LONDON — JD Vance is on a summer break in Britain. He’s not always been such a fan.
Donald Trump’s second-in-command hasn’t exactly been shy in expressing what he really thinks about the U.K. over the years, branding it an “Islamist” hellhole bent on ending free speech. But apart from that!
As he holidays in the idyllic Cotswolds (dubbed the “Hamptons of England“) — including a stay at U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s taxpayer-funded country pile — Vance will see if his pontificating from afar matches reality.
POLITICO runs through five occasions where Vance did not hold back in his assault on old Blighty.
1) Britain is an “Islamist country”
Vance made this outburst before Trump selected him as his VP pick. Last July, the then-Ohio senator called the U.K. an “Islamist country” after Labour ousted the Conservatives from Downing Street.
Speaking at the National Conservatism Conferencein Washington, D.C., Vance recounted a conversation with a friend about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. And then he pushed the red button.
“I was talking about what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon,” Vance recalled. “Maybe it’s Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the U.K., since Labour just took over.”
Labour, then briefly basking in their election glory, shrugged off Vance’s comments.
“I don’t recognize that characterization,” said no-nonsense Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. “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.” That’s one way of putting it.
2) Britain killed freedom of speech
One of Vance’s first overseas visits in the new gig was to the Munich Security Conference — dubbed “Davos with guns” — in February.
Vance used the forum to launch an attack on Western societies for curbing free speech and allowing mass migration. The U.K. came in for particular criticism, with Vance claiming the “backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs.”
Vance attacked buffer zones outside U.K. abortion clinics, which prohibit protest within a certain distance. And he claimed that the Scottish government had urged citizens to “report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime.”
3) Gunning for Keir Starmer
When a guest comes to visit, it’s generally nice to make them feel welcome. Not for Vance, who was happy to make British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sit just a little uneasily in the Oval Office back in February.
While Starmer and Trump appeared to get on like a house on fire, Vance, sat to one side on a couch, carped about how Britain was attacking free speech.
“We also know that there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British — of course what the British do in their own country is up to them — but also affect American technology companies and, by extension, American citizens,” Vance said.
In fairness, the U.K. government did demand Apple grant it a backdoor to access user data, teeing up an almighty fight with the U.S. And its online safety laws have tried to rein in tech giants with new rules forcing them to police “harmful” content – much to the annoyance of some U.S. lawmakers.
Still, Starmer managed to hold his own in the face of the impromptu attack. “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom and it will last for a very, very long time,” the PM shot back as Trump looked on.
4) You and whose army?
As Britain and France strained to show Trump that Europe was willing to commit peacekeepers to bolster any Ukrainian ceasefire deal, Vance stepped on a rake.
He claimed that the big minerals deal struck between Kyiv and Washington would actually be a better guarantee of Ukraine’s security than “some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
The U.K. and France had both fought wars more recently than that — and, while he didn’t name names, Vance was accused by British politicians of disrespecting the memory of the hundreds of soldiers killed while fighting alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Vance called the criticism of him “absurdly dishonest” and insisted he wasn’t referring to the U.K. and France but unspecified countries who didn’t have the “battlefield experience nor the military equipment.” That’s that cleared up, then.
5) Laboring the point
Vance’s most recent criticism is a familiar right-wing talking point, with the vice-president claiming that immigration has tanked Britain’s productivity.
“If you look in nearly every country, from Canada to the U.K., that imported large amounts of cheap labor, you’ve seen productivity stagnate,” he told Washington, D.C. tech bros. “That’s not a total happenstance. I think that the connection is very direct.”
In an act of unparalleled generosity, he pointed out that the U.S. has also pursued “40 years of failed economic policy” too. There’s that missing sense of transatlantic solidarity!
… and the one time he was nice
Perhaps aware he may have crossed the line one time too many, Vance told UnHerd in April that there is a deep “cultural affinity” between the two nations.
He highlighted Trump’s admiration for King Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth. That’s code for: I want to tag along on your fancy state visit, Donald.