Kemi Badenoch has refused to criticise JD Vance for his comments in which he seemed to label the United Kingdom “some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
The US Vice-president has been widely criticised after he made the comments when talking about how to ensure there could be lasting peace in Ukraine.
Referring to proposals from that a peacekeeping force of 20,000 British and French troops could be sent to Ukraine following a ceasefire, Vance said: “If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine.
“That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
Whilst the comments have been criticised by politicians on both sides of the house, it seems Tory leader Badenoch isn’t keen to have an opinion on the matter.
Speaking to GB News, Badenoch said: “I know JD Vance quite well. I’ve looked at the comments, I don’t think he actually said that! A lot of people are getting carried away. They’re saying loads of things and getting quite animated let’s keep cool heads.
“America is our closest ally and I believe that President Trump and JD Vance want peace, they’re looking after their national interests, we need to do so as well.”
When Badenoch was asked if she therefore believed Vance had been referring to France instead of the United Kingdom, she responded: “I’m not getting into that speculation.”
Badenoch’s fence-sitting comes after her own shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge labelled Vance’s comments as “deeply disrespectful.”
In a post on X, he wrote: “NATO Article 5 has been invoked once – on 12/9/01 by America, after 9/11.
“The UK and France came to their aid deploying 1,000s of personnel to Afghanistan, including my own brother & numerous parliamentary colleagues, past & present. It’s deeply disrespectful to ignore such service & sacrifice.”
Even Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has condemned the vice-presidents words, as he told GB News that Vance was “wrong, wrong, wrong.”
He told the channel that in Afghanistan the UK had, pro-rata, spent “the same amount of money, we put the same amount of men and women in, and we suffered the same losses.”
Farage continued: “We stood by America all through those 20 years, putting in exactly the same contribution, and we did our bit. On this one, JD is wrong.”
Related: JD Vance claims UK ‘hasn’t fought a war in 40 years’ and everyone makes the same point