Sir Keir Starmer met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the Prime Minister’s visit to New York.
On Thursday, Sir Keir visited Trump Tower for talks ahead of November’s US election.
Sir Keir said he wanted to meet Mr Trump face to face because “I’m a great believer in personal relationships on the world stage”.
The meeting has the potential to be diplomatically awkward, not just because of Mr Trump’s bombastic style but also because Sir Keir has not been able to schedule a similar appointment with Democratic candidate and vice president Kamala Harris.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York (Leon Neal/PA)
Ahead of the meeting, Sir Keir told reporters: “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.
“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 personally, get to know them face to face.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy – who called Mr Trump a “racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser” in 2017 and promised to protest on the streets if he visited the UK – also attended the Trump Tower meeting.
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Speaking at a press conference before they met, Mr Trump said he thought Sir Keir was “very nice”.
He said: “I actually think he’s very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it’s very early, he’s very popular.”
The presidential candidate added praise for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. He said: “I think Nigel is great, I’ve known him for a long time. He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually. They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you don’t get them.”
Sir Keir said the UK embassy team, led by ambassador Dame Karen Pierce, “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.”
US vic president Kamala Harris (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
Asked whether he would be prepared to stand up to Mr Trump on issues such as support for Ukraine, Sir Keir said: “The first thing I think is important to say in relation to this is we’ve obviously had a special relationship with the US for a long time, forged in really difficult circumstances.
“That always sits above whoever holds the particular office, either in the US or the UK.
“And it is really important.
“I think it’s probably as strong now as it’s ever been, in relation to the Middle East and Ukraine.
“And you’ve seen how closely I’ve been working with the US in relation to both of those issues.
“The US people will decide who they want as their president, and we will work with whoever is president, as you would expect.
“I’m not going to speculate on what any particular issues may be the other side of the election.”