Keir Starmer hopes to meet Kamala Harris AND Donald Trump on NYC visit

Keir Starmer hopes to meet Kamala Harris and Donald Trump while he is in America for a United Nations summit this week.

The Prime Minister, who arrived in New York late last night, has never met the Democratic party candidate nor her Republican rival.

He was unable to see them when he visited Washington DC earlier this month as they were both on the campaign trail.

But he is keen to have talks with each of them in private before the knife-edge US election in just 40 days' time.

Asked if he hoped to meet Vice-President Harris and former President Trump on the trip this week, the PM told reporters: 'As far as the candidates are concerned, look, if possible, it would be very good to meet both of them at some stage before the election. We'll just have to see what's possible.'

But he added that he was visiting the US for the UN General Assembly, which he will address for the first time on Thursday.

'I don't doubt that a lot of time is going to be spent on the Middle East and Ukraine,' the PM said.

He was also asked about a spat between one of his Labour ministers and Mr Trump.

Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle had accused the former President of whipping up anger towards immigrants, telling a fringe meeting at Labour party conference it was difficult for new arrivals to 'rise above the constant drumbeat of toxic anti-immigration, anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become emboldened, not only in Britain but across the western countries'.

She went on: 'I mean, Trump does the same. If you look at some of the memes that he's using with the wall stuff at the moment, it's astonishing, quite the level of vitriol that it has created.'

In response, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said: 'Nobody knows who this random person is or cares what comes out of her mouth. Who is she and what does she do?'

Sir Keir was asked if her criticism was correct and replied: 'I think I've been absolutely clear where responsibility lies for the disorder on our streets. It lies with the thugs who were carrying out that disorder.'

He went on: 'I was really clear in my conference speech about responsibility. It lies with those that were on the streets causing the disorder, and I made clear what should happen to them. But as I said in my conference speech we've got to distinguish that from the genuine discussion that we do need to have as a country about immigration.

'Because if you just put the two together you do a disservice to people who would never go out on the streets and cause disorder, and do genuinely have concerns about immigration. We need to address that.'