Sir Keir Starmer had a two-hour meeting with Donald Trump as the pair met for the first time.
The Prime Minister visited the Republican presidential candidate at his Trump Tower in New York on Thursday evening.
They had a two-hour dinner before Sir Keir had to leave to fly back to the UK, with the PM said to have welcomed the opportunity to meet the former President.
The pair discussed the longstanding friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States as well as the importance of continuing the strong and enduring partnership between our two countries.
It came after Mr Trump praised the PM at a press conference before the meeting.
Sir Keir Starmer speaks at the United Nation in New York
Asked what he made of Sir Keir, he joked: ‘Well I’m going to see him in about an hour so I have to be nice!’
He went on: ‘I actually think he’s very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it’s very early he’s very popular.’
Sir Keir visited Trump Tower after speaking at the United Nations General Assembly.
However in a blow to Downing Street, he was unable to arrange an introduction to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, whom he has not met before, before his return to the UK.
She was in Washington DC seeing Ukraine’s leader as he presented his ‘victory plan’ to the White House and it is unclear if Sir Keir will now be able to meet her before the US election in just over a month.
Former president Donald Trump speaking at the Trump Tower in New York
Speaking ahead of his first encounter with Mr Trump, Sir Keir told reporters: ‘As you know, I’ve said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. We’ve now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but it’s good that this one now has been fixed.’
Asked what his message would be to Mr Trump, the PM replied: ‘It’ll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. I’m a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them you know personally, get to know them face to face.’
But he added: ‘I should probably add that, I mean that our camp, our embassy, has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time. So it’s not the sort of start of something, it’s the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and that’s a really good thing that the embassy has been doing.’
