Canadian PM criticises UK invitation to Trump for second state visit
Canada's prime minister Mark Carney has criticised Britain's invitation to Donald Trump for a second state visit, saying it undermined his government's effort to project a united front against the US president's talk of annexing Canada.
Since taking office in January, Trump has repeatedly said he wants Canada to become the 51st US state, a suggestion that has angered Canadians and left Britain trying to tread a fine line between the two North American countries.
Britain's King Charles is also head of state of Canada, a former British colony, and the monarch has made a number of symbolic gestures in recent months, wearing Canadian medals, planting a maple tree and referring to himself as the king of Canada.
Charles, who is still undergoing cancer treatment, is also due to attend Canada's state opening of parliament on 27 May, the first time a British monarch has attended the event in Ottawa since 1977.
Carney, in an interview with Sky News, was asked about British prime minister Keir Starmer's move in February to use his visit to the Oval Office to hand Trump an invitation from the monarch for an unprecedented second state visit to London.
'I think, to be frank, they [Canadians] weren't impressed by that gesture … given the circumstance. It was at a time when we were being quite clear about the issues around sovereignty,' he said.
Carney, who won a party race to become prime minister in March before he secured victory in Canada's election last month by vowing to stand up Trump, said Charles's presence in Canada later this month was by design.
'All issues around Canada's sovereignty have been accentuated by the president. So no, it's not coincidental, but it is also a reaffirming moment for Canadians,' he said.
Starmer, who is trying to improve trading ties with the US after Britain left the European Union, has sought to play to its strengths when dealing with Trump, talking up its security expertise, pledging higher defence spending, and offering the pomp and pageantry that comes with a state visit.
Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland and who has repeatedly praised the British royal family, agreed a limited bilateral trade agreement with London this month.
Asked about Carney's criticism, senior British minister Pat McFadden told Sky News that every country had to decide how to conduct its relations with other countries.
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Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Jeremy Hunt vs Allister Heath: ‘Starmer's EU sell-out is Gordon Brown's gold scandal on steroids'
I've visited plenty of poky parliamentary offices in my time, some little larger than cubby holes and designed without any interest in ergonomics. Jeremy Hunt's digs are something else. They are palatial, as befits a former holder of two of the greatest offices of state, and a runner-up in the contest to become Tory leader. A Spectator magazine cover takes pride of place on the wall. I can't avoid doing a double take. The cartoon depicts a triumphant Hunt and a defeated Boris Johnson, with the headline marvelling at the political upset of the century. Hunt notes my surprise at this extraordinary historical revisionism. He explains that it was an unpublished draft produced just in case and gifted to him by the Speccie's former editor Fraser Nelson, following his defeat in the 2019 Conservative leadership contest. I like Hunt, even though we have jousted over the years and despite his conviction that I'm an incorrigible purveyor of declinism. A former chancellor, foreign secretary and health secretary, he is now on a mission to convince Britain not only that our country can be great again, but that we retain far more power, wealth and influence than we realise. He believes the world needs us to be successful and engaged, fighting for free trade, defence, the environment and human rights. I wanted to read Hunt's new book to find out which kind of optimist he is. The good news is that he is no Panglossian, convinced, like Candide's glib tutor in Voltaire's masterpiece, that all is already for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Centrist dad types often fall into that delusional category, citing long-run GDP figures or life-expectancy data to lecture us that we have no right to moan about anything. Instead, Hunt can best be described as a rational optimist, to adapt a phrase coined by British writer Matt Ridley, somebody who accepts that the world is in a bad place but who is aware of what is still going right and believes that what has gone wrong can be repaired. His book, Can We Be Great Again? Why a Dangerous World Needs Britain, is extremely readable, and an excellent, nuanced contribution to what the UK's role should be in today's multipolar world. 'Because I put up taxes, there was this view that I was happy for taxes to go up' Given that title, I point out, if Britain isn't great today, that must in part be the fault of his government. 'If I was going to look back over 14 years, were we as transformative as Margaret Thatcher?' Hunt responds. 'No, but in our defence, we had to deal with three global shocks: the financial crisis, Covid and a 1970s-style energy shock. We did the one thing everyone expects from Conservative governments, which is to take the tough decisions to right the economic ship,' he says. As a result, 'There were lots of other things that we didn't do.' He is proud that, during his tenure as Chancellor, inflation fell back dramatically, and that he managed to increase defence spending. He also has regrets: 'My biggest disappointment was that we didn't go further, faster on welfare reform and getting taxes down. My biggest personal failure was not getting a message across that the Conservatives really did want to bring down the tax burden. Because I put up taxes, there was this view that I was happy for taxes to go up.' That is to profoundly misunderstand his belief system, Hunt maintains. He highlights his reductions to National Insurance, and his introduction of full expensing for corporate capital spending. 'I am a small-state conservative for principled reasons to do with the fact that governments should expropriate the minimum possible for its citizens, but also because of the practical reason that the fastest-growing economies are the ones with the lowest tax rates.' The language is noteworthy: many of his colleagues aren't interested in political philosophy, and have become unused to talking about economics, preferring to focus exclusively on culture wars. Unlike many Tories, Hunt isn't scared to argue that the better off should be levied less too. 'I would like to bring down all levels of tax. I'm very worried about the flight of millionaires,' he says. He highlights the absurdity caused by the tapering of the personal allowance on incomes between £100,000 and £125,000 a year, an unfashionable cause but one that is hammering the incentives of professionals. 'There are lots of anomalies in the tax system, such as having [an effective] marginal rate of tax of 62 per cent over £100,000 a year. People on lower incomes also need to see that their tax bill is going down. Nigel Lawson brought down everyone's taxes.' Many on the Right – Tories, as well as, increasingly, Reform – are scared to discuss cutting spending, partly because of the realignment that has sent so many lower-income voters their way. Not so Hunt: 'Welfare reform and lower taxes are the only way that we are going to change this country, culturally, economically and fiscally.' Spending could be cut drastically. 'There were lots of problems in the benefits system in 2019, but even if we just turn the clock back five years for working-age adults, getting the benefits bill to where it was before the pandemic, we would save just under £50 billion a year.' He believes Rachel Reeves should have focused on a comprehensive reform of the benefits system rather than on the now-derailed attempt at removing pensioners' winter fuel allowance. 'The Government has used up all the capital that it might have had on what is, in Treasury terms, a relatively trivial amount of money, [saving] around £1 billion, when they could have taken the same hit for £50 billion, and would have improved work incentives.' 'We need to start trying to be the country that I know we can be' Hunt is a born-again Brexiteer, and embraces an open, Singapore-style future of globally competitive businesses and free trade. 'I didn't vote for Brexit, but I've never had any doubt that we can make a huge success of it. I see no reason why we couldn't be a completely independent, sovereign country like Canada or Australia.' He believes Keir Starmer's 'reset' was a political catastrophe. 'I cannot understand why the Government is agreeing to pay money into the EU. The Government cunningly didn't tell us how much they're going to pay, but it's going to be billions. They're going to have to justify cutting benefits for pensioners at the same time as increasing payments to the EU.' Starmer's sell-out will have cut-through, Hunt believes. 'It is going to be Chagos on steroids, Gordon Brown's gold scandal on steroids. It's a very big political mistake. Why would a sovereign country pay to do a reciprocal trade deal? Canada wouldn't do that. Australia wouldn't do that. The United States wouldn't do that. It betrays a mentality that we are the junior partner.' This is where Hunt's rational optimism shines through. 'We have the top military in Europe, the top universities in Europe, the top tech sector in Europe. We have more hard and more soft power than any other European country. We are an equal partner.' This goes to the heart of Hunt's thesis. 'We need to get back our self-confidence. The world is in an incredibly dangerous state. We've got Ukraine, Taiwan, we've got an unpredictable president in America. We've got a migration crisis. We've got so many things that are going wrong. Countries that have power or influence need to use it. Do we just hold our hands up and say we're screwed and there's nothing we can do about it because we're such a weak and ineffective country, or do we look at the facts, which are that on every single major global issue, we are one of the top 10 most powerful countries on the planet, and if we choose to, we can have a decisive influence in solving problems? We need to start trying to be the country that I know we can be.' Hunt thinks defence spending should increase. 'Three per cent is the minimum. America spends 3.4 per cent, so you probably want something along those lines.' It is usually a cliché to describe somebody as irrepressible, but that is Hunt. Nothing seems to drag him down, even irritating journalists such as myself, who spent 15 years accusing him of being too Left-wing. He always bounces back, and can take almost any criticism. He is energetic, repeatedly running the London marathon. He tries to marshal reason and facts to convince his critics, a counter-cultural approach in an era of social media attack dogs and demagogues. The son of an admiral and a father of three, 58-year-old Hunt attended Charterhouse School and was president of the Oxford University Conservative Association during Thatcherism's heyday. He had a buccaneering streak and, after a couple of years in consultancy, headed to Japan, where he learnt the language and taught English. On his return, he founded several businesses, making millions. His eyes bulge when he makes important points, a trait his enemies have mocked but that, in private, merely underlines his earnestness. Many critics of the historic catastrophe that was Britain's Covid lockdowns point to Sweden or Florida as role models. Hunt looks instead to Korea and Taiwan. 'Korea had a much more effective test and trace scheme, and quarantined people who had the virus quickly. They avoided any lockdowns at all in the first year, all the restaurants stayed open for the whole of the first year, and there was much less economic damage.' He doesn't believe lockdowns reduced the number of deaths and blames them for destroying the work ethic. This is a core Huntian value: he believes in hard work, in self-reliance, in upward mobility and in ensuring tax and red tape don't discourage it. 'The real problem with lockdowns was a cultural one. They got us out of the habit of hard work. Working from home has become a virus which is incredibly damaging to our work ethic,' he argues. He adds of lockdowns, 'They created a mentality that if there's any big problem, the state will always step in, and we are still paying the price, and the worst place of all we're paying that price is the benefits system.' He's a fan of Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms. The issue is that at around the same time, 'Britain passed a law saying there had to be parity of esteem between mental and physical health. This was a good thing for the NHS, because it needed to treat mental illness more seriously. But it was a terrible thing for the benefits system, because people realised they could increase their points and therefore their likelihood of qualifying for disability benefits or higher levels of Universal Credit. By drawing attention to mental illness, we create an incentive, not just for people to use mental illness to qualify for benefits, but for people not to get better.' Hunt is passionate about the scandal of Britain's exploding numbers of adults on out-of-work benefits. 'It is not just economically barmy. It is immoral. About half the people who are signed off having to look for work are now done so primarily for mental health reasons. If you are mentally ill, one of the most important things is social contact. The last thing you want is to condemn them to a life of daytime TV. If you have mild depression, it is likely to make it severe depression and far worse. We are doing a massive disservice to these people.' 'Which EU country would dare oppose reforms that give people control of their borders? There is a point in the life of a Tory politician when they undergo a metamorphosis. They go to bed one evening as an ex-Cabinet minister and wake up the next morning as a grandee. Hunt has completed that process, though he may not have realised it yet. Being a grandee confers a number of advantages upon the beholder. They are given a fairer hearing, and that is something Hunt certainly deserves. He was treated abominably when he was health secretary, demonised by imbeciles who should have known better. The NHS will never be well managed – it is impossible for anybody to effectively run a gigantic socialist behemoth – but it was vastly better when Hunt was at its helm than it is today. I ask him whether the NHS can still be saved as a universal, state-owned, taxpayer-funded system that is free at the point of use. 'There are a lot of social insurance systems in Europe that have better outcomes and sometimes for less money than the NHS costs us,' Hunt says. 'But I don't believe that any party will ever persuade the British people to switch to it, because the principle of the social insurance system is that everyone gets bronze-level insurance, and that's paid for by the state. But those who can pay [can opt for] silver- and gold-level insurance.' I put it to him that the NHS is in fact a bronze-level system already. He deflects my trouble-making, offering two suggestions to ensure we 'get as good a result as they get in the Netherlands or Israel on our system'. First of all, 'We've got to get rid of these national targets that have made the NHS the most centralised, micromanaged healthcare system in the world. Stalin would be proud.' His second reform would be to regionalise the NHS, making it report to locally elected mayors. More generally, Hunt's solution for economic rebirth is radical devolution. The current model hands some spending power to local authorities but does not make them responsible for raising funds, creating mismatched incentives. Power must come with accountability. 'It needs to be about local empowerment, civic leadership, giving local mayors and elected authorities the power to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.' Hunt 'favours elected mayors with four-year terms' in place of local authorities. He does not want to spread the 'grievance model' promoted by the SNP in Scotland or Sadiq Khan in London. He describes himself as a 'passionate supporter of free trade'. He says, 'Britain basically invented free trade, and the British Empire laid the foundations of the global free trade system. But we didn't make sure the benefits were spread evenly. The average wage in Manchester is some £10,000 pounds lower than the average wage in London. Boris was absolutely right to champion levelling up. The bit that was missing is that levelling up should not just be about Westminster doling out cash to left-behind regions.' Hunt, whose wife, Lucia, is Chinese-born, has a nuanced grasp of the immigration debate. 'Immigrants living here are among the strongest voices for controlling migration, partly because they are worried about social instability,' he points out. Hunt agrees the Conservatives proved too liberal on immigration. 'We allowed companies to increase their workforce by hiring cheap foreign labour, which allowed them to ignore the six million adults of working age in the UK who are not in work. That is expensive for the state and a morally bankrupt position.' His views on asylum and refugees have shifted. 'The ECHR and the 1951 Refugee Convention were written for a different age and urgently need reform, because they make it too hard to stop people coming here and too hard to get people out who shouldn't be here. Keir Starmer, a human rights lawyer, could do that with extraordinary credibility. Which European country is going to dare to oppose reforms that give people proper control of their borders? It is that kind of energy we need to see when it comes to Britain's place in the world.' In the absence of reform of the ECHR and Refugee Convention, withdrawal is the only solution. 'In the end, if we can't reform them, I would support leaving them. But the trouble with just leaving them is that you don't stop thousands of boats crossing the Mediterranean, let alone the Channel.' Ever the optimist, Hunt isn't one of those who think the Tories are about to be supplanted by Reform: 'I don't believe the Conservative Party is extinct. Our share price is low at the moment, but we'll come back because we are the only party that really understands and cares about wealth creation.' I wonder whether Hunt, who chose to step down from the shadow cabinet, may yet feel the hand of history tapping on his shoulder one more time, especially if the Tory party were to implode after next May's elections. Stranger things have happened, including when Hunt, who was preparing to wind down his career, was contacted out of the blue by Liz Truss. A message from an unrecognised number stated simply, 'Liz Truss here. Please can you give me a call.' He thought it was a trick. 'Was the prime minister really trying to contact me? Surely not. It was mid-October 2022 and she had been in Downing Street for a little over a month,' Hunt recalls. He told Lucia, 'Someone just tried to message me pretending to be Truss. I can't believe how naive people think I am. It's probably a radio show host trying a hoax call.' It was indeed the prime minister, and he was appointed Chancellor the next day. Ultra-experienced politicians who pen policy books are rarely content with becoming pundits shouting from the sidelines. Hunt is highly supportive of Kemi Badenoch and was effusive about her performance at Prime Minister's Questions on the day we met. I don't doubt his sincerity. Yet Hunt wouldn't be human if he didn't think that maybe – just maybe – he could still have something valuable to contribute to his country at the highest level.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Why Trump's second state visit to the UK may never happen...
Whatever accusations that detractors could level at Sir Keir Starmer, the words show-pony, flashy or flamboyant wouldn't be among them. He hates the performative in politics and isn't much interested in the flummery that goes with high office. But there has been one notable occasion when he did go in for some carefully rehearsed and orchestrated theatricality. It was when he sat down with Donald Trump in the Oval Office; the world's press there to record the occasion. He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and produced a letter with the red royal seal on the envelope – and handed it to a beaming Donald Trump. It was as though Trump had been presented with Willy Wonka's golden ticket. It was the invitation from the king to come to Britain for a state visit. Not just any old run-of-the-mill state visit, but an unprecedented second state visit. No elected politician has ever enjoyed such an honour. When we interviewed Starmer for our podcast, The News Agents, I pressed him on why he'd made the invitation. At first he tried to hide behind the ridiculous idea that the offer had come from the Palace – and not him. But there is no way in the world Buckingham Palace would have done that without Downing Street's approval. Starmer also said it was unprecedented for a president to come back like Trump had done. I did point out he was also unique in having been impeached twice and the first president to have a criminal conviction – and one who wanted to annex a commonwealth country, namely Canada. For all that it was probably smart politics. There is undoubtedly a fascination that Trump has with our monarchy in general, and this royal family in particular. It is Britain's soft power. And maybe, just maybe, assisted the UK in securing the first trade deal with the US in Trump's tariff-driven world. The Starmer/Trump love-in (the day before the Zelensky/Trump loathe-in) was back in February. Since when we have heard that the visit might happen in the autumn, but nothing has been confirmed And what I am hearing is that there is a bit of wishful thinking from some that it might never actually happen. Here's how it was only semi-jokingly sketched out to me by someone very close to both the king and queen. He said this to me: 'Look, the president is expected to come over to Aberdeen later in July or August for the opening of his fabulous looking new links course, so the king would be delighted if that coincided with his stay at Balmoral.' It is after all a short Marine One helicopter hop away from the granite city. Then it was explained to me that they would put on a fine show – pipers and kilts galore, a fabulous dinner with the good and the great invited. But a state occasion it wouldn't be. And given pressures on the presidential diary, would he really want to come back to the UK a month or two later? I understood all of this, and could see how this gets you through 2025, particularly as there is already one state visit scheduled for this year: that of France's Emmanuel Macron. But what about 2026, I ventured to ask. There was a pause. 'Aah, well 2026 is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America and the Declaration of Independence, and the pressure then will be for the king to make a big visit to America.' Of course. Charles III will want to mark the defenestration of his ancestor, George III. You can guess my next question: OK, what about 2027? A wry smile played on his lips. 'Well that's a very long way away, isn't it?' Honestly, I felt as though I had washed up in a 'Yes, Minister' script. It was all so understated and – well – British. The more I thought about it, the more I could see the quiet brilliance of the thinking. There has been a lot of criticism of the British government's approach to Trump: that it's been too obsequious; too timid; overly deferential. Why didn't we have some of Mark Carney's Canadian spunk, for goodness sake? It is certainly true that a second Trump state visit would be fraught with risk. It is hard to believe there will be crowds ten deep, lining the Mall waving Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes. It has political risk for Starmer – why are you hosting someone who seems hellbent on bulldozing the institutions and relationships that have kept our country so close for so long? And you can be sure that someone as thin-skinned as Trump won't want to see hostile crowds. What a feat of diplomatic engineering it would be if the mandarin class could accidentally on purpose make the invitation letter disappear into a puff of 'diaries wouldn't align, 'such a shame' etc etc. You would have earned the brownie points for having so graciously made the invitation, but then with suave agility you wriggle out of ever having to make good on it. Earlier this week I was with a former senior civil servant who is still very au courant with what is happening in government and ran past him what I had been told. He went to the canon of House of Cards rather than Yes Minister. 'You might say that Jon. I couldn't possibly comment.' But then he winked and said he thought that was exactly the plan. But a diplomatic snub to The Donald would be catastrophic. Unthinkable. So this might have to remain as the twinkling of an idea.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
What can Reform do to shift the idea it is the ‘Nigel Party'?
Labour breathed a huge sigh of relief after a surprise victory in the Scottish parliament by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. Senior Scottish Labour figures had feared coming second or even third behind Reform UK; for once, it wasn't expectation management. Labour insiders admit privately the tight three-horse race confirms that Reform UK is on the map in Scotland, previously hostile territory for Nigel Farage. 'Something is up when you knock on doors in Scotland and get Reform talking points thrown at you,' one minister told me. Reform's advance will make Labour's task of ousting the SNP in next May's Scottish parliament elections much harder. After Keir Starmer's landslide last year, when Labour won 37 of Scotland's 57 seats, the party had high hopes of ending SNP rule north of the border after 19 years. But an unpopular government at Westminster has dragged Labour down; it has lost one in six of its 2024 Scottish voters to Farage's party. Reform is also on course to do well in next May's elections to the Welsh parliament, where Labour has called the shots since devolution in 1998. Although Reform had hoped to come at least second in Hamilton, it can still claim momentum in Scotland. A much bigger setback for Farage than its third place was the resignation of Zia Yusuf as party chair. After Reform's sweeping gains in last month's local elections in England and the Runcorn parliamentary by-election, Farage said: 'We would not have done […] what we did without him.' Now, Farage is dismissing Yusuf's claim to be responsible for Reform's meteoric rise. Tough game, politics. The energetic, telegenic Yusuf had made a good start in professionalising Reform – something Farage spectacularly failed to do as leader of Ukip and the Brexit Party. As a Muslim, Yusuf gave Reform cover against allegations of racism, but received nasty abuse on social media from some Reform supporters. Yusuf had plans to attract Muslim voters and that is why he was angered by Reform MP Sarah Pochin's call for a ban on the burqa. However, there were wider reasons for his departure. He felt sidelined after being put in charge of the Elon Musk-style Doge unit in councils run by Reform. The 38-year-old multi-millionaire entrepreneur didn't suffer fools gladly, and his abrasive style upset some at Reform's Millbank Tower headquarters (Labour's base when it won its 1997 landslide). He was blamed by critics for escalating the feud with former Reform MP Rupert Lowe. They complained that Yusuf was not a team player – a bit rich when that label applies to Farage in spades. The departure is a reminder of Farage's achilles heel: he falls out with senior figures in every party or campaign he is involved in. The loss of Yusuf will make it harder to make the Doge exercise work. This matters because the party needs to make its claim credible that vast savings can be made from cutting waste to be a contender for power. Crucially, Farage cannot be a one-man band – the 'Nigel Party', as it's dubbed at Westminster. He gives the impression of wanting to be the only tall poppy, but will need a cabinet-in-waiting to convince voters his party could run the country. However, other parties should not get carried away with Farage's woes. Voters are less bothered about Reform infighting than the Westminster village. Conservative claims that Reform is imploding are wishful thinking, and their humiliating fourth place in Hamilton illustrates their dire position. Reform remains a real threat to Keir Starmer's hopes of a second term. Labour is banking on turning the next election into a presidential contest between Starmer and Farage. Labour insiders call it a 'nosepeg' strategy: they hope left-of-centre voters who have given up on Labour after its poor first year will hold their nose and back Starmer to keep Farage out rather than defect to the Liberal Democrats, Greens or independents. Labour plans a parallel move in Scotland: 'Vote Farage, get SNP.' As my colleague John Rentoul noted, Labour should attack Farage for his 'fantasy economics' rather than being a 'privately-educated stockbroker'. Polling by More in Common shows that voters believe Starmer had a more privileged upbringing than Farage, and believe the Reform leader speaks more for the working class than the prime minister. Starmer allies insist the lesson has been learnt. Starmer's welcome moves to tackle child poverty and his U-turn on the winter fuel allowance suggest he realises he must also make a positive appeal to left-of-centre voters and not merely ape Reform with tough language on immigration, which such voters don't like. But he will need to go further, with an economic reset including tax rises, to pay for his new social justice commitments and avoid the impression that Wednesday's spending review will mean 'austerity 2.0'. Labour's approach has dangers: in attacking Farage head-on, some Labour MPs worry, the party risks amplifying his message and building him up further. There are no easy roads to a second Labour term.
