Donald Trump officials warn Ed Miliband ‘would be a mistake’ as chancellor

Senior members of the Trump administration have reportedly warned Andy Burnham’s appointment of Ed Miliband as chancellor would be a “mistake”.

Senior officials in the US President’s team have told their counterparts and other senior figures in the Labor Party that they are concerned about Mr Miliband’s record on the North Sea and wind turbines. TimesThe incident that caused conflict between Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer.

Although Mr Burnham said he had not made any decision on who he would appoint as chancellor, Mr Miliband is said to be one of the candidates and is a long-term ally of the Makerfield MP.

Mr Burnham is expected to enter No 10 on July 20 and is expected to make an announcement about the chancellor before then.

Trump officials believe Mr Miliband’s opposition to new oil and gas drilling licenses in the North Sea is “ideologically motivated” and that tax revenues generated by its removal could help fund defense spending. Times reported.

The US president has repeatedly criticized Miliband’s energy policy both publicly and privately, and has called on Britain to “get rid of the windmills and bring back oil”.

Sir Keir and Mr Trump have often disagreed on energy policy. In his first speech, the US president claimed that foxes had become fat beyond recognition after eating dead birds killed by wind turbines.

Former No 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney told the BBC: “In Keir’s first meeting with the president, he launched into a conversation about windmills, saying: ‘Look, England is a beautiful country, but you’ve got too many windmills.’ Okay, he was making his point, he had made it public enough.

“Then he said, windmills are killing your birds, birds are falling into windmills, foxes are eating those birds.”

The North Sea will remain a point of contention for Mr Trump, with Mr Burnham set to move into 10th place at the end of this month. The US president delivered his verdict on the former mayor of Greater Manchester at the end of June, calling him an “extreme liberal”.

Asked at the White House what he knew about Mr. Burnham, the president said: “I don’t know, I think I see him as the mayor of a town.

“I hear he’s extremely liberal, which means he probably won’t open the North Sea,” he said. “I gave Keir Starmer some pretty good advice. I said go across the North Sea and go to Aberdeen, the hottest city on the entire continent.”

“It was the oil city of Europe and they closed everything down. It was terrible. I couldn’t believe it.”

“The North Sea is full. I asked all the oil companies to come see me, ‘Sir, can you give us access to the UK? We’ll do anything to drill in the North Sea.’

“The interesting thing is they get their oil from Norway, which gets it from the North Sea. Think about it, they pay a huge premium.”

“Norway has two trillion dollars in the bank now and the UK is dying, so they should open up the North Sea and it’ll be an easy job and a lot of good things will happen. It’s one of the biggest deals in the world.”

Despite this, Mr Burnham said: New Statesman Last month he said he had an “open mind” about reopening the North Sea to drilling.

“I’m an open-minded person, you know. I don’t have a fixed position,” he said.

The Independent has contacted Ed Miliband’s team for comment.