Jeremy Corbyn has questioned the value of the “special relationship” between the US and UK, after a tense week for transatlantic relations in which Donald Trump’s cancelled a visit to Britain later this month.
Speaking to ITV’s Robert Peston, the Labour leader said the UK’s relationship with the US was no longer its most important.
“The US [relationship] is obviously culturally and economically significant,” he said, before stressing the growing importance of trading relationships with the EU, India, China and international institutions such as the United Nations.
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“The biggest disappointment of Donald Trump is - apart from his endless offensive remarks about women, about minorities and about different faiths - is his failure to support international institutions like the United Nations and like Unesco,” he said.
While acknowledging that having a relationship with and influence over the US was important “because it is such a huge military and economic power around the world”, Corbyn said no-one has ever succeeded in defining what the ‘special relationship’ was.
This is not the first time Corbyn has questioned UK-US relations. Addressing the party conference last Autumn, he said a Labour government would not “meekly” support the American administration under President Trump. He promised Britain would pursue an “independent” foreign policy and find a voice in the world that would challenge America.
The Labour leader’s latest comments ramp up his rhetoric after a war of words between the Trump administration and senior Labour figures. Shadow foreign secretary Emil Thornberry branded the President “dangerous”, “a racist” and “an asteroid of awfulness that has fallen on this world”.
Last week, Trump announced he would not be coming to open the new US embassy in London, blaming his anger at the deal to relocate to an “off location” in Vauxhall.
But the Daily Mail says there is “widespread speculation that the President was reluctant to face protests on the streets” after his Britsh opponents promised mass demonstrations and even Theresa May began to backtrack on an invitation.
An unidentified source told The Sunday Times Trump “felt he had not been shown enough love by the British government”.
“He started to believe that the British government thought the same way about him as [Mayor of London] Sadiq Khan and Jeremy Corbyn, who have made clear their disdain for him and said he is not welcome in the UK,” added the source.
Trump, whose grandmother was Scottish, has long emphasised the importance of the special relationship. He once promised Britain would be “front of the queue” to secure a new trade deal after Brexit, and Theresa May was the first leader to visit the White House after his inauguration.
Since extending an invitation to Trump to meet the Queen on an official state visit, the Government has responded to a public backlash by seeking to downgrade the visit, or kick it into the long grass, without angering the US President.
For his part, Trump’s cancelled trip to Britain “underscores a pattern in the President’s relationships with world leaders after nearly a year in office”, says the Los Angeles Times. “He has cozied up to the globe’s leading autocrats while leaders of traditional democratic allies, notably Britain and Germany, are increasingly uncomfortable with the nationalist American president,” says the paper.
