Donald Trump’s pick for vice-president has said Britain will become an “Islamist country” under a Labour government.
JD Vance joked at a conference last week that the UK was “the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon”.
Responding to the comments, Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, said that Vance had “said quite a lot of fruity things in the past” but that she did not “recognise that characterisation” of the UK.
Vance, who was selected by the former president as his running-mate on Monday, made the comments at a National Conservatism Conference in Washington on Wednesday.
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He said: “I was talking with a friend recently. And we were talking about one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation … And I was talking about, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon and we were like, maybe it’s Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts. And then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK, since Labour just took over.”
Responding to Vance’s comments, Rayner told Good Morning Britain: “I think he’s said quite a lot of fruity things in the past as well. I don’t recognise that characterisation. I’m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently.
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“We won votes across all different communities across the whole of the country. We’re interested in governing on behalf of Britain and also working with our international allies. So I look forward to that meeting if that is the result. It’s up to the American people to decide.
“I think political leaders across the world all have different opinions, but we govern in the interests of our countries. The US is a key ally of ours. If the American people decide who their president and vice-president is, then we will work with them … that’s grown-up politics.”
Andrew Bowie, the Conservatives’ shadow veterans minister, said Vance’s comments were “actually quite offensive”.
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He told Times Radio: “I disagree with the Labour Party fundamentally on many issues, but I do not agree with that view, quite frankly. I think it’s actually quite offensive, frankly, to my colleagues in the Labour Party.”
Bowie added that politicians should “work to combat and ensure that we move political discourse back to a sensible, safe ground”.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has previously referred to Vance, a senator in Ohio and author of the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy, as “my friend”. Lammy met Vance in May on a trip to Washington before Labour’s election victory.
