Former President Trump’s newly appointed running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio.), ruffled the feathers of some of Britain’s most senior politicians after suggesting that the United Kingdom could become the “first truly Islamist country” to possess nuclear weapons following the Labour Party’s landslide win in the general election.
“I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon?” Vance said at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., describing a recent conversation between himself and a friend.
“And we were like, ‘Maybe it is Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts,’ and then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the U.K. — since Labour just took over,” Vance quipped.
While the Ohio senator made the remarks earlier this month, they have resurfaced after Trump formally selected him as his running mate — sparking fresh backlash from British political figures.
“The fact Vance can so easily miscategorize the U.K. in this way, and make such flippant remarks in public, so casually delivered — his shocking line raised a laugh from his audience — tells me that, to this potentially incoming vice-president, the special relationship has become no more than a racist joke,” Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the former Conservative Party co-chair, wrote in The Independent.
In a post on the social platform X, Warsi, the first Muslim woman to serve in the British Cabinet, said that Vance’s comments represented the “everyday Islamophobia / anti Muslim racism which is casually thrown around by some of the most powerful in our societies.”
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner rejected Vance’s suggestions, arguing that Trump’s running mate had said “quite a lot of fruity things in the past.”
“Look, I don’t recognize that characterization,” Rayner said during an interview on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain.”
“I’m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently. We won votes across all different communities, across the whole of the country. And we’re interested in governing on behalf of Britain and also working with our international allies.”
Rayner went as far to say that she was looking forward to meeting Vance in the event that the Republican duo was elected, but stressed that it was ultimately “up to the American people to decide.”
In the same speech, Vance urged his “Tory friends,” who were ousted from power after 14 years of leadership, “to get a handle on this,” referring explicitly to immigration, which remained a key issue throughout the U.K election.
Andrew Bowie, a conservative member of Parliament, blasted the senator over his remarks, acknowledging in an interview with Times Radio that while he clashed with Labour on numerous policy issues, he “absolutely” disagreed with Vance’s suggestion that the party would establish an “Islamist country.”
The 39-year-old bestselling author and former venture capitalist was announced as Trump’s VP pick on Monday night at the Republican National Convention, just two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa.