Senator JD Vance‘s claim that the U.K. could be the “first truly Islamist country” with nuclear weapons has been widely rejected by U.K. politicians, including the country’s new deputy prime minister.
Vance’s comment, made at a National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C. last week, shot to prominence after Donald Trump announced the Ohio Senator as his vice-presidential running mate on Monday.
Vance said: “I was talking with a friend recently…one of the big dangers in the world is nuclear proliferation and of course 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’ then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the U.K. since Labour just took over.”
Vance’s remarks sparked laughter and some applause from his audience. Britain’s July 4 general election swept the center-left Labour Party to power, following 14 years of Conservative Party government. In total Labour won 411 seats in the House of Commons, by far the more powerful of the two chambers in the British Parliament, against just 121 for the Conservatives.
When asked for comment, the U.K.’s ministry for foreign affairs, directed Newsweek to remarks by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner during an appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Tuesday morning.
She said: “Look, I don’t recognize that characterization. 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.
“So, I look forward to that meeting [with Vance] if that is the result [ie if Trump wins]. It’s up to the American people to decide.”
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Islamist as “a popular reform movement advocating the reordering of government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.” The 2021 census of England and Wales found 6.5 percent of the two U.K. nations populations identified as Muslim, compared to 46.2 percent who said they were Christian and 37.2 percent who said they had no religion.
Newsweek reached out to Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and Senator JD Vance’s congressional office for comment via email on Tuesday outside of usual office hours.
Other politicians were quick to denounce Vance’s comments. Speaking to Sky News, U.K. Treasury Minister James Murray said he didn’t know what his comment was “driving at,” adding: “I’m very proud that our Labour Government is committed to national security and economic growth. I’m very clear where we are. I don’t really know how that comment fits in.”
Andrew Bowie, a Conservative member of the U.K. Parliament, also hit out at Vance’s comment during an appearance on Times Radio.
He said: “I disagree with the Labour Party fundamentally on many issues, but I do not agree with that view, quite frankly. I think it’s actually quite offensive, frankly, to my colleagues in the Labour Party. They have just won the election. It’s now up to us to form an opposition. But we need to relearn how to disagree agreeably and have those full, frank disagreements out in public. Absolutely.
“But be able to do so with civility, because the coarsening of public debate and the rise of political violence that we saw with repercussions just this weekend, [in] the United States of America is something that we’ve all got to work to combat and ensure that we move political discourse back to a sensible, safe ground.”
During his presidency, Trump engaged in a running spat with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to hold the office, branding him “a stone cold loser” and “very dumb.” In response Khan’s office accused Trump of making “childish insults.”
Speaking to Newsweek Thomas Gift, who heads the influential Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, has said Trump picking Vance is a sign of his confidence for November.
“JD Vance is the kind of pick you make when you’re already confident in your likelihood of winning,” Gift said. “He doesn’t balance out the ticket demographically like a woman or a minority. Vance may help secure the swing state of Ohio, but Trump already won there in both 2016 and 2020. This is largely Trump doubling down on his MAGA, populist nationalism.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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