Sir Keir Starmer has defended his decision to travel to South Africa for the G20 summit – despite Donald Trump and other leaders snubbing the global gathering.
The Prime Minister insisted it was ‘really important’ for him to make the trip to Johannesburg amid growing criticism of the amount of time he spends out of Britain.
This has seen him dubbed ‘never here Keir’ with the G20 summit now marking his 42nd foreign trip in less than 17 months as PM.
Some Labour MPs have even questioned the number of air miles that Sir Keir is racking up, with his South Africa visit coming just days before a critical Budget.
One backbencher wondered if Sir Keir would rather be foreign secretary than PM.
Mr Trump is shunning this weekend’s G20 summit – and is not be sending any US officials – after hitting out at the South Africa’s treatment of white farmers.
The US President has claimed Afrikaners are being ‘killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated’.
But South Africa’s government has rejected claims of a ‘white genocide’ as ‘widely discredited and unsupported by reliable evidence’.
Sir Keir Starmer arrives at O.R. Tambo International Airport ahead of the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa
The G20 summit is Sir Keir’s 42nd foreign trip in less than 17 months as Prime Minister. Criticism of the amount of time he spends abroad has seen him dubbed ‘never here Keir’
Some Labour MPs have even questioned the number of air miles that Sir Keir is racking up, with his South Africa visit coming just days before a critical Budget
China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and Argentina’s Javier Milei are also expected to skip the Johannesburg meeting of the world’s leading economies.
Asked about Mr Trump’s absence, Sir Keir told reporters travelling with him: ‘In terms of attendance, obviously President Trump set out his position.
‘I think it’s really important to be there and to talk to other partners and allies.
‘So we can get on with the discussions around global issues that have to be addressed and do have an impact back at home.
‘But also to take the opportunity face to face to further the deals that I want to do for our country.’
The PM added: ‘In the last three years the jobs that have been generated in the UK from countries in the G20 is 200,000 and that focus in the Budget will be very much the economy and the cost of living.
‘And I will focus on the deals we can do, the business we can do with our partner countries and make sure that the work we do internationally is impacting directly at home.’
The PM will use the trip to announce £400million worth of deals for trains, planes and submarines, Downing Street said.
Sir Keir took an emissions-heavy flight to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil at the beginning of this month – his 40th foreign trip since becoming PM in July last year.
He then travelled to Berlin on Tuesday for a dinner with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.
One Labour MP defended Sir Keir’s decision to make the trip to South Africa, telling Politico: ‘I think when Trump is boycotting the G20 it’s important for others to take it seriously.’
But a second backbencher said, while the Johannesburg gathering ‘feels like the sort of thing he should be at’, Sir Keir needed to be aware of disgruntlement back home.
‘If he wants to be foreign secretary he can be, but he’s meant to be PM,’ they added.
‘It’s often not clear what the actual purpose of him being there is when he doesn’t seem to have had any real grip on the domestic agenda/party management.’
