Minister plays down Trump’s Nato threat, arguing US alliance strong enough to ‘outlast’ current issues – UK politics live
Pat McFadden plays down Trump’s threat to Nato, arguing US alliance strong enough to ‘outlast’ current issues
Good morning. Keir Starmer is holding a press conference in Downing Street this morning. As Kiran Stacey reports, the PM’s main intention will be to announce support for people most hit by rising energy prices, particularly householders reliant on heating oil. The measures are expected to be worth tens of millions of pounds.
But, inevitably, most of the focus likely to be on how Starmer responds to the latest provocations from Donald Trump.
To recap: last weekend Trump was dismissing the UK’s stance saying that the US did not need Britain’s support in the Gulf anyway because “we don’t need people that join wars after we’ve already won”. This weekend he was asking the UK, and other countries, to send warships to help keep the strait of Hormuz open. The government has indicated that it won’t deploy warships, but it may send minesweeping drones. Here are some of today’s headlines.
The full Guardian story is here.
After briefly sounding solicitous, Trump is now back in threat mode. In a brief interview with the Financial Times he implied that, if countries like the UK did not deploy warships to protect oil tankers going through the strait of Hormuz, he might pull the plug on Nato. He said:
It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there …
If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of Nato.
We will hear what Starmer has to say about this later, but we have already had a response from Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, who has been on the morning interview round. Speaking on Sky News, McFadden downplayed the threat, arguing that the US-UK alliance was strong enough to “outlast” any problems caused by Trump’s rhetoric. Asked to comment on the quote, he said:
That’s the president right there. The quote that you’ve just given has summed him up.
It’s a very transactional presidency and our job is to navigate this, to always remember that the friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom runs very deep.
It’s a good relationship. It’s enduring and I think it will outlast all the personalities involved.
We will cover the press conference in detail, but we won’t just be focusing on Iran today; there is other politics around too. Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer meets Mark Carney, the Canadian PM, in Downing Street.
10.30am: Starmer holds his press conference.
11am: Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, holds a press conference where he will give what the party says will be “a significant update on Doge and Reform in local government”.
11.30am: Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, gives a speech where he will announce plans for a youth jobs grant and an apprenticeships incentive.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in London.
12.30pm: Malcolm Offord, Reform UK’s leader in Scotland, takes part in a Q&A at the Institute for Government.
1.30pm: Jeremy Corbyn, Your Party’s parliamentary leader, presents the findings of his Gaza Tribunal report. As Patrick Wintour reports, it will say the government has been complicit in crimes committed by Israel.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
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Key events
What No 10 said about Starmer’s call with Trump yesterday
Keir Starmer and Mark Carney presumably spoke about their dealings with Donald Trump at their meeting this morning. Both of them seem to have had quite difficult conversations with the US president recently. Here is the terse Canadian readout from Carney’s call with Trump last weekend. And here is the statement from a No 10 spokesperson last night after Starmer spoke to the president.
The prime minister spoke to the president of the United States Donald Trump this evening.
The leaders discussed the ongoing situation in the Middle East and the importance of reopening the strait of Hormuz to end the disruption to global shipping, which is driving up costs worldwide.
The prime minister also expressed his condolences for the American service personnel who have lost their lives during the conflict.
They agreed to keep in touch.
This implies that, although there was agreement on reopening the strait of Hormuz, there was no agreement on how that should be achieved.
This is from the FT’s Edward Luce on Bluesky on his Trump scoop. (See 9.22am.)
I called Trump and he picked up..
Has Nato and the UK in his sights again
Keir Starmer has been meeting Mark Carney, his Canadian counterpart, in Downing Street this morning.
UK not obliged to support every demand of ‘transactional’ US president, McFadden says
Here is Peter Walker’s story on what Pat McFadden has been saying this morning in response to Donald Trump’s implict threat to withdraw support for Nato if countries like the UK don’t help the US in the Gulf.
Trump argues Nato countries should help US in Gulf in return for Washington backing Ukraine
Here are some more quotes from Donald Trump’s interview with Edward Luce from the Financial Times. Trump implicitly threatened to withdraw support for Nato if countries like the UK did not supply warships to protect oil tankers going through the strait of Hormuz from attacks by the Iranians. (See 8.57am.) But he made other points too.
We have a thing called Nato. We’ve been very sweet. We didn’t have to help them with Ukraine. Ukraine is thousands of miles away from us . . . But we helped them. Now we’ll see if they help us.
Because I’ve long said that we’ll be there for them but they won’t be there for us. And I’m not sure that they’d be there.
Trump has often made this argument before, including when he was at Davos in January. In response to what he said then, Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, pointed out that Nato’s mutual defence clause, article 5, has only been triggered once, after 9/11, and that led to other Nato countries helping the US in Afghansitan.
We’re hitting them very hard. They’ve got nothing left but to make a little trouble in the strait but these people are beneficiaries and they ought to help us police it. We’ll help them. But they should also be there. You sort of need a lot of people to watch over a few.
Pat McFadden plays down Trump’s threat to Nato, arguing US alliance strong enough to ‘outlast’ current issues
Good morning. Keir Starmer is holding a press conference in Downing Street this morning. As Kiran Stacey reports, the PM’s main intention will be to announce support for people most hit by rising energy prices, particularly householders reliant on heating oil. The measures are expected to be worth tens of millions of pounds.
But, inevitably, most of the focus likely to be on how Starmer responds to the latest provocations from Donald Trump.
To recap: last weekend Trump was dismissing the UK’s stance saying that the US did not need Britain’s support in the Gulf anyway because “we don’t need people that join wars after we’ve already won”. This weekend he was asking the UK, and other countries, to send warships to help keep the strait of Hormuz open. The government has indicated that it won’t deploy warships, but it may send minesweeping drones. Here are some of today’s headlines.
The full Guardian story is here.
After briefly sounding solicitous, Trump is now back in threat mode. In a brief interview with the Financial Times he implied that, if countries like the UK did not deploy warships to protect oil tankers going through the strait of Hormuz, he might pull the plug on Nato. He said:
It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there …
If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of Nato.
We will hear what Starmer has to say about this later, but we have already had a response from Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, who has been on the morning interview round. Speaking on Sky News, McFadden downplayed the threat, arguing that the US-UK alliance was strong enough to “outlast” any problems caused by Trump’s rhetoric. Asked to comment on the quote, he said:
That’s the president right there. The quote that you’ve just given has summed him up.
It’s a very transactional presidency and our job is to navigate this, to always remember that the friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom runs very deep.
It’s a good relationship. It’s enduring and I think it will outlast all the personalities involved.
We will cover the press conference in detail, but we won’t just be focusing on Iran today; there is other politics around too. Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer meets Mark Carney, the Canadian PM, in Downing Street.
10.30am: Starmer holds his press conference.
11am: Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, holds a press conference where he will give what the party says will be “a significant update on Doge and Reform in local government”.
11.30am: Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, gives a speech where he will announce plans for a youth jobs grant and an apprenticeships incentive.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in London.
12.30pm: Malcolm Offord, Reform UK’s leader in Scotland, takes part in a Q&A at the Institute for Government.
1.30pm: Jeremy Corbyn, Your Party’s parliamentary leader, presents the findings of his Gaza Tribunal report. As Patrick Wintour reports, it will say the government has been complicit in crimes committed by Israel.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.