A war of words has broken out between Donald Trump and a senior Labour minister who accused him of fuelling ‘overt racism’ in the UK.
Dame Angela Eagle, who is in charge of dealing with illegal migration, swiped that the former president had used social media to fire ‘vitriol’ at migrants in the US.
Speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool she also accused senior Tories – without naming them – of using a ‘toxic discourse’ that gave racists a ‘yellow flashing light’ as the party tried prevent an exodus of voters to Reform before the election.
But the Trump campaign delivered a withering response, insisting ‘no-one knows who this random person is or cares what comes out of her mouth’.
The spat erupted just before Keir Starmer headed to New York to visit the United Nations – a trip where he is hoping to meet both Mr Trump and Democrat candidate Kamala Harris.
The PM and other senior ministers including Foreign Secretary David Lammy have been at pains not to be seen to be taking sides ahead of the US election on November 5, despite previous criticism of Trump.
According to the Guardian, Border security Minister Dame Angela told a conference fringe event that migrants to the UK often struggle to ‘rise above the constant drumbeat of toxic anti-immigration, anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become emboldened, not only in Britain but across the western countries’.
‘I mean, Trump does the same. If you look at some of the memes that he’s using with the wall stuff at the moment, it’s astonishing, quite the level of vitriol that it has created,’ she told the meeting organised by the Refugee Council.
She added: ‘We had a discourse as the right of the Conservative party got more and more obsessed with what Reform was doing that was very toxic indeed, othering asylum seekers, othering human beings in general, and creating a space, I think, for overt racism on our streets.
‘Because let’s face it, talking about asylum seekers in the way that some government ministers did, at least gave, let me say, at least a yellow flashing light to people that wanted to indulge in a discourse about people whose skin wasn’t the colour that they wanted it to be.
‘Let’s just put it that way. And I think creating that kind of toxic discourse around asylum is a real problem,’ she said.
But the Trump campaign dismissed the minister’s jibe last night.
‘Nobody knows who this random person is or cares what comes out of her mouth,’ Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Politico.
‘Who is she and what does she do?’
Asked about the clash, Sir Keir said: ‘I think I’ve been absolutely clear where responsibility lies for the disorder on our streets. It lies with the thugs who were carrying out that disorder.
‘That’s why I took control of the process to ensure that justice was visited very quickly on their cases.
‘I was really clear in my conference speech about responsibility. It lies with those that were on the streets causing the disorder, and I made clear what should happen to them.
‘But as I said in my conference speech, we’ve got to distinguish that from the genuine discussion that we do need to have as a country about immigration.
‘Because if you just put the two together you do a disservice to people who would never go out on the streets and cause disorder, and do genuinely have concerns about immigration.
‘We need to address that.’
Last week Mr Lammy, an outspoken critic of Trump while in opposition, declined to condemn him over baseless claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pet cats and dogs.
The former president, who hopes to return to the Oval Office after November’s US election, made the remarks during a debate with his White House rival Kamala Harris.
The Ohio town of Springfield was thrust into the national spotlight after Trump and his running mate JD Vance highlighted claims that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating residents’ pet cats and ducks in the parks.
Mr Lammy said there was a ‘robust’ political debate in the US and he would not comment on its domestic issues because he had to work with whoever was in the White House.