Nigel Farage has warned that there are “some very difficult issues” facing Sir Keir Starmer when he meets Donald Trump later this week.
The Prime Minister is set to meet the President for the first time since the Republican was sworn in for the second time, with the war in Ukraine most likely to dominate the conversation.
Now, the Reform UK leader, who Trump previously described as a “great guy”, has offered some tips for Starmer ahead of their meeting in Washington.
The Clacton MP told The Telegraph: “[With Trump] you have to be straightforward. You’ve got to not be too hesitant. He fires questions with great rapidity and he thinks very quickly. So they are quite full-on conversations…he is sharp as hell.”
It comes as Reform’s Chief Whip and Ashfield MP Lee Anderson has hit back at Starmer, saying he will soon be “fawning over President Trump” after the Prime Minister accused Farage of “fawning over Putin”.
Farage added: “I wish the Prime Minister luck, but Trump and he are very different people…Chagos is difficult. Aligning with EU food standards threatens any free trade deal with America. There are some very difficult issues here.”
Trump has told reporters that Ukrainian President Zelensky wants to come to Washington DC later this week to sign a critical minerals deal that is central to Kyiv’s push to win US ongoing support of its war with Russia.
Trump also told reporters there needs be some form of peacekeeping troops in Ukraine if an agreement to end the conflict is struck.
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Scottish government “stands firmly behind” single-sex space provision
Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne SomervilleGETTY
An SNP minister has said the Scottish government “stands firmly behind” provision of single sex spaces amid a tribunal brought by a nurse who objected to sharing a women’s changing room with a transgender doctor.
Sandie Peggie claims she was subject to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act when she was expected to share a changing room with Dr Beth Upton, a trans doctor.
Social justice secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville has told Holyrood: “This government stands firmly behind the separate and single-sex exemptions provided in the 2010 act. Members will be aware this allows for trans people to be excluded when this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.”
Lib Dems SLAM Conservatives over ‘unforgivable legacy’ as new corridor care figures released
The Liberal Democrats have taken a swipe at the Conservatives as new figures have shown almost four in five NHS doctors were forced to provide corridor care in the past month.
The party’s Health and Social Care spokeswoman Helen Morgan MP said: “To think that corridor care has not just become accepted but the standard way our hospitals operate is utterly harrowing.
“Hearing stories of people dying in glorified cupboards or having to be resuscitated in crowded corridors is heartbreaking and we should never accept that this is just the way things are now.
“It is the Conservatives’ unforgivable legacy that has pushed patients into these horrific situations and staff to breaking point but the Labour government’s lack of urgency in gripping this has been inexcusable.
“Patients cannot take any more of the can being kicked down the road. We need to see the Government’s social care review completed within a year to free up hospital beds and get people out of A&E waiting rooms to prevent this from ever happening again.”
Healey praises Trump’s mineral deal as a ‘good thing’ if it brings peace
Defence Minister John Healey
GETTY
Defence Secretary John Healey has said a minerals deal agreed between the US and Ukraine would be a “good thing” if it helps “shape” long-term peace.
Healey told Times Radio it appears the countries are “close to a deal”, adding he spoke to his counterparts in Washington and Kyiv on Tuesday.
He said: “In the end, that detail’s a matter for the two countries, and we’ll see the detail emerge, but peace is part of a process. We’re at an early stage, and if this helps shape the long-term peace that’s required in Ukraine, then that’s a good thing.
“In the meantime, my job as defence minister is to make sure that we help keep Ukraine in the fight as strong as possible and that we don’t jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the war.”