Sadiq Khan warns UK leaders not to be ‘sycophantic’ towards Donald Trump

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Sadiq Khan has warned that UK politicians must not be “sycophantic” towards Donald Trump when he re-enters the White House, as the London mayor said he still planned to “speak up” over the behaviour of the incoming US president.

He said the “special relationship” between the US and UK should allow British politicians to act like “a best mate” and tell hard truths to the president.

The UK’s leaders during Trump’s first term in office, Conservatives Theresa May and Boris Johnson, were “so obsessed with being sycophantic, they were scared to say boo to a goose,” Khan told the Financial Times.

Sir Keir Starmer has been seeking to build a relationship with Trump, saying this week he “graciously hosted” a dinner in September at Trump Tower for the UK prime minister and David Lammy, now the foreign secretary.

Lammy had called Trump a “tyrant” and “narcissistic” while a backbench MP, but has since worked to forge ties with his incoming administration.

Khan said Trump’s re-election posed a “big challenge” for the UK, but added that he hoped Britain would have a constructive relationship with him when he returned as US president in January.

The London mayor was speaking as he gave his support to the joint seasonal appeal by the FT’s charity, the Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign (FLIC), with Magic Breakfast, which provides free breakfasts in schools across the country. 

The mayor applauded Starmer and Lammy for trying to forge good relations with Trump, but said he would not be “scared to speak up for London” over the behaviour of the future American leader. 

“We feel the ripples of hope when the US president does wonderful things, we actually experience the ripples of fear when an American president says and does things that aren’t conducive to our progressive values in London,” he said. 

“I’m somebody who is pro human rights, pro women, pro-democracy. I’m somebody who . . . is pro the LGBTQ+ community. So if it’s the case that this president acts in a way that I think is the opposite of our values then I’ve got to speak up for our city.”

Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a European capital, became embroiled in a war of words with Trump during his first presidency by criticising a US travel ban on people from certain Muslim countries. 

Trump at the time accused Khan of being a “stone cold loser” who was doing a “very bad job on terrorism”. 

In 2018 during a Trump visit to the UK the mayor allowed a blimp of the president dressed as a baby to fly above Parliament Square.

The imminent return of Trump to the White House has concerned European capitals given his populist rhetoric, his proposals for new tariffs and his ambiguous approach to the defence of Ukraine from Russian attacks. 

Khan said he believed in the power of Nato and thought it was important to stand up to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. 

“Even president-elect Trump would accept he’s a protectionist. He’s a nativist. He’s a unilateralist. That poses real challenges for us as a capital city, the major urban economy in Europe and a big challenge for our country,” he said. 

Khan, backing the FT’s seasonal appeal, recalled “the embarrassment, the shame, the stigma” of receiving means-tested free school meals as a schoolboy.

He said one of his proudest moments as London mayor had been introducing universal free school meals for state primary schools in the city.

A recent independent impact assessment from Impact on Urban Health showed that 52 per cent of London families on the lowest incomes said that the policy had significantly helped their finances.

Schools and parents also reported an improvement in children’s concentration and a positive impact on classroom dynamics — and that children were eating a more varied diet.

“I had heard stories about teachers bringing in food themselves because they really worried about the kids not having, not just lunch, but breakfast as well,” Khan said. 

“We had stories about children taking an empty, packed lunch and pretending to have a lunch to avoid embarrassment. Many parents doing two or three jobs, choosing heating over eating. I thought what can we do at City Hall to support those parents?”