Keir Starmer says he needs to satisfy Donald Trump and Kamala Harris throughout US journey

Keir Starmer has said he wanted to meet both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris before the election as he jetted into New York.

The Prime Mwinister’s hopes of meeting the rival candidates were dashed on a whistle-stop trip to Washington earlier this month. But he told reporters on a visit to the UN General Assembly that he was keen to sit down with Mr Trump and Ms Harris.

Asked if he would meet them on his visit, he said: “It’s the UN General Assembly so we’ll be discussing a whole range of things. I think what will dominate is the Middle East and recent developments and, of course, Ukraine.

“So I think that’ll be pretty central. And it will be really important for us to have the conversations with our allies about the situation in both of those areas. As far as the candidates are concerned, look, if possible, it would be very good to meet both of them at some stage before the election. We’ll just have to see what’s possible.”

It came as the PM faced questions over a senior minister who accused Mr Trump of helping to fuel racism in the UK. Home Office Minister Dame Angela Eagle reportedly told a fringe meeting at Labour conference that it was hard for new immigrants to “rise above the constant drumbeat of toxic anti-immigration, anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become emboldened, not only in Britain but across the western countries”.

She added: “I mean, Trump does the same. If you look at some of the memes that he’s using with the wall stuff at the moment, it’s astonishing, quite the level of vitriol that it has created.” Asked about her comments, Mr Starmer said: “I think I’ve been absolutely clear where responsibility lies for the disorder on our streets.

“It lies with the thugs who were carrying out that disorder. That’s why I took control of the process to ensure that justice was visited very quickly on their cases.” Mr Starmer added: “As I said in my conference speech, we’ve got to distinguish that from the genuine discussion that we do need to have as a country about immigration.

“Because if you just put the two together you do a disservice to people who would never go out on the streets and cause disorder, and do genuinely have concerns about immigration. We need to address that.”