Burnham returns from UN after warm Trump talks and Russia row

Andy Burnham has returned to the UK after his first UN General Assembly as Prime Minister, a trip that mixed warm first talks with Donald Trump, a blunt attack on Russian disinformation, and fresh uncertainty over the Chagos Islands.

The central event was Burnham's first face-to-face meeting with Trump, held on the sidelines of the UN gathering in New York. It was due to last about half an hour but ran longer, with delegations on both sides. Trump praised Burnham as a natural business person and said he got it, adding that relations with the UK were more up than under the previous prime minister. Burnham said the two men had established a good connection and found common ground on the cost of living, the Middle East and the need to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power. They also discussed Ukraine, trade, the Falklands, North Sea drilling and the Chagos Islands.

The Chagos Islands became the clearest point of tension. Trump said he did not support the UK plan to hand sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius and lease back the Diego Garcia base, calling it terrible and ridiculous. Burnham said he had inherited the situation and that a resolution was needed to safeguard the base, which is strategically important to both the UK and the US. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting later said the deal was not good enough without American support. Payments to Mauritius were reported to have been paused.

On the Falklands, Burnham said he had told Trump directly that the UK would stand firm against any threats and would defend the right of Falkland Islanders to self-determination and to remain British. Trump was said to have understood the position. The meeting also covered trade and tariffs. Burnham said he raised a specific factory case in the north east and spoke about reindustrialisation. Trump invited Burnham to play golf, while Burnham said Trump was always welcome in the UK.

In his UN address, Burnham made artificial intelligence the centrepiece. He called for a single set of global principles and standards to ensure transparency, access and safety, and announced a new AI defence partnership with the United States to protect critical national infrastructure. He said decisions on AI were too important to be left to chance and should be taken by elected governments. Trump used his own UN speech to reject globalist controls on AI and to say the US would encourage what he called superintelligence instead of artificial intelligence.

Burnham also announced a new National Centre for Information Defence, tasked with detecting, attributing and disrupting hostile state information attacks. He accused Russian agencies of an industrial-scale assault on the information environment, saying they spent about £1.3bn a year on manipulating information, used bots, fake websites and falsified newspaper articles, forged the branding of British organisations, amplified far-right narratives and tried to interfere in the 2019 general election. The Kremlin rejected the allegations. Dmitry Peskov said Burnham had said nothing new and accused Britain of stoking anti-Russian sentiment.

Before the UN speech, the UK announced it would provide limited military support to Saudi Arabia in its fight against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. An RAF Voyager based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus will refuel Saudi fighter jets for a few weeks. Ministers described the support as defensive and time-limited, aimed at helping Saudi Arabia shoot down drones and missiles and keep the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz open. Analysts said the military impact was likely to be limited, but the gesture was politically important.

Trump used the UN platform to defend his war with Iran and threaten to annihilate the Islamic Republic if no deal was reached. He also said the war between Russia and Ukraine could end sooner than people expect, attacked the United Nations, and prompted a walkout by Cuba's delegation after saying Cuba's communist regime would fall. The US and Denmark signed a security deal over Greenland. Trump's feud with US media also escalated, with CNN, MS Now and Politico banned from White House coverage and other networks suspending pooled coverage in protest.

Burnham also met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. He said AI would be at the heart of the UK's G20 presidency next year, which will be hosted in Manchester. Back home, the trip took place against a tough economic backdrop, with government borrowing in August higher than expected and pressure on the Chancellor before the Budget.