Donald Trump has a suggestion for the way Keir Starmer can survive

Donald Trump says the King’s visit to the US could “absolutely” repair relations between America and the UK – and has a hint for Keir Starmer’s holding on to his job

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Donald Trump says the King’s visit to the US could “absolutely” repair relations between America and the UK – and has a hint for Keir Starmer’s survival.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday, saying Peter Mandelson was a “really bad pick”, but that Starmer had “plenty of time to recover.”

Asked what he meant by that in a phone interview with the BBC today, Trump gave a familiar suggestion.

“If he opened the North Sea and if his immigration policies became strong,” Trump said. “Which right now they’re not, he can recover, but if he doesn’t, I don’t think he has a chance.”

Trump has frequently moaned about the UK’s decision to halt licences to drill in the North Sea for a number of reasons.

Restarting drilling would almost certainly benefit American companies bidding for licences.

But another major factor is his decades-long vendetta against wind farms, which stems from the Scottish government erecting turbines off the coast of Aberdeen next to his luxury golf course.

Trump said next week’s state visit could help fix the rift between the US and UK that erupted in the early days of his bombing campaign in Iran.

Asked if the relationship could be repaired by Charles and Camilla’s visit, he said: “Absolutely. He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely the answer is yes.”

“I know him well, I’ve known him for years. He’s a brave man, and he’s a great man. They would absolutely be a positive.”

The King and Queen will head to the US for a four-day visit kicking off on Monday, where they will meet Trump at the White House. The King will hold a private meeting with the president and deliver a speech to Congress.

Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, has raised concerns that the US President “ can’t stop himself “, and said she was “worried” about the King and Queen heading to America.

Ms Thornberry, an outspoken critic of the US President, described the visit as “high stakes”. She said: “At the moment I have reservations about it. My worry is that they’ll be embarrassed, my worry is Trump’s behaviour, and my worry is that it’s against a backdrop of there being a war and I hope that it’s been thought through very carefully and that there aren’t opportunities for Trump to embarrass their majesties.

“I worry about him saying something to the media, the media shout out questions to him all the time, and he can’t stop himself answering. At 4:00 in the morning when he’s over excited, I just don’t know what he might write. “He seems to think the King is a personal friend, and that the King is the one who wants to come. The King is probably being a proper public servant and doing the right thing. I worry about it, it’s high stakes.”

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has called on the PM to call off the royal state visit, which will mark the start of the 250th anniversary of American independence. Speaking last week, he said: “President Trump is one of the most unpredictable people we have seen on the world stage and I hope he does not embarrass our monarch”.