Sir Keir Starmer is to meet Donald Trump for the first time – but not Kamala Harris.
The Prime Minister is due to visit to the Republican presidential candidate at his Trump Tower in New York on Thursday evening.
However in a blow to Downing Street, Sir Keir has not been able to arrange an introduction to Democratic candidate Ms Harris, whom he has not met before, before he has to return to the UK.
She is in Washington DC seeing Ukraine’s leader as he presents his ‘victory plan’ to the White House and it is unclear if Sir Keir will now be able to meet her before the US election in just over a month.
Speaking ahead of his first encounter with Mr Trump, Sir Keir told reporters: ‘As you know, I’ve said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. We’ve now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good.
‘Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but it’s good that this one now has been fixed.’
Asked what his message would be to Mr Trump, the PM replied: ‘It’ll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. I’m a great believer in personal relations on the international stage.
I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them you know personally, get to know them face to face.’
But he added: ‘I should probably add that, I mean that our camp, our embassy, has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time.
‘So it’s not the sort of start of something, it’s the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and that’s a really good thing that the embassy has been doing.’
The meeting comes at the end of Sir Keir’s first visit to the United Nations as PM.