UK’s new foreign secretary once called Trump ‘a neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath’

The United Kingdom’s newly appointed foreign secretary for the Labour Party called then-President Trump a “neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” in a 2018 opinion piece for Time magazine.

David Lammy, a Labour lawmaker from Tottenham, was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs on Friday following Labour’s victory in parliamentary elections. 

He has previously addressed his 2018 criticism of Trump and pledged to work with the former president if he is elected in November. In May, as shadow foreign secretary, he met in Washington with Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), a close Trump ally and potential vice presidential pick.

“It doesn’t matter who is in No. 10 — you work with the United States,” Lammy said in an interview with Sky News in January, referring to the U.K. prime minister’s residence, which Labour head Keir Starmer entered Friday. 

Lammy added that he would work to counter criticisms by Trump and other Republican lawmakers against NATO and support for Ukraine, saying part of the job of foreign minister is “also to try and persuade and use your influence.”

The 2018 Time article was published ahead of Trump’s first visit to the U.K., and Lammy committed to be one of “tens of thousands on the streets, protesting against our government’s capitulation to this tyrant in a toupee.”

“Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath. He is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long,” he wrote in Time. “It is because I cherish and champion those values that this Friday, I will march with London against Donald Trump.”

Lammy criticized Trump as slandering and insulting London for political benefit, and that “Trump has barely concealed his racist attacks on the U.K.”

Lammy is described as an outspoken and prominent advocate for social justice and minority issues. He is described as the “first black Briton to study at Harvard Law School” and wrote a 2020 book exploring his African heritage.