Pressure is ratcheting up on the UK government to challenge Donald Trump’s claims that the Ukrainian president is a “dictator”, as Sir Keir Starmer strains to avoid souring relations before travelling to the White House next week.
The US president issued a tirade on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, in which he accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being an autocrat who “refuses to have elections”.
The comments sparked censure, including from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said it was “simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy his democratic legitimacy”.
The Ukrainian leader had earlier accused Trump of living in a “disinformation space” after the US president suggested that Kyiv was responsible for triggering war with Moscow.
Conservative former foreign secretary James Cleverly said Trump was “wrong” about Zelenskyy and Ukraine, and said his Labour successor David Lammy’s “silence is deafening”.
Cleverly said on X: “The USA is a friend and ally. But we must be honest and courageous when we disagree.”
British ministers privately admit that Starmer is anxious to avoid antagonising Trump as he seeks — in the words of Downing Street officials — to become a “bridge” between the US administration and Europe.
“On issues like tariffs, why would you rock the boat now?” asked one minister. “The prime minister’s going to be meeting Trump next week so they can discuss it face to face.”
Starmer has proposed another summit with European leaders after he returns from Washington to discuss next steps, but he is already facing some political pressure in Britain to publicly criticise the American president.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who has carved out a niche for his party in lambasting Trump at a time when other British politicians are trying to court his favour, urged Starmer to take a more robust line.
“When the prime minister visits the White House next week, he must challenge Trump on his Ukraine lies in the strongest possible terms,” Davey said.
He added: “It’s incredibly alarming to see the supposed leader of the free world parroting Putin’s propaganda. Trump spoke in Mar a Lago but his words could have been written in Moscow.”
UK defence secretary John Healey was more forthcoming on Wednesday in rebutting Trump’s assertion that Ukraine “started” the war with Russia in February 2022.
“Three years ago, one country illegally invaded another, and since then, the Ukrainians have been fighting for their freedom . . . and they still are,” Healey said during a visit to Norway.
Healey also urged against “jeopardising the peace by forgetting about the war”, after the US and Russia kicked off talks about the future of the Ukraine conflict in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
While Starmer announced earlier this week that he was “ready and willing” to put UK troops in Ukraine to help guarantee its security as part of a peace deal, western officials suggested on Wednesday that offers of British air support in Ukraine might be more likely than the deployment of troops on the ground.
The officials also sketched out the idea of a force of fewer than 30,000 European-led troops that could help protect nuclear sites, ports and cities rather than lining any frozen front line in future.
Trump’s latest intervention also put Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch at odds with the US president, after she sought to draw favourable parallels between her party and his Maga movement earlier this week.
“President Zelenskyy is not a dictator,” she said on X on Wednesday. “He is the democratically elected leader of Ukraine who bravely stood up to Putin’s illegal invasion.”
Stressing that under her leadership the Tories would always “stand with” Kyiv, she said Trump was “right that Europe needs to pull its weight”.
