JD Vance’s friendly fishing trip in the U.K. earlier this month has left British Foreign Secretary David Lammy on the hook with a warning from the Environment Agency.
Lammy was served with a formal warning for fishing without a license, according to an Environment Agency spokesperson. The law in the U.K. requires a fishing license for anyone over the age of 13 attempting to net a freshwater catch.
Vance and his family were hosted by Lammy at the Foreign Secretary’s country estate in Sevenoaks, Kent, roughly an hour south of London, on Aug. 8. Lammy served the Vice President some home comfort in the form of a “Kentucky-style” fishing trip at a private pond on his property.
While the two were snapped laughing as they cast their lines, the Environment Agency did not see the funny side and threatened Lammy with a fine of up to £2,500 (roughly $3,380) for the offense.
A Foreign Secretary spokesperson described the procedural error as an “administrative oversight” and noted that Lammy purchased a license retroactively, reporting his own mistake to the agency.
In a rare moment of warm reception by the U.K.’s non-political class, Vance appears to have been a hit with the fish. “The one strain on the special relationship is that all of my kids caught fish, but the foreign secretary did not,” Vance later told reporters.
Otherwise, the vice president was treated to a decidedly frosty reception by the British public. One countryside pub, the Michelin-awarded The Bull, in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, was reportedly forced to bar Vance after rebellion from the staff.
The 16th-century watering hole frequented by the British upper class, including former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and David Cameron, hosted former Vice President Kamala Harris just weeks prior.
Elsewhere in the British Cotswolds, where Vance spent his summer vacation, a British activist group called Everybody Hates Elon followed Vance around with a truck displaying a baby-faced, bald-headed meme of the VP while protestors lined the route of his motorcade waving Palestinian flags and demanding his departure.
Lammy has previously made comments against President Donald Trump, describing him in 2018 as a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath.” Asked in 2024 whether he would apologize for the remarks, Lammy said “not even vaguely.”
Vance, too, has made controversial statements about the U.K., previously saying it could become the first “truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon,” following the election of the Labour government last year.
Despite the historical bad blood, Lammy described Vance as a “friend” and his family’s visit as a “real pleasure.” The pair have previously met on several occasions where Lammy has said they have found “common ground.”
The Environment Agency declined to comment as to whether Vance himself had a fishing license but noted that warnings are usually the first course of action taken with unlicensed, amateur fishers. Lammy was only hit with the caution because he had publicized the excursion.
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