Trump has made of Starmer’s resignation a kind of transatlantic litmus test, with the outgoing prime minister being told he didn’t have Washington’s back in the Iran conflict. “This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with,” was the way of putting it. It only ratchets up the tension as the Labour Party looks to name a new face in the coming weeks.
Trump escalates critique after resignation
Not long after Starmer made it known he was out, the US president was at it. He called him “a very nice man” and “a very good friend of mine,” but then made clear that some of his calls had been wrong. Trump had words for him on energy, the border, and law and order, and felt he “was not good to us with NATO.”
Then there was the matter of the UK’s position in the Iran war. Trump made a point of the hold-up in using British bases for any action. “We can’t use the island,” he was told, before they got the go-ahead. “A bad move,” he said. And on the subject of the UK’s part in the war: “We don’t need you when we win.”
Energy fight and the North Sea question
You could say the energy debate was where Trump made his case. “You’re really messing up energy. You have windmills all over the place,” he says he told Starmer. Put that up against “the North Sea oil” and you have a problem, in his view – one where environmental red tape is standing in the way of a sound strategy for the UK.
He even put it to the internet in a post of his own, foretelling the end of Starmer’s term: “Keir Starmer will resign as Prime Minister of The United Kingdom. He failed badly on two very important subjects – IMMIGRATION AND ENERGY (OPEN NORTH SEA OIL!). I wish him well!”
‘Not Winston Churchill’ and Iran war tensions
But it was on the issue of wartime command that Trump was most pointed. He has a story of how the UK would be around “as soon as you win” when it came to supporting the US and Israel in Iran. “We don’t need you when we win,” was his retort, followed by, “This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with.”
One Indian publication had Trump in a quote to the same effect, saying he was hard on Starmer “only because” he was “really messing up energy,” with the usual talk of wind and the North Sea. It’s a refrain we’ve heard from him before on the score of renewables and what they do to the landscape.
What Starmer said as he exits
Out in front of 10 Downing Street, Starmer was plain with the public: the party has lost faith in his capacity to see them through to the next election. “I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question and I accept that answer with good grace,” he put it.
He did stand his ground on his time in office, though. An economy that is doing better than Europe’s, up and up wages, less of a wait at the hospital, and a firmer line on asylum and immigration. He also pointed to more money for defence, which is something Trump has been after him for in the past.
A contest with immediate consequences
The door to the leadership opens July 9. The man in pole position is Andy Burnham, the ex-mayor of Greater Manchester who made his way back to Parliament after a Reform loss in Makerfield. Barring any hiccups, he could be at No 10 in a matter of weeks.
It has been a long road for Starmer, with the heat turned up on him over the last few months on everything from welfare to the numbers in working-class constituencies. Nigel Farage and his lot at Reform UK have been making inroads, telling those voters the big parties have left them behind.
If you count them up since the 2016 Brexit vote, you have had Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and now Starmer, with a seventh one right around the corner. That kind of churn is what makes Trump’s jabs at NATO and the situation in Iran ring a little louder in Westminster.
To put it in a nutshell:
– Trump has tied in Starmer’s departure with his record on energy, the border and crime.
– There were some pointed words about the UK holding off on a base for the Iran strikes.
– As he left, Starmer made a case for his economic and defence work.
– And now Andy Burnham is the one to watch as his replacement.
