Sir Keir Starmer needs to “suck it up” and invite Donald Trump on a state visit after winning the US election, Labour peer Harriet Harman has said.
The prime minister congratulated Mr Trump on Wednesday’s victory and said having had dinner with him a few weeks ago “I look forward to working with him in the years to come”.
However, he has not always chosen his words so carefully, in 2016 calling Mr Trump’s comments “on issues such as Mexican immigrants, Muslims and women… absolutely repugnant”.
New Tory leader Kemi Badenoch used her first Prime Minister’s Questions after being elected to ask the PM whether Foreign Secretary David Lammy had apologised to Mr Trump for calling him a “racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser”.
Spreaker
This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.
Baroness Harman told the Electoral Dysfunction podcast Sir Keir and Mr Trump will both be in office for the next four years and the US is “important for our economy and our security”.
More on Donald Trump
Related Topics:
“So we have got to bite the bullet, suck it up and just get on,” she said.
Baroness Harman said there was “a bit of a shiver and a cringe” when Sir Keir gave his congratulations to Mr Trump, but said: “He was right to do that.”
Advertisement
Image: Theresa May welcomed Donald Trump to Downing Street in 2019. Pic: PA
She added Mr Trump needs to be invited on a state visit to the UK.
“He’s got to be invited to address both houses of parliament,” she said.
“They [the US] are key for our economy and our security.”
Mr Trump and his wife, Melania, came to the UK on a state visit in 2019 and were met by protests, with a Trump baby blimp making an appearance.
He was welcomed by then prime minister Theresa May days before she resigned.
Two years before, Mrs May had invited him to the UK a week after his inauguration but was left stunned when he said he did not want to go ahead with a state visit if there were large-scale protests against him.
There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.
John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.
This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.
Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”
A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.
The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.
More on John Healey
Related Topics:
This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.
The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.
While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:21
From March: How will the UK scale up defence?
A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.
The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.
“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”
Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.
The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.
Image: PM Sir Keir Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey on a nuclear submarine earlier this year. Pic: Crown Copyright 2025
On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.
Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.
He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.
“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.
“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”