Andy Burnham has rejected an invitation to celebrate a major US event in London after Donald Trump criticised the leadership hopeful.
The US Embassy will be holding a summer bash next Tuesday to commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence, to which Britain’s finest Government officials, military chiefs and major party leaders are invited.
In years gone by, Sir Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage and Liz Truss have attended the exclusive party.
But, this time, the Labour leadership frontrunner turned his nose up at the invitation, with his spokesman explaining the future absence away as a “scheduling clash”.
While the Grand American Jubilee usually attracts close to 4,500 guests, the organisers have scaled down the exclusive event to a mere 2,500 in attendance at the US Ambassador’s home, Winfield House, this year.
One planning insider claimed that guests will be treated to a huge fireworks display that was so large that officials had to seek out special permission.
With the venue not far from London Zoo, the colourful explosions disturbed the exotic menagerie around the corner last year.
Last week, after Mr Burnham won the Makerfield seat, Donald Trump told GB News he felt the likely next Prime Minister was “extremely liberal” and referred to him as a “mayor of a town”.
Andy Burnham snubbed the invitation due to a ‘scheduling’ clash
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REUTERSSpeaking to the People’s Channel at the White House, Mr Trump admitted he “doesn’t know anything” about the man running to be Britain’s next Prime Minister.
“I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town? I hear he’s extremely liberal,” the President said.
When asked if he wanted to be the first leader to visit Mr Burnham’s Britain, he answered: “No, but I think we’re probably of a different persuasion.”
But the Commander-in-Chief teased a possible source of conflict for the pair.
Mr Trump said that he heard Mr Burnham was ‘extremely liberal’
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Discussing the state of the oil industry in the UK, the President revealed the outgoing Prime Minister has had “every oil company come to see him” about having access to Britain’s oil fields, declaring that the country was “dying”.
He told The People’s Channel: “I have had every oil company come to see me. ‘Sir, could you give us access to the UK? We would do anything to drill in the North Sea’.
“The amazing thing is they buy their oil from Norway, which gets their oil from the North Sea. Think of it, and they pay a big premium.”
The US State Department, led by Marco Rubio, released a statement earlier this week announcing it would “look forward to continued co-operation with (Sir Keir Starmer’s) successor”.
Back in 2021, Mr Burnham said “any UK politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now”.
In Mr Burnham’s Makerfield victory speech, he declared Britain must turn “away from the path that takes us to a divided, dark politics of the kind we see in the United States”.
He said a similar phrase on the campaign trail where he said the US had a “polarised, poisonous politics where people in communities don’t work together anymore”.
And, just last year, Mr Burnham told the London Economic the President was bringing instability “to the US and the world”.