US President Donald Trump has described Andy Burnham, the British Labour Party politician widely expected to be the next prime minister, as "extremely liberal" and "mayor of some town".
Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester, one of Britain's largest urban areas, for nine years. Now an MP, he is expected to succeed outgoing prime minister Keir Starmer, whose relations with Trump cooled when the UK initially rejected a US request to use British bases for strikes on Iran. Starmer later authorised the use.
On Wednesday night, in the midst of a devastating heatwave in Europe, Trump said once again that Starmer should have opened up the North Sea to more drilling for oil.
Asked about Burnham, Trump said: “I don't know anything. I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town.”
“I hear he's extremely liberal, extremely, so that means he probably won't open up the North Sea. You know I gave Keir Starmer some pretty good advice, I said open up the North Sea."
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