Keir Starmer has defended his decision to travel to South Africa for the G20 summit just days before the government publishes its budget, after former US president Donald Trump said he would not attend.
The prime minister is due to arrive in Johannesburg on Friday for two days of summit sessions, a business event and bilateral talks focused on sustainability and economic growth. With the chancellor finalising what could be a contentious fiscal package and Trump absent, Downing Street said the visit offers value to taxpayers by securing international investment.
On the flight to Johannesburg, Starmer argued that forging closer economic ties with G20 partners is essential to ease the cost-of-living squeeze and create stable jobs, saying those relationships translate into jobs back in the UK. He will appear at a business forum on Friday before the main summit on Saturday and will hold meetings with other world leaders.
He will not meet Trump. The former president has rejected the summit, accusing South Africa of racial discrimination against the white Afrikaner minority; South Africa responded by accusing the US of “coercion by absentia.” President Cyril Ramaphosa used his B20 business-summit appearance to stress that countries must be treated as equals and that sovereignty should be respected without bullying.
Several other major leaders are also absent: Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping will not be at the summit. Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court, of which South Africa is a signatory, and Xi has missed a number of international meetings this year, sending Premier Li Qiang to represent China at recent Brics and ASEAN gatherings.
British officials say Starmer will use part of the trip to rally support for Ukraine. The visit comes amid reports that Trump is preparing a peace plan critics say would force Ukraine to cede territory and give up weapons; Starmer was briefed on the plan’s outline after meetings with Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz and France’s president Emmanuel Macron in Berlin and is expected to discuss Ukraine further with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the summit.
Back in Westminster, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is putting the finishing touches to a budget due on Wednesday that is widely expected to include billions in tax rises, with a freeze on income tax thresholds among the options under consideration. Starmer and Reeves recently dropped a proposal to raise income tax rates, leaving Reeves to identify alternative measures to raise about £20bn.
Starmer said the forthcoming budget will reflect Labour values and fairness and portrayed the package as necessary repair work after “16, 17 years” of economic shocks, including the 2008 crash, austerity, a difficult Brexit settlement, the Covid pandemic and the effects of the war in Ukraine. He added he was optimistic about the country’s future if the government gets its approach right.