The Prime Minister has called Trump’s comments ‘nonsense’.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has defended the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan against Trump’s attacks, calling his claim that Khan wanted to bring in Sharia law ‘nonsense’.
Trump took aim at Khan during a speech at the UN, where he falsely claimed that London wanted to “go to sharia law” under its “terrible mayor”.
In a rambling speech at the UN, the President launched a scathing attack on the global body, where he called for countries to close their borders and expel foreigners as well as calling climate change a ‘con job’.
He then took aim at London’s Muslim mayor, saying: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.”
His comments were condemned by a number of Labour MPs, with Khan himself calling Trump ‘racist, sexist and Islamophobic’.
The Prime Minister has called Trump’s comments ‘nonsense’.
Sir Keir said: “I’m not going to get drawn into a war of words, but what I will say is this, because it is important.
“You saw from the state visit last week that there are plenty of things on which the president and I agree, and we are working together.
“There are some issues on which we disagree, and what the president said about the mayor, who’s doing a really good job, in fact driving down serious crime, what he said about the introduction of Sharia law was ridiculous nonsense.
“I support our mayor, I’m really proud of the fact we have a Muslim mayor of a very diverse city.
“We do work with the Americans on a huge number of issues. On this issue I disagree, and I stand with our mayor.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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