David Lammy has dinner with Trump after branding him a 'sociopath'

Foreign secretary David Lammy met Donald Trump for the first time last night in an awkward two-hour dinner six years after he called the former president a 'woman-hating neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath' and a 'tyrant in a toupée'.

The tense encounter took place at Trump Tower in New York on Thursday evening where the pair were joined by Sir Keir Starmer to discuss the longstanding friendship between the UK and the US. 

No photographs from the meeting have been published, but it is expected the air might have been awkward for Lammy who was one of Trump's most vocal critics during his term as president.

Trump, who is known to respond angrily to criticism and hold personal grudges, has made no public comment yet on how the dinner went but praised Sir Keir as 'very nice' at a press conference before the meeting.

Lammy has made dozens of critical comments about Trump, the bulk of which were made when he was in opposition during Trump's first term from 2016-2020, but has since changed his tone to a far more collaborative one.

In May he rejected calls from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for Labour leaders to end a Republican charm offensive and call Mr Trump out as a 'sexist' and 'a homophobe.'

He said at the time Labour would work with whoever occupies the White House. 

But in August former U.S. Ambassador Woody Johnson warned Trump would 'remember' the host of highly-charged statements made by Lammy.

He told The Spectator: 'I think people will remember all those comments. It’s a question of how do you recover from them.'

Lammy's recent behaviour is a marked change from his previous attitude to Trump, who he campaigned loudly against then PM Theresa May inviting with his wife Melania to the UK for a state visit in 2017. 

Trump eventually declined the invitation in June of that year, because of the reaction among the British public against the proposed visit. 

And in the aftermath of the London Bridge terrorist attack, Lammy responded to Trump's tweet criticising London Mayor Sadiq Khan's response with 'You are truly beneath contempt. 

'You are just a troll. Show some bottle please PM. Cancel the state visit and tell Trump where to get off.'

Then the Tottenham MP said that he would protest against Trump coming to the UK, adding: 'If I have to chain myself to the door of No 10 this black man will do it.' 

Another instance of Lammy's abuse of Trump was when he slammed Trump for cancelling a visit to a US war cemetery in France to mark the centenary of Armistice Day in 2018 because of bad weather.

He wrote on Twitter: 'A liar and a coward. A man who wants to see Europe divided once again. Trump is not fit to lick the boots of our fallen soldiers.'

When he was a backbench MP in 2018, he wrote in Time magazine: 'Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath. 

'He is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long.' 

And in a 2018 Times article ahead of Trump's first visit to the UK, Lammy committed to be one of 'tens of thousands on the streets, protesting against our government's capitulation to this tyrant in a toupee.' 

Lammy then waded into a Twitter row between Trump and Macron on Nato funding, commenting: 'We should remember that by alienating our neighbours in Europe, we fall into the tiny palm of America's wannabe despot. 

'To continue on this path would be a tragic mistake.' 

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And when Trump said four Democrat congresswomen of colour who had criticised his immigration policies should 'go back' to their countries, an enraged Lammy commented: 'A cult of white supremacists chanting 'send her back' in support of Donald Trump's racist attack on Ilhan Omar. 

'Fascism spreads like wildfire. Especially when it comes from the President of the United States of America. Chilling to my core.'

But since becoming shadow foreign secretary to Keir Starmer, Lammy has been far more careful with his language and changed his tone to a far more collaborative one.

In May he said he would find 'common cause' with the de-facto Republican nominee for president.

He highlighted past instances where Labour prime ministers had worked with Republican US presidents, such as Harold Wilson and Richard Nixon, Tony Blair and George Bush. 

His first meeting with a member of Trump's team was in May when he met Trump's campaign manager Chris LaCivita.

He has also previously met with Mr Trump's vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, and said that they have been able to find 'common ground'.

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Lammy claimed: 'We're both from poor backgrounds, both suffered from addiction issues in our family which we've written about... both of us Christians. 

'And now I've met him on a few occasions, and we have been able to find common ground and get on.'

Although he said he did not recognise the comments Vance made that suggested that the UK could be the 'first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons' under Labour. 

Lammy has also expressed the hope that Trump would overlook his long list of critical comments, telling the BBC in July 'Donald Trump has the thickest of skins'.

He said: 'You're going to struggle to find any politician who has not had things to say about Donald Trump in his first term.'

Lammy pointed out that almost every politician has had something to say about the former US president, including Foreign Secretary David Cameron who called him 'xenophobic and misogynistic' in his autobiography.

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His own running mate, JD Vance, a 39-year-old former venture capitalist and senator from Ohio, once compared Trump to Hitler.

The meeting came after Trump praised the PM at a press conference before the meeting.

Asked what he made of Sir Keir, he joked: 'Well I'm going to see him in about an hour so I have to be nice!'

He went on: 'I actually think he's very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it's very early he's very popular.'

Sir Keir visited Trump Tower after speaking at the United Nations General Assembly.

However in a blow to Downing Street, he was unable to arrange an introduction to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, whom he has not met before, before his return to the UK.

She was in Washington DC seeing Ukraine's leader as he presented his 'victory plan' to the White House and it is unclear if Sir Keir will now be able to meet her before the US election in just over a month.

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Speaking ahead of his first encounter with Mr Trump, Sir Keir told reporters: 'As you know, I've said a number of times, I want to meet both candidates. We've now got the opportunity to meet Trump, which is good. Obviously, I still want to speak to Harris as well. But you know, the usual diary challenges, but it's good that this one now has been fixed.'

Asked what his message would be to Mr Trump, the PM replied: 'It'll be really to establish a relationship between the two of us. I'm a great believer in personal relations on the international stage. I think it really matters that you know who your counterpart is in any given country, and know them you know personally, get to know them face to face.'

But he added: 'I should probably add that, I mean that our camp, our embassy, has got good relations with both camps and has had for a long time. So it's not the sort of start of something, it's the continuation of those good relations that have been there with both camps, and that's a really good thing that the embassy has been doing.'