Sadiq Khan urges Labour to call out Donald Trump on sexism and racism

Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter from The Independent’s Race Correspondent Nadine White

Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter The Race Report

London mayor Sadiq Khan has labelled former US president Donald Trump racist, sexist and homophobic – and warned that Labour must do more to “call him out”.

With Mr Trump challenging for the US presidency once again, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy suggested during a bridge-building trip with Republicans in Washington last week that their presidential candidate in the upcoming elections was “often misunderstood” on European policy.

But speaking after being re-elected for a third term as London’s mayor, Mr Khan insisted Mr Trump was far from misunderstood.

“I’m quite clear, I understand on Trump,” Mr Khan told Politico. “He’s a racist. He’s a sexist. He’s a homophobe. And it’s very important, particularly when you’ve got a special relationship, that you treat them as a best mate.

“If my best mate was a racist, or a sexist or a homophobe, I’d call him out and I’d explain to him why those views are wrong.”

The two have traded barbs since 2019, when Mr Trump labelled Mr Khan a “stone cold loser” who had done a “terrible job” as mayor during a presidential visit to London, prompting warnings from experts that these attacks acted as a “nod and a wink” to Mr Trump’s extremist supporters.

Those remarks came after Mr Khan’s office gave activists permission to fly a blimp of the then-president as a crying baby during a protest in 2018. Mr Trump claimed the following year that Mr Khan had “done a very bad job on terrorism”, and just this month insisted that both London and Paris were “unrecognisable” because Europe had “opened its doors to jihad”.

Days earlier, the London mayor had taunted Mr Trump as he addressed crowds during Eid celebrations in Trafalgar Square, saying he was going to send his “good friend” Mr Trump a selfie to say: “Listen, ‘bruv’, this is how we run in London,” adding: “I’m going to show him that our diversity is a strength, not a weakness.”

“I worry about a Donald Trump presidency,” Mr Khan told Politico this week, looking ahead to the upcoming presidential elections, in which Mr Trump has secured the Republican nomination for a third consecutive time – despite losing to Joe Biden in 2020.

“You know, I’ve been speaking to governors from America. I’ve been speaking to mayors from America,” said Mr Khan. “Of course, we’ll have a relationship whoever the president is. But we shouldn’t be literally rolling out a red carpet for a state visit.

“It’s really important that we of course, have good relations with Democrats and Republicans. But I lost count of the amount of Republicans I’ve spoken to who are also worried about a Trump presidency.

“Listen, I’ve got more latitude as a mayor to just to say what I feel about Trump, and I make this point. He called me a ‘stone cold loser’. I’ve won three. How many has he won?”

Asked about the London mayor’s remarks at an event on Friday, Mr Lammy – who in 2017 called Mr Trump a “racist Ku Klux Klan and Nazi sympathiser” – cited his own recent visit to Ukraine as he said: “This is a profoundly serious moment. And it requires seriousness.

“And that seriousness means that the special relationship between the United Kingdom and our American friends is core not just to our own national security, but the security of much of the world.

“And so, just like Wilson, Nixon, Blair, Bush – whoever is in the White House in a big election year in the United States, or whoever is in No 10 in a big election year in our own country – of course, we must work together.”

Pressed on whether his own past remarks could imperil a future US trade deal, Mr Lammy that while people would be “hard pressed to find any politician” who hasn’t had something to say about Mr Trump, he took very seriously “the responsibility of finding common cause on behalf of the national interests of this country”.

“Whether it’s in relation to our national security or the growth that our economy needs, I am crystal clear that that is our objective if we have the privilege of forming the next government,” said the shadow foreign secretary.

But he expressed scepticism over the likelihood of a UK-US trade deal, telling reporters: “In my travels to the United States, it feels pretty clear to me that America has set its face against trade deals. That’s not particular to the UK.

“But the political establishment, both Democrat and Republican, is not focused on trade deals at this time. And therefore I think – unless that changes – we would be expending an awful lot of effort unnecessarily.”