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Starmer dismisses claims he's been 'played' by Trump, and says future trade deal could lessen impact of tariffs
Keir Starmer has dismissed claims that he has been “played” by President Trump over tariffs.
In an interview with Sky News this morning, echoing what Jonathan Reynolds said in his morning interview round (see 8.58am), Starmer said that a future trade deal with the US might lead to the UK getting some exemptions from the tariffs coming tomorrow. He said:
We are of course negotiating an economic deal which will, I hope … mitigate the tariffs.
Asked if he had been “played” by US President Donald Trump, Starmer replied:
The US is our closest ally. Our defence, our security, our intelligence are bound up in a way that no two other countries are.
So it’s obviously in our national interest to have a close working relationship with the US, which we’ve had for decades, and I want to ensure we have for decades to come.
He said talks on an economic deal would normally take “months or years” but “in a matter of weeks we have got well advanced in those discussions”.
Starmer also confirmed that it was likely the UK would be affected by the tariffs being announced tomorrow.
We are obviously working with the sectors most impacted at pace on that.
Nobody wants to see a trade war but I have to act in the national interests.
That means that “all options remain on the table” in response, he added.
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Badenoch says local elections will be 'very difficult' for Tories
Q: Nigel Farage says you are lazy, and that you only work hard for a few hours in the afternoon.
Badenoch asks how he would know. She says he has never met her. He throws abuse at politicians to get attention, she says.
Q: Since you became leader, the Tory poll ratings have gone down. Are you failing?
Badenoch says polls are just a snapshot. She says it took the opposition 14 years to get back to power last time a party lost office, 13 years the time before that, and 18 years the time before that. She has just been in office for five months, she says.
But she says the local elections will be hard for Tories.
We’re going to have very difficult local elections. These local elections are not going to be fun for the Conservative party, because the last time we fought them was in 2021 with Boris Johnson, when there was a vaccine bounce just after Covid. So we are going to have a tough time.
Q: What have you learned from the Netflix drama Adolescence that Keir Starmer was talking about yesterday?
Badenoch says she is aware of this, but she says she has not watched it. She does not have time, she says.
When it is put to her that she should be aware of what people are talking about, she replies:
I pay attention, but I’m not going to watch every single thing that everybody’s watching on Netflix.
Q: Do you agree with the Sun splash story saying the UK is allowing Albanian migrants to stay in comfortable hotel rooms?
Badenoch says that is the reality of the migration system now.
She says the last Conservative government did not get everything right.
But Keir Starmer opposed almost everything that government was doing to try to deal with the problem, she says.
Q: Do you agree with Jordan Bardella’s claim that the conviction of Marine Le Pen for embezzlement in France means democracy has been executed?
Badenoch says she does not agree with that. She says she respects the rule of law.
But it would be different if Le Pen were being prosecuted for her politics, she says.
Q: Is it true that you have banned shadow ministers from criticising Donald Trump, as a paper reported at the weekend?
No, says Badenoch. She says that is not true.
But she says politicians from one country should not endlessly be criticsing the internal politics of another country. It is better to make criticisms in private, she says.
Kemi Badenoch interviewed on LBC
Kemi Badenoch is being interviewed on LBC now.
Asked about the Telegraph story, she says she thinks we do have free speech in this country. But the scope of laws is being expanded.
She says she thinks the UK has “the right balance” on abortion laws. She says she does not want abortion to become as divisive an issue in the UK as it is in the US.
Asked if the prosecution of the woman referred to in the Telegraph story should have been prosecuted, Badenoch say she does not know the details of the case. But she is opposed to draconian interpretions of the law on this, she says.
Reynolds rejects claim prosecution of anti-abortion campaigners in UK could block trade deal with US
This morning the Daily Telegraph has splashed on a story claiming that the prosecution of an anti-abortion campaigner in the UK could be an obstacle to a trade/tariff deal with the US. The paper reports:
In a highly unusual step on Sunday night, the US state department issued a statement saying it was “concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom” in relation to the case of an anti-abortion campaigner.
It said it was “monitoring” the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt, who was prosecuted for holding a sign near a Bournemouth abortion clinic reading: “Here to talk if you want.”
A verdict in the case is due on Friday …
Asked about the comments, a source familiar with trade negotiations told The Telegraph there should be “no free trade without free speech”, a stance thought to have become a point of contention between the two nations.
Asked about the story in his interviews this morning, Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said this was not an issue that had been raised with him in his talks with the Trump administration about a trade deal, which could be linked to potential tariff exemptions. He told Times Radio:
Obviously, there are things from different people in the administration that they’ve said in the past about this, but it’s not been part of the trade negotiations that I’ve been part of.
UK in ‘best possible position’ to negotiate future exemptions from Trump tariffs, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds says
Good morning. So much for the “unprecedented” state visit invite. The real spring statement, the one that is likely to have most impact on the UK tomorrow, is coming tomorrow, when President Trump announces global tariffs, and the government expects that the UK will not get an exemption. As Nick Robinson put it to Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, in the opening question of his Today programme interview this morning: “Sucking up to Donald Trump didn’t work, did it?”
On the Today programme, and in his other interviews this morning, Reynolds’s response was essentially: Not yet. He argued that the UK still has a good chance of winning tariff exemptions, but just not tomorrow. Or that the sucking up might still pay off – not that Reynolds put it quite like that.
Instead, Reynolds told Robinson:
We have engaged with the US on the potential for a deal, because that is in the UK’s national interest, and actually would be mutually beneficial to the US and the UK …
Only the president will himself know exactly how the US is going to take tomorrow. And you’re right to say it might not be possible for any country in the world to be exempted from the initial announcements.
But I do believe the work we have done means the UK is in the best possible position of any country to potentially reach an agreement.
I do believe UK businesses support our approach. They support the calm-headed approach, the desire to engage, to remain at the table, while we can potentially secure an agreement.
In the interview Reynolds also did not challenge the assertion that the tariff announcement tomorrow will have more impact on the British economy than last week’s spring statement. Tomorrow would be ‘“a very serious and significant moment”, Reynolds said.
I will post more from his interviews soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit to promote the rise in the national living wage coming into effect today.
9am: Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee on reforming jobcentres.
9.20am: Kemi Badenoch is interviewed on LBC.
Morning: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet
10am: Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and colleagues give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the spring statement.
11.30am: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, hold a press conference on “Labour’s jobs tax”.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Also, at some point today Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is set to unveil the emergency bill she is introducing to block the Sentencing Council guidelines that she described as implementing “two-tier justice”.
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