Trump’s VP pick J.D. Vance called U.K. ‘Islamist country’

LONDON — Labour ministers have rejected a suggestion by Donald Trump’s new running mate that the U.K. is an “Islamist country.”

J.D. Vance, named Monday as the Republican vice presidential nominee, described Britain under the new Labour government as the world’s first “truly Islamist country” to have a nuclear weapon.

It was a claim which came as a blow to Labour ministers, in office for less than a fortnight, who have been keen to curry favor both with Trump and Vance.

Labour’s Deputy PM Angela Rayner told ITV: “Look, I don’t recognize that characterization, I’m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently. I think he said quite a lot of fruity things in the past as well.”

Speaking days before being adopted by Trump as his vice-presidential pick, Vance, a junior senator from Ohio, told the National Conservatism Conference: “I was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about [how] one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though the Biden administration doesn’t care about it.