Britain’s ambassador to the US, Sir Christian Turner, has called claims about UK safety, migration and free speech ‘factually wrong’ in a major rebuke to Donald Trump at a King’s birthday event
Britain’s ambassador to the US delivered a speech at a Washington event marking the King’s birthday, telling Donald Trump he is “factually wrong” regarding damaging allegations he has levelled at the UK.
The barely-concealed criticism from Sir Christian Turner, who dismissed “distorted narratives and forces of division”, follows the US president’s recent repetition of his assertion that sections of London had become lawless “no-go” zones due to immigration, with police too “afraid” to venture there.
Trump cautioned last month that unless the UK managed to “stop people pouring into your country from all over the world, you’re not going to have a country left”.
US vice president JD Vance has similarly sparked outrage with his comments about Britain, attributing the killing of student Henry Nowak in Southampton to “the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants ” while encouraging anti-immigration demonstrators to “keep on going”.
He was also amongst prominent American voices accusing Britain of restricting freedom of expression. Sir Christian firmly dismissed these attacks during his speech at the King’s Birthday Party at the embassy in the US capital on Wednesday evening, with attendees including the Duke of Edinburgh, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US secretary of the interior Doug Burgum.
In a section of the speech titled “Taking on the detractors”, the senior diplomat declared: “To those who say British cities are unsafe, that we are being overrun by migrants or have abandoned freedom of speech, I say you are factually wrong. I reject the distorted narratives and forces of division that drive this.”
Sir Christian also made reference to the transatlantic tensions of recent months, intensified by the Iran war, though he highlighted the “very positive” initial meeting between Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Mr Trump at the United Nations last week.
He said he had “heard voices of doubt on both sides of the Atlantic who question whether old alliances still matter”. The ambassador continued: “They look at a volatile world and conclude that we face a choice: between the USA and Europe, or argue that nations should turn inward. I draw the opposite conclusion. Because history teaches us that the answer to change is not retreat. It is renewal.”
Sir Christian went on: “As we reflect on the spirit of 1776, our two countries have, of course, disagreed at times. Just take our small differences over language. I give you aluminium, football, pants. The story of our alliance has never been the absence of disagreement. No, it has been the ability to work through disagreement and emerge stronger.
“Our task now is not to preserve this relationship in aspic. Nor rest on complacency. It is to adapt it for the decades ahead. I am profoundly optimistic that we will.”
He extended an invitation to sceptics “to settle it over a pint” at the embassy’s “newest diplomatic asset, The Two Georges pub”.