During a visit to Hungary to show support for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ahead of upcoming elections, US Vice President JD Vance launched a scathing attack on the policies of the UK government, specifically targeting the leadership of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The event quickly drew media attention as a senior US leader publicly used the United Kingdom as a prominent case study for how not to run a country.
In his speech, JD Vance highlighted what he views as a glaring contradiction in European foreign and energy policies. He questioned: “Why have the Europeans, while saying by the way that Russia is the biggest national security threat, made themselves completely dependent on unreliable sources of energy?” According to Vance, instead of following the example set by the US under President Donald Trump to build economic and energy dominance, European nations have done the exact opposite.
The Vice President explicitly pointed to the situation in the United Kingdom, noting that a severe underinvestment in domestic energy resources has resulted in UK families paying four, five, or even six times more for electricity than US citizens. He labeled it a “scandal” that hard-working, rule-abiding middle-class Britons cannot afford to heat their homes or transport themselves to work because their leadership has made energy so prohibitively expensive.
Moving beyond economic issues, Vance expanded his critique to civil liberties. While he did not mention Keir Starmer by name in this specific segment, he strongly condemned how European governments are handling dissenting voices.
The Vice President argued that it is scandalous when normal citizens attempt to discuss what is happening in their countries, criticize their governments, and exercise their right to free speech, only for those same governments to pressure American social media companies to censor their own citizens.
Vance’s remarks were immediately seized upon by right-leaning commentators in the UK, as evidence of the current Labour government’s “humiliation” on the global stage. Critics noted that seeing the UK being used internationally as a cautionary tale for “how not to run a country” reflects the severe internal challenges facing Keir Starmer’s administration.