British Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has made derogatory remarks about US President-elect Donald Trump in the past, calling him a clown and a phony leader. This was reported by The Daily Telegraph in an article discussing the difficulties that the current Labor government could face once a Republican returns to the White House.
The publication published an excerpt from a television interview with Rainer, which she gave in 2021. In it, the politician said in the context of a discussion about Trump and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic: “He is a complete clown. He has no place in the White House. He is a disgrace and he should be ashamed of himself, especially when thousands of Americans have died.” After Trump lost the 2020 election, Rayner, who is now also Secretary of Housing, Regional Development and Local Government, said the result was "a defeat for Trump's unconscionable politics of division, a defeat for Trump's racism, sexism and xenophobia." Even earlier, in 2018, in response to media speculation that the National Health Service (NHS) could be discussed at a meeting between then British Prime Minister Theresa May and Trump, the politician wrote on Twitter, which later changed its name to X: “Last "What the NHS needs is a phony president who makes comments to undermine it."
The publication also recalls the statements of another member of the current British Cabinet - Minister for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds. It is he who should lead negotiations on a free trade agreement with the United States, which London has been hoping to conclude since the Brexit referendum in 2016. According to The Daily Telegraph, in 2017, Reynolds accused May of flying to negotiate with the US president, although he allegedly “advocated torture, misogyny, racial discrimination, sexual assault, isolationism.”
The Daily Telegraph does not include comments from the mentioned British politicians in the article. The newspaper also notes that current Prime Minister Keir Starmer has criticized Trump in the past, and Foreign Minister David Lammy called him a misogynist and sociopath in the past.
