UK deputy PM dismisses ‘Islamist’ nuclear state jibe by Trump VP pick Vance

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By Alistair Smout

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s deputy prime minister on Tuesday played down comments by U.S. vice presidential contender J.D. Vance that Britain was an Islamist nuclear-armed country, saying he had a history of making “fruity” remarks.

Britain would work with whoever won November’s U.S. presidential election, Angela Rayner added.

At a conference earlier this month, Vance, who Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump named as his running mate on Monday, said that Britain was the “first truly Islamist country” to have nuclear weapons following the Labour Party’s victory in a July 4 election, to laughs in the audience.

Vance said he had been discussing with a friend which country would be the first “truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon”.

“And we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK, since Labour just took over,” he said, in reference to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s party.

Rayner, Starmer’s deputy in both the Labour Party and as prime minister, told broadcaster ITV that Vance had said “quite a lot of fruity things in the past,” and added “I don’t recognise that characterisation”.

“We’re interested in governing on behalf of Britain, and also working with our international allies,” she said.

Several senior Labour figures have criticised Trump since his first election in 2016. His proposals to restrict Muslims from travelling to the United States earned criticism from London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who Trump labelled a “stone cold loser”.

But senior figures had sought to repair bridges in the run up to the election as polls showed they were set for victory.

Britain’s new foreign minister David Lammy, who in 2018 protested against a Trump visit to London, met in March with Vance, who himself was once a Trump critic. Lammy said the Ohio senator’s bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” had parallels to his own upbringing.

Rayner played down her own previous criticism of the former president, saying Labour would be different in government compared to opposition and work constructively with whoever wins the November election.

“The U.S. is a key ally of ours, and if the American people decide who their president and vice president is, then we will work with them, of course we will.”

(Reporting by Alistair Smout, additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Angus MacSwan)