(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a phone call with Donald Trump on Wednesday, soon after rival Nigel Farage — leader of the right-wing Reform UK party — boasted of his own meeting with the President-elect’s team.
Starmer and Trump spoke about their “joint ambition to strengthen the close and historic relationship between the UK and the US,” according to a readout of the call from the UK side. The premier also reiterated the need for allies to stand together with Ukraine, and work toward peace in the Middle East.
Both leaders also said they “looked forward to seeing one another at the earliest opportunity,” according to Starmer’s office.
The call comes after Farage and Nick Candy, Reform UK’s treasurer, met with Elon Musk at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida on Monday. Farage wrote in the Telegraph newspaper he is in “ongoing negotiations” with Musk, the owner of social media site X and Trump’s new government efficiency head, about a potential donation to help Reform UK challenge the main political parties.
Support for Farage worries both Starmer’s Labour Party and Kemi Badenoch’s opposition Conservatives — though for slightly different reasons. The Tories fear losing more right-wing votes to Reform UK’s anti-immigration messaging, while Labour is concerned that Farage may be usurping the government’s place in UK-US relations. Potential support from Musk, who has attacked Starmer’s government in recent months, has dominated political coverage in the UK.
The British readout of the Trump call reflected the questions in recent weeks about Starmer’s relationship with the President-elect, and whether the UK-US relationship would suffer due to their different political priorities.
“Both agreed on their joint ambition to strengthen the close and historic relationship between the UK and the US,” Starmer’s office said of the leaders’ conversation. “They looked forward to working together on shared priorities, including international security and delivering economic growth and prosperity.”
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