland by his business Trump International.

Although Swinney went on to formally congratulate Trump, he immediately raised concerns about how his proposed import taxes would impact on the Scotch whisky business.

Five more shadow frontbench appointments announced by Tories

Peter Walker

The Conservative party has announced more appointments to Kemi Badenoch’s frontbench.

Danny Kruger is a shadow work and pensions minister.

Wendy Morton (chief whip under Liz Truss) is a shadow Foreign Office minister.

Gareth Davies (a former Treasury minister) is shadow financial secretary to the Treasury.

Harriett Baldwin (a former Treasury minister) is a shadow business minister.

And Joy Morrissey will be co-shadow deputy chief whip. She will share the post with Gagan Mohindra, whose appointment was announced yesterday.

The Tories say this is more evidence of Badenoch’s desire to have an inclusive team. Kruger was campaign manager for Robert Jenrick, Badenoch’s main rival in the leadership contest, and Morton and Davies were also both Jenrick supporters.

John Glen (Con) asked Reeves if Donald Trump winning the US presidential elections would affect growth in the UK. He said Goldman Sachs has already revised down its forecasts for this country, from 1.6% in 2025 to 1.4%.

Reeves said it was “too early” to know what the impact would be. But she said the relationship with the US was crucial. She was confident trade flows with the US would continue. Trump has been president before, and UK trade with the US was strong then, she said.

Kemi Badenoch has not called for David Lammy, the foreign secretary, to resign because if his past comments condemning Donald Trump when she raised them at PMQs. (See 12.06pm – I’ve beefed up the original post with full quotes.) But at least one Conservative MP has suggested he should go (Nick Timothy – see 9.51am) and the former Tory MP Bob Seely was even more blunt in a post on social media on this.

I don’t understand how @DavidLammy can remain Foreign Secretary, given what he has said about #Trump. We will have no credibility, not only with the new Administration but also with his many supporters in Congress, etc. Lammy’s silly student politics yet again damaging the #UK.

But Downing Street has said Lammy is staying. At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, asked if Lammy would remain foreign secretary for the rest of this parliament, the PM’s press secretary said: “Yes, he’s the foreign secretary.

Keir Starmer has not spoken to Donald Trump yet since his election victory but hopes to do so “in due course”, his spokesperson told reporters at the post-PMQs lobby briefing. The spokesperson said:

Hopefully the President-elect is getting some well-deserved rest right now but the prime minister obviously looks forward to speaking to him in due course.

He knows first-hand how busy the first couple of days are after winning an election.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has accused Kemi Badenoch of “cheerleading” for Donald Trump at PMQs. (See 12.08pm.) He posted this on social media.

Kemi Badenoch’s cheerleading of Donald Trump at PMQs shows the Conservatives are totally out of touch with our values. We should be standing up for human rights, the rule of law and international security – not rolling out the red carpet for Trump.

If Tory MPs were hoping that Kemi Badenoch was somehow going to trounce Starmer in debate, they will have been disappointed. She didn’t, by any stretch. It wasn’t a disaster for her, and she displayed confidence at least in her first outing in what is the hardest environment in parliament. But Keir Starmer was able to hold her off with some ease.

Badenoch started by asking if David Lammy apologised to Donald Trump for all the offensive things he has said about him in the past when he and Starmer met Trump for dinner in New York. In some respects it’s a cheap question, but it is a reasonable one too and, of course, Starmer dodged it. She then brought up the Bercow-inspired snub that happened during Trump’s last presidency, when the then Speaker blocked a bid to allow Trump to speak to MPs in Westminster Hall (following in the footsteps of people like Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama – it is the biggest honour parliament can offer to a visiting dignitary). Again, Starmer sidestepped the question. She also asked Starmer if he would say when Labour would raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP – another topic on which the PM won’t make a commitment. These were all okay attack points. Badenoch made them forcefully, although her excessively patronising manner may grate on a lot of viewers.

But, on defence, it went wrong because foolishly Badenoch claimed that the budget speech did not mention defence. (See 12.12pm – I’ve beefed up the post now with with full quotes.) It did, four times. This allowed Starmer to administer an effective put-down. He also turned her jibe against student politics back against her quite neatly (see 12.08pm), but his funniest and most effective retort came when he mocked her comment about scripted responses. (See 12.14pm – again, I’ve beefed up the orginal post.) This clinched it for Starmer.

Badenoch also got heckled at this point by Labour MPs shouting out “reading” (something MPs say when someone is obviously reading from a script). There is nothing unusual about reading from a script at PMQs. But it is unwise to criticise someone else on these grounds when you are doing it yourself so transparently.

There were three other interesting things to point out about the Starmer/Badenoch exchanges.

First, there was a concerted effort by Labour MPs to attack over past comments on topics like autism, maternity pay, Partygate. This shows her back catalogue can furnish Labour HQ with multiple attack lines. Badenoch’s allies would claim Labour are only trying so hard because they are worried.

Second, despite fighting a leadership campaign on the basis that she is not going to set party policy now because it is far too early, Badenoch used PMQs to commit to reversing the inheritance tax extension for farmers announced in the budget. (See 12.14pm.) This sounded like a rookie mistake – something said to beef up a PMQs question that will cause embarrassment when it has to get reversed in the future. Interestingly, the Tory Edward Leigh sounded a lot more reasonable when he just asked for a change to the threshold. (See 12.26pm.)

And, third, by suggesting that Trump should be invited to address MPs in parliament (see 12.08pm – again, I’ve updated the original post), Badenoch sounded a lot more pro-Trump than did in the statement she issued earlier. (See 10.06am.) This might be what she thinks. But it is probably not where the public are (British voters are generally quite anti-Trump) and she ended up sounding like Nigel Farage, who in a tweet this morning was challenging Labour to give Trump the red carpet treatment when he next visits.

Ben Obese-Jecty (Con) asks Starmer if he thinks it was accepted for the Labour MP Dawn Butler to repost a tweet describing Kemi Badenoch as “white supremacy in blackface”. And, if he doesn’t, why hasn’t Butler been suspended?

Starmer says it was not acceptable. He does not address the suspension point.