Watch: J.D. Vance says Britain will be first Islamist nuclear power

Donald Trump has chosen J.D. Vance as his US vice-presidential running mate — but the author of Hillbilly Elegy has some, erm, interesting views on the UK. At a conference last week, Vance said that the UK could become “the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon” after Labour’s landslide election victory. He told an audience at the National Conservatism event: 

I have to beat up on the UK — just one additional thing. I was talking with a friend recently. And we were talking about, you know, one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though, of course, the Biden administration doesn’t care about it. And I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon and we were like, maybe it’s Iran, you know, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts. And then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK, since Labour just took over.

UK foreign secretary David Lammy — who has famously mouthed off on social media on a range of topics, not least Donald Trump’s fitness for office — has been on a charm offensive to woo Donald Trump. It looks like he might have his work cut out…

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.