Starmer to meet Trump to discuss Gaza and trade, as minister suggests UK could recognise Palestinian state

The Guardian

5 days ago

Update:
Date: 2025-07-28T08:30:52.000Z
Title: Starmer to meet Trump to discuss Gaza and trade, as minister suggests UK could recognise Palestinian state by next election
Content: Good morning. Keir Starmer has a lead role in the Trump show today. He is flying to Scotland for a meeting with the US president, who is combining a golfing holiday with meetings with leaders like Starmer, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and John Swinney, Scotland's first minister.
The von der Leyen talks culminated in the announcement of what Trump described as a 'powerful' trade deal (albeit one that only means the Trump tariffs won't damage US-EU trade as much as they otherwise might have done; it is not an improvement on the status quo ante.)
Starmer is set to spend a lot of time with Trump today. He is arriving before lunch, and he is not flying back to London until this evening, after what No 10 describes as a 'private engagement' (dinner?) at Trump's golf course in Aberdeenshire. There is a bilateral meeting schedule, but Trump does not like long meetings and Downing Street has not said much about what else the two men will be doing. Starmer has reportedly been working how to respond if Trump invites him to play a round of golf. According to my colleague Eleni Courea, who is Scotland covering the trip, that is one humiliation that Trump won't be inflicting on the PM, who is a good footballer but a total novice at Trump's favourite sport. But Starmer will also be flying to Aberdeen with the president on Air Force One, we expect. In White House terms, that is a token of respect.
Normally when political leaders meet, they speak to the press afterwards, to brief on what they have agreed. Today Trump and Starmer will hold their main event with reporters before their talks and so we are not expecting them to announce anything of substance at this point. Instead, we may just end up with Trump giving us one of his stream-of-consciousness peformance. While he has been in Scotland, these have include rants about European immigration ('you got to stop this horrible invasion that's happening to Europe – immigration is killing Europe') and wind turbines ('when they start to rust and rot in eight years you can't really turn them off, you can't burn them – the whole thing is a con job'.
At one point it was expected that Trump and Starmer would use the meeting today to tie up loose ends in the US-UK trade deal, particularly relating to steel tariffs. But Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, has been giving interviews this morning and he told the Today programme he 'wouldn't expect announcements from this visit' on trade.
Instead, the situation in Gaza may be the focus of the Trump/Starmer talks and, as Pippa Crerar reports, Starmer will urge Trump to use his influence with Israel to get Benjamin Netanyahu to resume peace talks with Hamas.
This is a difficult subject for Starmer because the PM is coming under increasing pressure from members of his own cabinet to recognise the state of Palestine. Doing this would anger Trump, who takes the Israeli view that this would amount to rewarding Hamas for the 7 October attack. And it would not have any immediate practical impact on the situation in Gaza. But Labour MPs are increasingly coming round to the view that, as Wes Streeting, the health secretary put it, it is best to recognise the state of Palestine 'while there is a state of Palestine left to recognise'. As Mark Malloch Brown, a former UN deputy secretary-general and a minister in Gordon Brown's government, told the Observer yesterday, recognition would also send a message to Israel that 'you can't bomb your way out of the reality that you're going to have to negotiate with the Palestinians.'
In interviews this morning Reynolds said that the UK was committed to recognising the state of Palestine; it was just a matter of timing, he said.
He told ITV's Good Morning Britain:
It is a case of when, not if.
It's about how we use this moment, because you can only do it once to have a meaningful breakthrough.
And on Sky News he went further, implying he expects recognition to happen during this parliament.
In this parliament, yes. I mean, if it delivers the breakthrough that we need.
But don't forget, we can only do this once. If we do it in a way which is tokenistic, doesn't produce the end to this conflict, where do we go to next?
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Rachel Reeves, chancellor, is on a visit in Bournemouth.
11am: Nigel Farage, Reform UK leader, holds a press conference with 'a special guest'. According to the Daily Mail, he is Colin Sutton, a former detective chief inspector, who is joining the party as a crime adviser.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Around noon: Keir Starmer is due to arrive at President Trump's Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire, Scotland, where the two leaders are due to speak to the media at around 12.30pm. They will hold a formal meeting in the afternoon before flying to Aberdeen, where Trump owns another golf course and where they are expected to have a private dinner.
Around lunchtime: Kemi Badenoch is expected to record a media clip.
Afternoon: The Stop Trump Coalition holds a protest outside Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course.
Late afternoon: Angela Rayner, deputy PM, hosts a reception for the Lionesses following victory in the Women's Euro 2025.
Also, David Lammy, foreign secretary, is in New York for a meeting on a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
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