Only grant Trump a UK state visit if he agrees to Ukraine summit, say Lib Dems.H
Ed Davey says incoming US president is ‘threat to peace and prosperity’ and relations with him must be transactional
Only grant Trump a UK state visit if he agrees to Ukraine summit, say Lib Dems
Ed Davey says incoming US president is ‘threat to peace and prosperity’ and relations with him must be transactional
Britain should offer Donald Trump a state visit only on the condition he agrees to a sit-down summit with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as part of an openly transactional US-UK relationship with the returning president, Ed Davey has said.
In a speech in which the Liberal Democrat leader also called for the UK to seek a new customs union with the EU to help insulate itself from the potential impacts of Trump’s second presidency, Davey said that while the US leader could not be trusted, he could also very much not be ignored.
“The reality is, unfortunately, very clear. The incoming Trump administration is a threat to peace and prosperity for the UK, across Europe and around the world,” Davey said. “For the next four years, the UK cannot depend on the presence of the United States to be a reliable partner on security, defence or the economy.”
The only way for the UK to deal with Trump, he said, would be from a position of strength, requiring closer links to Europe and, when interacting with the president, to do so “with our eyes wider to the kind of man he is”.
“He’s transactional, so let’s treat him that way,” he said. “The good news is we have leverage. We have something Trump desperately wants – a state visit, the pageantry of Buckingham Palace, a banquet with the king. We all know he craves it. So I say we give it to him, but only if he delivers what we need first for Britain and Europe’s defence and security.”
This would involve Trump agreeing to attend a UK-convened summit with Zelenskyy and other European leaders to secure a future for Ukraine, including discussion of how to use frozen Russian assets to pay for Ukrainian weapons.
Elsewhere in the speech, which marked a renewed focus on post-Brexit links and international affairs after a Lib Dem election campaign focused largely on domestic issues, Davey criticised Keir Starmer for what he called a vastly cautious approach to Europe.
“The prime minister has at least recognised the need to reset our relationship with the EU,” he said. “So far, I’m afraid that only seems to amount to saying ‘no’ more politely than the Conservatives.”
As well as calling for talks to begin on a bespoke customs union deal with Brussels, with a plan to complete this by 2030, Davey urged immediate action on a reciprocal youth mobility scheme with EU member states.
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Such an explicit call for a customs union, under which the UK would sign up to common trade rules and tariffs in exchange for smoother imports and exports, goes further than the party’s election manifesto and is intended to appeal to voters frustrated at Labour’s limited movement over Brexit.
The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said on Thursday that the government was worried about the prospect of Trump imposing widespread tariffs as he had promised.
“I am [worried], because the UK is a very globally orientated economy, so the exposure, the danger to the UK is actually greater than even some comparable countries around that,” he told Sky News. “It’s going to be a challenging time for anyone who is responsible for trade in a big economy because of some of those pledges that were made in the campaign.”
