Top Trump ally hits out at Starmer's ‘clumsy' pledge to recognise Palestinian statehood
In the strongest condemnation yet from the Trump administration, the US secretary of state said the prime minister was 'clumsy' for vowing to recognise Palestine before Hamas releases the remaining hostages taken during the October 7 attacks.
Speaking to Fox News Radio, Mr Rubio said: ' The UK is like, well, 'if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire by September, we're going to recognise a Palestinian state'.
'So if I'm Hamas, I say, 'you know what, let's not allow there to be a ceasefire.' If Hamas refuses to agree to a ceasefire, it guarantees a Palestinian state will be recognised by all these countries in September.
'So they're not going to agree to a ceasefire. I mean, it's so clumsy.'
Mr Rubio went on to suggest Sir Keir had made the move due to pressure from the Labour Party and pro- Gaza critics of the government. He said: 'What this really is, in many of these countries' case, is their domestic politics. Some of these countries have huge constituencies now that are pressuring them domestically to line up on this side, irrespective of its geopolitical ramifications.'
It came after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday: 'The president expressed his displeasure and his disagreement with the leaders of France, the United Kingdom and Canada.
'He feels as though that's rewarding Hamas at a time where Hamas is the true impediment to a ceasefire and to the release of all of the hostages.'
Donald Trump said during a visit to the UK that he did not mind Sir Keir 'taking a position' on Palestinian statehood. But the US president accused the prime minister of 'rewarding Hamas' after he announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
Mr Rubio's comments go further than the president and are the strongest rebuke for Sir Keir since he promised the move if Israel fails to take steps to end the war in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the prime minister recalled the Cabinet from their summer holidays to discuss steps to end what he called the 'appalling situation in Gaza', where a UN assessment has warned the population is facing a mounting humanitarian crisis.
Sir Keir said the UK would only refrain from recognising Palestine if Israel allows more aid into Gaza, stops annexing land in the West Bank, agrees to a ceasefire and signs up to a long-term peace process over the next two months.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, must immediately release all remaining Israeli hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and 'accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza', Sir Keir added.
The PM has also faced backlash from freed hostages of Hamas, including British-Israeli Emily Damari, who was held by the terror group for 15 months.
She accused him of a 'moral failure' and said his promise to recognise Palestine 'risks rewarding terror'.
She said: 'Had he been in power during World War II, would he have advocated recognition for Nazi control of occupied countries like Holland, France or Poland?
'This is not diplomacy, it is a moral failure. Shame on you, prime minister,' she said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu also issued a furious response, saying the decision 'rewards Hamas's monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims'.
Sir Keir's statement has been shrouded by confusion over whether recognising Palestinian statehood is contingent on Hamas releasing all the remaining hostages in Gaza, with ministers unable to say whether the move hinges on them being freed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Scandal-plagued Pete Hegseth, 45, mocked for cringey 'thirst trap' homage to Sydney Sweeney
, 45, was roundly mocked for his 'thirst trap' homage to Sydney Sweeney 's American Eagle 'good jeans' advertisement. Hegseth's take on the controversial ad campaign came as the Trump administration fully embraced Sweeney - whether she likes it or not - after it emerged that she is a registered Republican voter in Florida. The 27-year-old Hollywood star sparked liberal meltdown after she posed in American Eagle jeans with the slogan 'Sydney Sweeney has good jeans' - a play on her good looks. Now, Hegseth — who faces multiple scandals at the Pentagon — has waded into the controversy with a picture on the Department of Defense Rapid Response X account. The post shows the Secretary of Defense stepping off a plane wearing sunglasses, a blazer, an ornate belt and tight-fitting blue jeans. 'Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has good jeans,' the caption reads. Social media has since been swamped with critics questioning the priorities of the department. 'The social feed has nothing better to do than post an @SecDef thirst trap?' one critic asked. 'We're not a serious country anymore,' another added. Others described the picture and accompanying post as 'cringe' and urged the administration to set its sights on delivering on promises. 'Those jeans look like they chafe, my dude,' another pointed out while a fourth added: 'Please just stop.' Hegseth has been facing internal challenges within his department amid questions about whether he is fit to serve in the high-stakes role. Less than two months into his term, he was dragged into the 'Signalgate' scandal in which a journalist was unintentionally included in a discussion about a military strike in Yemen, and since then has been battling leaks from within his own department. But he has now fallen into lockstep with Trump and other prominent conservatives, who have repeatedly come to Sweeney's defense against the 'woke' mafia after learning she's been a registered Republican since last June. 'Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the "HOTTEST" ad out there. It's for American Eagle, and the jeans are "flying off the shelves." Go get 'em Sydney!' the president said. Woke critics have described the campaign as 'Nazi propaganda' or a 'dog whistle', primarily because the glamorous Sweeney has blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin. In the campaign visuals, the Spokane, Washington-born actress - who is set to portray boxer Christy Martin in an upcoming biopic - models various denim looks. In an accompanying video, Sydney buttons up her jeans and reflects, 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color… my genes are blue.' A second advert sees the camera pan down Sydney's chest as she models a plunging denim jumpsuit. She muses: 'My body's composition is determined by my genes...' before adding: 'Hey, eyes up here' as the camera cuts back to her face. On Sunday night, the Daily Mail asked Trump if he had any interest in Sweeney's political leanings. 'She's a registered Republican?' the president questioned on the tarmac of the Lehigh Valley International Airport outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. 'You'd be surprised at how many people are Republican. That's one I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that.
Telegraph
20 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The Royal Navy needs to develop a completely new idea of what a warship is
For many decades, the Royal Navy's thinking and therefore its shipbuilding has remained unchanged. We have had capital ships: aircraft carriers, helicopter carriers and amphibious platforms. We've also had frigates and destroyers (the backbone) to hunt submarines and provide area air defence – but more often than not to look like a warship and do warship type influence operations. Then there were an array of smaller ships for charting and patrolling the oceans and hunting both mines and maritime crooks such as fish thieves. Finally there are two types of nuclear powered submarines: attack boats and the strategic deterrent. But when you look at what we want from our navy now and the resources that are available to do it, no matter how much of a traditionalist you are, it is impossible to see how this model is sustainable. For navies to function across the huge range of tasks they need to undertake they need both balance and mass. The current Royal Navy has good balance from diplomacy to fighting but is woefully short on mass. You don't need to be a maritime historian to know how that ends when the shooting starts. I will leave the Royal Fleet Auxiliary out of it for this article as I've written about them recently. Focusing on surface vessels, there are three broad types of ships that we now need to consider adding to the traditional mix outlined above. Actually, we don't need to consider it, we need to do it. These are ships taken up from trade, medium sized low- or un-crewed vessels and autonomous small craft and weapons. Ships taken up from trade include vessels like HMS Stirling Castle (mine warfare), RFA Proteus and HMS Scott (surveillance) and HMS Protector (ice patrol). These are ships built to a commercial specification that the Navy then leases or buys for use on operations. They are not fighting ships; their lack of self-defence systems, watertight integrity and machinery plants do not permit it, but that doesn't mean they don't have tremendous utility. It's a truism of navies that they spend more of their time setting the conditions to avoid fighting than actually fighting – this is where these ships sit. And given how hard it is to fund and sustain the high end stuff, we need to get better at buying and running them. Autonomous vessels can be split into two: those that are large enough to operate on their own and those that need support from a mother ship. I'm going to focus on the former although one only needs a cursory knowledge of this subject to know that for both, the rate at which we are progressing in this field, and the rate at which we need to, are wildly different. As is so often the case, enter the US and their recently announced Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) programme. This is a fascinating programme that is set to move from concept to prototype to delivery in less than two years, the kind of pace that would make traditional ship manufacturers weep. It is still some way short of Ukraine's ability to build new systems but it's fast for a peacetime programme. The three models have been outlined with how many containers they can carry seemingly determining their size. The largest will take 'four or more' ISO containers, the middle one takes two of the same and the smallest, one half-size container. Endurance for the larger one is around the 60 day mark 'without crew intervention'. Here I have a query because in a ship roughly 60m long and with a 3m draft, unless you're going everywhere at two knots, then this is a stretch but I'll leave it for now. The larger two also have optional crewing options. In the real world they'll probably have people aboard a lot of the time, as security guards if nothing else, but the people will tend to get off once the risk level goes up. What these low- or un-crewed MASC ships will be used for is less clear at this stage, but from the work the US is doing on containerised weapons systems, and the way one of the models has its drive train configured, it looks as though they will be focussed on anti-air capabilities (traditionally conducted by destroyers) and anti-submarine (frigate). On this subject, I do find myself disagreeing with doctrine purists who always want to see ships being built in response to a carefully crafted master strategy. In reality, the things you are going to want your ships to do haven't changed at either the soft or hard power end of the continuum for a long time. Diplomacy, disaster relief, freedom of navigation, littoral operations, strike, anti-submarine and air operations remain constant no matter how potential adversaries develop methods to try to deny them. This is the eternal cat and mouse of weapons development with the only certainty being that if you wait too long for the perfect kit, or because your system is slow, or because you don't have any cash, you will fall behind. In other words, just build them, the rest will follow. From a UK perspective there are at least four uses for ships like this that are blindingly obvious. There will be others. Missile defence is one and would work equally well in far blue water or around the UK. It would be far better to have a dozen of these ships with containerised SM-6 interceptors (this has been trialled by the US) than hugely expensive systems ashore that can only do one job – or just one or two exquisite destroyers with large crews in 15 or 20 years' time. The containerised data links and ability to transmit a radar picture to these vessels exist now. If we insist on full-fat destroyers with 100+ missile tubes they will cost billions apiece and we will never have enough. We should instead conceive our destroyers as flotilla leaders for MASC-type vessels with containerised weapons to bulk up our firepower. Likewise with anti-submarine warfare (ASW) in the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap and beyond, low- or un-crewed ships with containerised kit could be vital. Anyone who has spent a life at sea gets nervous when tech companies start talking about deploying small short-range systems from mother ships for ASW because it is so often conducted in conditions where just walking around the ship is a challenge, much less deploying and recovering smaller craft. These larger MASC vessels avoid that problem. Another solution would be to deploy one-shot small systems: we already do this with sonobuoys. If it's cheap and numerous enough, this will work. A flotilla of medium autonomous ships with an exquisite Type 26 frigate somewhere in the vicinity running the show starts sounding a lot like balance and mass. A single Type 26, no matter how lovely, does not. And there are companies like Ocean Infinity who have already built medium sized autonomous ships. Defence should allocate resources to allow the Royal Navy to buy them now. Caveats do come to mind on unmanned ships: enemies will probably be much more willing to attack or sink them than manned ones, or even board and seize them. Certainly the bigger types need to be optionally crewed. It will probably often be worthwhile to have a highly skilled maintenance troubleshooter or two aboard, or an experienced bridge watchstander for crowded waters. But they won't always be needed, and there will certainly be no need for the large numbers of semi-skilled maintainers, sensor and weapon operators, cooks, administrators etc that make up most of today's warship crews. There is also of course the risk that unmanned ships might be hacked – though this is also becoming a risk with manned systems. Very little of this discussion is new: the Strategic Defence Review refers to much of it and Naval plans talk about uncrewed sloops (the Type 92) but that's the point – they're being discussed. We need to take a leaf out of the US playbook and just buy it. The Royal Navy has some excellent kit and people but is so short on both that its deterrent effect has been eroded. This is a quick and relatively cheap way out of this hole. Let's see if the US, whose macro fleet issues are similar – albeit much scaled up – can do any better.
Reuters
20 minutes ago
- Reuters
South Korea pledges to help companies cope with higher US tariffs
SEOUL, Aug 5 (Reuters) - South Korea will prepare measures to help companies cope with higher U.S. tariffs and expand into new markets, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday, as it kicked off a task force to prepare the new administration's economic policy plans. On the domestic front, the government will come up with measures to boost short-term demand, as well as financial support for mid- to long-term technology development to enhance market competitiveness, it said in a statement. South Korea reached a trade deal with the U.S. last week, just days before President Donald Trump's threatened 25% tariff rate was due to come in on its exports to the United States. The trade deal set tariffs on exports from the Asian country at 15%, still higher than a baseline 10% rate and the near zero tariffs for exports under a Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. Still, topics left unresolved by the deal provide scope for more disputes as the two countries prepare for a summit between Trump and new South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the coming weeks. Trump may use the summit to try to squeeze more concessions on areas such as defence costs and corporate investments, left out of the deal, while non-tariff barriers and currency could prove thorny issues, experts said. South Korea's Finance Ministry, however, sought to give a positive spin on the agreement. The deal reduced uncertainty over the trade environment, while a $350 billion investment package included in the deal will provide new business opportunities for companies, deepen economic cooperation between the two countries, and contribute to a more stable supply chain, the ministry said. The administration of President Lee also plans to prepare policy measures to foster new industries, such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors and "K-contents" and include them in economic growth strategies and budget plans due to be announced later this month. K-contents refers to a range of cultural and entertainment goods produced by the country ranging from K-pop to Korean dramas that have boomed globally. The ministry vowed to bring regulatory improvements to vitalise business activity, as it kicked off a meeting with the country's major business groups. Asia's fourth-largest economy grew in the second quarter at the fastest pace in more than a year on rebounding consumer spending and a surge in technology exports, but still faces headwinds from slowing global trade amid the sweeping tariffs. The International Monetary Fund last week raised its outlook for most advanced and emerging economies this year based on developments around U.S. tariff negotiations, but South Korea was among the exceptions, with its 2025 growth forecast revised down to 0.8% from 1.0%.
