Starmer joins Trump on Air Force One
And he gently pressed the PM on giving the go-ahead for new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, while slamming funding for wind power . The PM stood up for green energy hours before boarding the aging American behemoth, which is built for long-haul journeys rather than a short hop across Scotland. 'We believe in a mix, and obviously oil and gas will be with us for a very long time, and that'll be part of the mix, but also wind, solar, increasingly nuclear (power),' he said.
The flight will land at RAF Lossiemouth, due to Aberdeen Airport having too short a runway for the 747. It was the PM's second flight of the day, having arrived in Scotland from Switzerland, where he watched the Lionesses retain their Women's Euros title last night. Without any awkwardness about playing one mate off against the other the president used the hour-long televised bromantic encounter to tell the PM to cut taxes and stop 'murderers and drug dealers' from coming to Britain.
While Sir Keir sat beside him with an impassive look on his face he also attacked subsidies for wind power and - gently - suggested he should back fresh drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea instead. He was full of praise for the Prime Minister and the way he was running the country, despite their ideological differences, saying Sir Keir was was 'liberal ..but not too liberal' in his approach. Mr Trump added: 'I think the one that's toughest and most competent on immigration is going to win the election, but then you add… low taxes, and you add the economy.
'(Sir Keir) did a great thing with the economy, because a lot of money is going to come in because of the deal that was made. But I think that, I think that immigration is now bigger than ever before.' The president had earlier told Sir Keir Britain and the rest of Europe it must stop illegal immigration to avoid 'ruin' as the two leaders met in Scotland today. Mr Farage is not meeting Mr Trump during the visit.
The American leader attacked Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan as a 'nasty person' and hailed both Sir Keir and Nigel Farage as 'great men' as the leaders took a series of questions across domestic and foreign affairs. The president also indicated that the US may not impose heavy tariffs on British pharmaceuticals, telling reporters that 'we certainly feel a lot better' about the UK working on drugs that will be sold in the States compared to other nations. The president had earlier said that he thinks Sir Keir, who has been in office for more than a year, will be 'a tax cutter.'
The president had earlier spoken out as he met Sir Keir and Lady Victoria on the clubhouse steps at his Ayrshire golf course. During the president's 'working holiday' in the country of his mother's birth he spoke to reporters as bagpipes played in the background. He spoke out about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza - which the leaders will discuss further - and had criticism for Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war. But he also addressed the wider issue of immigration facing Europe he added that it was becoming a 'different place' - and praised Sir Keir for taking a strong stance against it.
'This is a magnificent part of the world, and you cannot ruin it, you cannot let people come here illegally,' the president said. 'And what happens is there'll be murderers, there'll be drug dealers, there'll be all sorts of things that other countries don't want. 'They send them to you and they send them to us and you've got to stop them and I hear you've taken a very strong stand on immigration. And taking a strong stand on immigration is imperative.' The latest data from the Home Office indicates that 122 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Saturday.
Security was tight at Turnberry as they discussed how to continue putting into place the US-UK trade deal they signed earlier this year, as well as the Middle East crisis. They met on the steps of the clubhouse while a bagpiper playing loudly in the background, with the president saying Sir Keir was going a 'great job'. He also said he did not mind Sir Keir 'taking a position' on Palestinian statehood, though he said he would not do so himself. The president rejected Israel's claim there is 'no starvation' in Gaza, saying that images of famine in the occupied territory could not be fake.
He said Gaza was 'a mess' ahead of talks about the deepening humanitarian crisis. They piled pressure on Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who yesterday insisted 'there is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza' Images and warnings of starvation emerging from Gaza in recent days have piled pressure on the Israeli government over its conduct in the conflict. But Trump called for food to be allowed into Gaza immediately. He said he was not convinced by the Israeli denials, adding: 'That's real starvation stuff... and you can't fake that.'
The PM, who was due to present to Mr Trump a UK-led plan to bring peace to the Middle East, added it was an 'absolute catastrophe'. Sir Keir held crisis talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the weekend. Britain is working with Jordan to airdrop aid into Gaza and evacuate children needing medical assistance, with military planners deployed for further support.
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The declaration of an independent state of Israel by its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, following the hasty abandonment of territory mandated to British control in 1920 by the League of Nations, and coupled with the Israeli army's successful defence against immediate invasion by five neighbouring Arab states, left the new nation in control of 78 per cent of what had once been British-administered Mandatory Palestine. The Balfour Declaration – along with the United Nations decision to divide the territory into two states, one Arab and one Jewish – would prove pivotal in creating a conflict that still scars the Middle East. But it is subsequent events that explain why formal recognition of an independent, sovereign state of Palestine has still not yet happened. For more than half a century, Western governments – Britain included – have said that there should be a Palestinian state that encompasses Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But in 1967, when the Six Day War broke out with its neighbours, Israel seized the former territory from Egypt and the latter two others from Jordan. The subsequent UN Resolution 242 called for Israel to withdraw in return for recognition by Arab states – but neither the pullback nor the recognition ever came to pass. At that point in time, Palestinians still hankered after sovereignty over the whole of historic 'Palestine' – including what had already been the state of Israel for almost 20 years, and from which more than 700,000 Palestinians had been forced to flee, in a displacement and dispossession known as the Nakba, meaning 'catastrophe' in Arabic. Israel, far from withdrawing from the territorial gains made during conflicts, has set up settlements, meaning that at least 620,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Several of the most extreme members of the Netanyahu government are eager to resettle Gaza in the same way. In 1988, there was a dramatic change of thinking within the then-Palestinian leadership – it's so-called 'historic compromise'. Led by Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation would confine its aspiration to sovereignty over the territories occupied in 1967. All negotiations that have taken place since then – at Oslo in 1993, at Camp David in 2000, and between Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas as part of a secret realignment plan that was never implemented – have envisaged, to some degree, a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side. Shortly after Arafat's historic compromise, 78 countries recognised the new Palestinian state. Today, the number declaring formal recognition stands at 147. Earlier this month – more than a decade after Sweden became the first EU country to formally acknowledge Palestinian sovereignty, a move followed last year by Ireland, Spain and Norway – the French president Emmanuel Macron became the first leader of a G7 country to promise he will seek to do the same at the UN General Assembly in September. As critics of recognition frequently, and correctly, point out; acknowledging a state of Palestine that includes the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is essentially notional, since, in the absence of a successful peace process, there is no state to recognise. Though the Palestinian Authority was granted observer status at the United Nations in 2012, along similar lines to that afforded to the Vatican, it has no voting rights. Moreover, the United States has consistently used its veto to block Palestine's full UN membership. As recently as April, the UK abstained in a Security Council resolution vote on the recommendation regarding the admission of Palestine into the UN. Nevertheless, France's move – which paved the way for today's announcement of a road map by Keir Starmer, which is supported by Macron and the German chancellor Friedrich Merz – is not an empty one. It registered growing outrage at the carnage, and the scale of the famine, perpetrated by Israel in Gaza in retaliation for brutal attacks by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took another 251 hostages. The French president is said to have been especially affected by his conversations with Palestinian survivors when he visited Egypt in April. France joining with Saudi Arabia in sponsoring the UN summit currently underway in New York to revive talks into a two-state solution sends a clear political message to Israel's leadership. It is also a reminder that, since 2002, Riyadh has promised to recognise Israel – as Egypt and Jordan have already done – but only if it agrees to a return to pre-1967 borders. Will Britain's belated recognition of a state of Palestine make any difference? It will certainly lend weight and credence to those hoping to change minds in Washington. It would also go some way as an acknowledgement of the UK's historic role and duty in the region. And we can only hope that it might help solve a conflict in which the destruction, killing and starvation in Gaza is but the latest – and direst – consequence.
