LONDON — Labour ministers have rejected a suggestion by Donald Trump’s new running mate that the U.K. is an “Islamist country.”
J.D. Vance, named Monday as the Republican vice presidential nominee, described Britain under the new Labour government as the world’s first “truly Islamist country” to have a nuclear weapon.
It was a claim which came as a blow to Labour ministers, in office for less than a fortnight, who have been keen to curry favor both with Trump and Vance.
Labour’s Deputy PM Angela Rayner told ITV: “Look, I don’t recognize that characterization, I’m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently. I think he said quite a lot of fruity things in the past as well.”
Speaking days before being adopted by Trump as his vice-presidential pick, Vance, a junior senator from Ohio, told the National Conservatism Conference: “I was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about [how] one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though the Biden administration doesn’t care about it.
“And I was talking about what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon, and we were like, maybe it’s Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK, since Labour just took over,” Vance added.
He thinks Pakistan might not count as a “truly Islamist” country, but the UK does (but only since last week).
I think it’s more that he’s uncertain that they are a nuclear power, not whether he finds them “islamist” or not.
Well that just shows that he’s ignorant on international affairs, because I’m pretty sure Pakistan has nukes.
Abdul Qadeer Khan’s network fueled both Pakistan’s, and multiple other countries nuclear ambitions. Pakistan deffo has nukes, and very likely helped Iran and North Korea on their path to the same.
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You guys did your part and removed control of your government from right-wingers, now we need to do the same.
Starmer’s Labour probably won’t be much better. I’d say that we got rid of populists and replaced them with centrists. Labour definitely aren’t a leftist party, although to American standards they probably are.
Anyone left of Hitler is leftist by American standards.
…and so what if they were.
I’m not a fan of any country identifying as a theocracy.
Neither am I. My point, if I had one, was more about the fact he was being Xenophobic. Not like he isn’t part of the group trying to establish a Christian state here.
Yeah, this is an (unfounded) accusation that they’re establishing a theocracy for the wrong religion.
Video of the quote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVH8gbuwu1g
American here. I’m not quite getting the “said quite a lot of fruity things in the past.” From context.
Anyone care to explain it?
Never heard of this guy but he seems pretty American.
