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Labour’s US middleman Lammy to forge links with Kamala Harris after Biden quits

Foreign Secretary David Lammy is expected to lead Labour attempts to forge links with Kamala Harris as the Vice President emerged favourite to take on Donald Trump for the White House.

Lammy, who is one of the best-connected UK politicians in Washington, previously met Harris when she was a US senator several years ago and will be seen as the key point of contact alongside UK ambassador Karen Pierce.

The dramatic withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential race on Sunday has forced the Government to scramble together a recalibrated strategy to keep the UK’s special relationship on track.

While the Prime Minister has insisted the UK will work with whoever wins the election in November, the emergence of Harris as a possible president means there will be more work to do to on the Democratic side.

Keir Starmer has not previously met Harris, but Mr Lammy did before she became Vice President in 2021.

Lammy is long-term friends with Barack Obama and other senior Democratic politicians, but in recent months he has also been building bridges with key members of Trump’s camp, including holding talks earlier this year with JD Vance, picked as the Republican candidate’s running mate last week.

The Foreign Secretary also held talks with several US senators who were visiting the UK on Monday. The meetings were in the margins of the Farnborough airshow, where the Prime Minister was launching the Government’s new skills policy.

Starmer said his Government would work closely with whoever won the election in November.

He paid tribute to President Biden, saying he would “leave a legacy that extends far beyond America”.

Just 10 days ago the Prime Minister insisted President Biden had seemed on good form when the pair met for talks at the White House during the Nato summit.

The Prime Minister said on Monday: “I respect that decision that he has now made.

“Not an easy decision, but a decision that I know that he will have arrived at taking into account the best interests of the American people, and I look forward to working with him for the remainder of his presidency.”

Asked about Harris’s candidacy, the PM added: “Obviously in the first instance, it’s for the Democratic Party to decide who they want to put forward. It is then for the American people to decide who they want as their president.

“My approach will be to respect that decision-making and to be clear that we will work with whoever the American people elect into office, as you would expect, particularly given the nature of the special relationship between our two countries, forged in difficult circumstances, endured for years, and very important to me and very important to all American presidents.”

On the date of Harris’s inauguration as Vice President in January 2021, Lammy tweeted that she had broken “that glass ceiling open a little further for my daughter and millions more around the globe”.

In the Commons, MPs raised concerns that a possible Trump presidency would jeopardise Nato and push the US towards isolationism.

Veteran Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis did not name Trump but asked the Prime Minister whether he shared his concern that “the virus of isolationism is again on the move in certain parts of the American political spectrum”.

The PM replied: “I believe that Nato is the most successful alliance the world has ever known, and that it is as needed now as it was when it was founded.

“The then Labour government were very proud to be a founder member of Nato, and it was very important for me to reaffirm our unshakeable support for Nato. The world is a more volatile place, the challenges are greater now than they have been for many years, and I think that Nato is as needed now and as relevant now as it has ever been in its history.”

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