Posts have circulated online about rich and influential people interfering in other countries’ democracies.
One post said that UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had called US President-elect Donald Trump a racist. It also claimed that “Starmer sent British Labour Party members to campaign in the US against President Trump this year.”
Another poster claimed: “Norwegian PM sits down with Bill Gates to warn against Elon Musk interfering in other countries.” The post included a photo of Mr Gates and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
Evaluation
Sir Keir has criticised Mr Trump’s “offensive remarks” about certain groups and the “assumptions and the belief that lie behind those comments”. However there does not appear to be evidence that he directly called the president-elect a racist.
Others in his Cabinet have used the word racist to describe Mr Trump.
Some Labour Party staff do seem to have campaigned for Kamala Harris ahead of November’s US presidential election, however there does not appear to be any evidence that Sir Keir himself sent them there.
Mr Store’s remarks about Mr Musk are accurately reported, however they were not said during or soon after a meeting with Bill Gates.
The facts
Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump
Sir Keir has criticised Mr Trump in the past and has spoken of his beliefs as “repugnant”, however there does not appear to be any evidence that he has directly used the term racist to describe the president-elect.
In January 2016 Sir Keir said Mr Trump had made “offensive remarks about Muslims, women and migrants”.
In Parliament the same month, Sir Keir said of Mr Trump: “What lies at the heart of his belief that Muslims should be banned is that he thinks they are all dangerous. That is not buffoonery. That is absolutely repugnant.”
He added that there were “assumptions and the belief that lie behind those comments” from Mr Trump.
He added: “There is no doubt that some of Donald Trump’s comments have been offensive, shocking and disturbing.”
Sir Keir has also said that Mr Trump does not understand the words “humanity and dignity”.
Other Labour politicians and Donald Trump
Other Labour politicians have used the word “racist” when speaking about Mr Trump.
Ed Miliband, currently Energy Secretary, wrote in 2016: “Racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper just won Presidency.”
David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, wrote in 2017: “I will be on the streets protesting racist and KKK/neo-Nazi sympathiser Trump.”
Labour campaigners in the US
The claim about Sir Keir sending people to campaign against Mr Trump stems from a LinkedIn post – which has since been deleted – in which Labour’s head of operations said that nearly 100 current and former Labour Party staff would be going to the US and provided a “Labour for Kamala” email address to anyone wanting to volunteer.
There does not appear to be any evidence that Sir Keir himself had any role in organising this . Senior Labour figures said the Labour Party had not paid for the trips and activists had been campaigning in their own time.
Bill Gates and the Norwegian Prime Minister
The post about Jonas Gahr Store and Bill Gates includes a quote from the Norwegian Prime Minister. In it he said that Elon Musk’s involvement in the internal affairs of other countries is “worrying”.
This quote is accurate. It comes from an interview on Norwegian broadcaster NRK’s Politisk Kvarter programme with Mr Store. The interview took place on January 6 2025.
These comments were not made as Mr Store sat down with billionaire philanthropist.
The photograph which was included in the post showing the two men together is from Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten and was taken in February 2023 as Mr Gates visited Mr Store at his home. They spoke about the climate crisis.
It is unclear if the two men have met since then. Mr Store’s office did not reply to an inquiry from the PA news agency asking about more recent meetings. They were both at the same World Health Organisation event in October 2024.
In a comment to the Norwegian press, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson Kristoffer Thoner said: “This is fake news. The Prime Minister’s comments about Musk happened during Politisk Kvarter on NRK, while the meeting with Gates – which was some time ago – was about global health efforts. Fake news is destructive to healthy public discourse and is a threat to democracy.”
Links
Keir Starmer – Weekly update January 25 2016
TheyWorkForYou – [Sir Roger Gale in the Chair] — Donald Trump January 18 2016 (archived)
Starmer brushes off Labour volunteers helping Harris
Excerpt from NRK interview with Jonas Gahr Store (archived)
Aftenposten article with photo of Jonas Gahr Store and Bill Gates (archived)
WHO article on new funding (archived)
Article with comment from Norwegian PM’s spokesperson (archived)