Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has today accused Donald Trump of repeating Russian propaganda, and claimed that the US Vice-President JD Vance is “wrong about nearly everything.”
He also called for a vote in Parliament before any British troops be deployed to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force.
Speaking to GB News in a wide ranging interview, Davey hit out at the US President’s approach to Ukraine and the West more broadly.
He said: “President Trump is showing himself too willing to listen to the Kremlin and to repeat Russian propaganda and the way he's treated President Zelensky and the Ukraine it's frankly appalling.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has today accused Donald Trump of repeating Russian propaganda, and claimed that the US Vice-President JD Vance is “wrong about nearly everything.”
GB News/ Getty
On Trump’s approach to the conflict in Ukraine, he said he saw: “No evidence that President Trump is being tough on Russia and tough on President Putin….Liberal Democrats believe he should stand shoulder to shoulder with our Ukrainian allies against Russia's illegal invasion.
"But President Trump's position, I think, is damaging, not just for Ukraine. I think it's damaging for European security. It's damaging for Britain's defence too.”
On the approach of other parties he added: “I'm really disappointed that it's only the Liberal Democrats who are calling out President Trump. I'm afraid the Conservatives and Reform seem to apologise for him.
"And while I understand the government has to walk a difficult line with the white House, I really think they should be more critical of him.
"He is an unreliable ally and other leaders of governments, whether it's Prime Minister in Canada or other presidents and prime ministers in Europe have been tough, much tougher on President Trump. And that's what Liberal Democrats want our government to do.”
He has little time for the US Vice President JD Vance too.
When GB News put to Davey JD Vance’s comments that migration had fuelled economic stagnation in Britain, Davey replied: “JD Vance is wrong on about almost everything."
But since the financial crisis, real wages have only grown by 6.6 per cent in almost twenty years.
The UK has had a flatlining economy and poor productivity, coupled with cheap labour which has allowed companies not to invest in technology or in training up British workers.
When pushed Davey admitted: “We do need to train our own people. The Liberal Democrats argued in the last election the Conservatives made a huge mistake with health and care visas were over 400,000 people were issued with health visas to come to this country to help in our health and care sector, because we weren't paying our own people decent wages.”
He went on: “Conservatives made a real mess of the immigration that made it a real mess of health and care, because they didn't get the economic policies right.”
Davey has called for what he calls: “An emergency growth budget next week, both to reverse the jobs tax that Labour has put forward, but also to improve our trading relationships with Europe if we're going to grow our economy and get trading again.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves approaches next week’s Spring Statement with a flatlining economy, and her fiscal headroom vanished.
The Lib Dems want the National Insurance rise for employers, dubbed “The Jobs Tax” by the Tories, scrapped.
Ed Davey also called for a vote in Parliament before any British troops be deployed to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force
GB News
Davey told GB News: “Yes we needed to find more money for the health service and care, Liberal Democrats have argued for that, but we showed a different way. A fairer way, which wouldn't have hit small businesses, wouldn't have been a drag on growth, and would have enabled us to get the money into the health and care system, which is so urgently needed while making sure our economy can prosper.”
Davey suggests reversing tax cuts given to the big banks in 2016 and higher taxes for social media giants, to “hit those large multinational companies, often American, and make them pay their fair share.”
He also told GB News: “We've got to get rid of that dreadful trade deal the Conservatives did and look at things like a UK-EU customs union.”
The Liberal Democrats, who fiercely opposed Brexit, are convinced the decision to leave the European Union is at the heart of our economic woes.
Davey said: “We're worried that actually Brexit did cause a lot of the damage. The referendum happened in 2016, nine years ago, and that chilled investment for a long period even before it happened.”
