Burnham says he would call out Trump to defend UK interests

PM declines to say whether he trusts Trump

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he would be prepared to call out President Donald Trump to defend Britain’s interests, while describing his initial phone call with the US president as “really warm,” in his first major interview since taking office.

Speaking exclusively to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Burnham was asked twice whether he trusts Trump. He did not say yes, replying: “it’s a changing world isn’t it, and you just obviously have to call things as they develop.”

The prime minister said: “I can’t at any point say that I won’t take a different opinion from him, that I will need to voice a different idea that is right for Britain.”

Pressed on whether he would call out Trump if it were the right thing to do, Burnham said “of course,” adding: “You have to defend your own national interest before anything else. That’s what you’re required to do if you’re to do this job properly.”

Burnham said he had “concern” about the president starting the conflict with Iran, and he “wouldn’t hold back from saying what I think is right.”

On defence spending, Burnham would not commit to a date when the government would spend 3% of GDP on defence. His chancellor, John Healey, resigned from the previous government saying that unless a commitment was made to spend that amount by 2030, the country would not be safe. Burnham said he appointed his new chancellor “very aware of what he had said about the critical importance of defence spending and the position that he had taken about that.”

“The first challenge facing us both is to ensure that the defence investment plan is fully funded and that’s the thing that’s right in front of us and we need to work that through as we go towards the budget later this year,” Burnham said. Asked again specifically about the commitment to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP, he said: “We’ve got to work out the way of doing that.”

Burnham, for the first time, explicitly dismissed the idea of an early general election before 2029, saying: “I’m going to rule it out… I don’t think people want it.” He said his focus instead was on “getting the country back where it should be.”

The full interview airs Monday on BBC iPlayer from 06:00 BST and on Panorama on BBC One at 20:00 BST.