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Trump-Starmer AI Deal Slammed for Putting 'Interests of US Tech Bros' Ahead of the Common Good
"Instead of bending over backwards to appease Trump in an attempt to avoid his tariff bullying, it’s time for Starmer to show real leadership and stand up to him," said one campaigner.
Sep 18, 2025
Critics of the artificial intelligence pact signed Thursday by US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned that the deal sacrifices the climate, data privacy, creators' copyrights, and British sovereignty on the altar of Silicon Valley profits.
Speaking at Chequers—the Buckinghamshire country estate of UK prime ministers in Buckinghamshire—Trump said that "we're taking the next logical step with a historic agreement on science and technology partnerships, and this will create new government, academic, and private sector cooperation in areas such as AI, which is taking over the world."
Laughing, Trump turned to tech bosses gathered for the event and—singling out Jensen Huang, CEO of chip-maker Nvidia—said: "And I'm looking at you guys. You're taking over the world, Jensen. I don't know what you're doing here. I hope you're right."
Along with Huang—who heads the world's largest publicly traded company—the CEOs of Apple, and ChatGPT creator OpenAI joined Trump on his UK trip.
Starmer said the deal involves more than $200 billion in total US investments and will create 15,000 jobs over the next decade. The prime minister named US companies including Amazon, Blackstone, Boeing, Citigroup, and Microsoft, and UK firms like AstraZeneca, BP, GSK, and Rolls Royce as being part of the deal.
Other companies involved in the agreement include Google and its AI laboratory DeepMind, OpenAI, Oracle, Salesforce, and ScaleAI in the United States and AI Pathfinder, DataVita, NScale, and Sage in Britain.
DeSmog UK deputy director Sam Bright reported Thursday that the investment bank led by Warren Stephens, Trump's ambassador to London, owns hundreds of millions of dollars in shares of tech companies involved in the AI deal, including Google parent company Alphabet, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
Like Amazon, Google, Meta, and Nvidia, Stephens—who is a billionaire—made a seven-figure donation to Trump's inauguration fund.
Prominent critics of the agreement include former UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who is also Meta's former president of global affairs. Speaking Wednesday at a Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge, Clegg said the deal leaves Britain with "sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley" and "is just another version of the United Kingdom holding on to Uncle Sam’s coattails."
Opposition to the tech deal was also widespread Wednesday at a central London protest against Trump's visit organized by the Stop Trump Coalition.
Nick Dearden, director of the campaign group Global Justice Now and a spokesperson for the Stop Trump Coalition, noted in an interview with Wired senior business editor Natasha Bernal that the details of the pact have not been made public.
"We have not seen the text of the deal. We don’t know what we have given away," Dearden said. "We know that some of the tech barons accompanying Trump want us to drop parts of our regulation, want us to drop the digital services tax, want us to make it easier for them to acquire and merge with each other to become even bigger monopolies, so we are worried about that.”
So Trump swept into the UK to be wined and dined by the King.Big Tech bosses came too, bearing pledges of huge UK investments (mostly for data centres).Our govt, desperate for good economic news, is boosting this as a win for the UK.But the *point* of US Big Tech is to monopolise the data.
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— Critical Takes on Corporate Power (@criticaltakes.bsky.social) September 18, 2025 at 5:14 AM
Gobal Justice Now trade campaigner Seema Syeda said in a statement:
This toxic technology pact that favors the interests of US tech bros and rich corporations over ordinary people must be opposed at all costs. It’s a democratic scandal that the public and Parliament have been left in the dark as to its contents to date, but what we do know should ring alarm bells. Instead of bending over backwards to appease Trump in an attempt to avoid his tariff bullying, it’s time for Starmer to show real leadership and stand up to him. We can’t let an egomaniac like Trump hold our rights and democracy hostage.
Clive Teague—who was at the London rally supporting Extinction Rebellion Waverley and Borders in Surrey—told Bernal that he does not oppose AI if it is powered by renewable energy.
"We can’t keep burning fossil fuels to keep feeding into these data centers, because it’ll swamp the requirements for the rest of the world," Teague said.
Global Justice Now also warned that the tech deal could expose National Health Service (NHS) patient data to exploitation, wweaken digital privacy protections, thwart regulation of AI, and limit the government's taxation options.
Also sounding the alarm on the US-UK AI deal are scores of creators and creative groups including Elton John, Paul McCartney, and the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, who decried what they say is the Starmer government's failure to adequately protect copyrighted works from unauthorized use by AI companies.
As the Prime Minister prepares to meet President Trump during the state visit, WGGB has joined over 70 of the UK’s leading creators + creative orgs in signing an open letter demanding the Government explains its failure to protect the rights of UK copyright holderswritersguild.org.uk/creators-ai/
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— Writers' Guild of Great Britain (@writersguildgb.bsky.social) September 16, 2025 at 2:44 AM
"Artificial intelligence companies have ingested millions of copyright works without permission or payment, in total disregard for the UK’s legal protections," they said in an open letter. "The first duty of any government is to protect its citizens—not to promote corporate interests, particularly where they are primarily based abroad."
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UK Protest Group Condemns 'Orwellian' Arrest Over Projected Trump-Epstein Images
“We’re constantly told, you know, we need to see peaceful protests," said one organizer. "Well, here’s a peaceful protest."
Sep 17, 2025
The leaders of the UK-based protest group Led By Donkeys said Wednesday that four of its members remained under arrest for displaying images of US President Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the side of Windsor Castle ahead of Trump's second state visit to the United Kingdom.
The widely available images were accompanied by a narration discussing Trump and Epstein's friendship, as well as pictures of Epstein's victims, police reports, and news reports about the case.
Trump began his visit, on which he'll meet with King Charles and other members of the royal family as well as Prime Minister Keir Starmer, amid growing scrutiny of the US Department of Justice's decision not to release files related to the Epstein case as well as of the release of a letter the president reportedly sent to Epstein containing dialogue between the two men about a "wonderful secret" they shared.
The White House has denied the letter is authentic and Trump has claimed he was unaware of Epstein's criminal activities during his friendship with him.
Police said they arrested the four Led by Donkeys members on suspicion of "malicious communications" after they displayed the "unauthorized projection."
A spokesperson for Led By Donkeys told The Guardian the group has previously displayed "25 or 30 projections" without organizers being arrested.
"Often the police come along and we have a chat to them, and they even have a laugh with us and occasionally tell us to not do it," the spokesperson said. “But no one’s ever been arrested before, so it is ridiculous that four of our guys have been arrested for malicious communications.”
“Forgive the cliche, but it is rather Orwellian for a piece of journalism, which raises questions about our guest’s relationship with America’s most notorious child sex trafficker, to lead to arrests," they added.
King Charles' brother, Prince Andrew, has also been accused of sexually abusing teenage girls during his friendship with Epstein. He settled out of court with Virginia Giuffre, who sued him for allegedly abusing her, in 2022, after being stripped of his royal patronages.
While the projection was taken down and the protesters detained, Trump is unlikely to escape condemnation from members of the British public during his visit.
The group Everyone Hates Elon, which has previously displayed messages denouncing billionaire Trump ally and megadonor Elon Musk at bus stops around London, also unfurled a banner at Windsor Castle showing a picture of Trump and Epstein.
Protesters gathered in London Wednesday for a "Trump Not Welcome" march from Portland Place to Parliament Square, with some displaying the "Trump baby balloon" that became familiar after the president's first official visit to the UK in 2018, as well as balloons showing a caricature of Vice President JD Vance.
Demonstrators carried signs reading, "No to racism" and "Stop arming Israel," among other slogans.
“We do not want our government to trade away our democracy and decency,” Zoe Gardner, a spokesperson for the Stop Trump Coalition, told The Washington Post Wednesday.
A rallygoer named Alena Ivanova told the outlet that "there's a reason" Trump is spending much of his visit outside of the nation's capital, meeting with Starmer at his country estate and staying at Windsor Castle.
"People on the streets will say what our government seems unable to: Donald Trump is not welcome here," said Ivanova.
Observers in the UK view the invitation for a state visit as an attempt to appeal to the president as he threatens the country with tariffs and an end to aid for Ukraine.
"We want our government to show some backbone," Gardner told the BBC, "and have a little bit of pride and represent that huge feeling of disgust at Donald Trump's politics in the UK."
The Led By Donkeys spokesperson told The Guardian that the arrest of the four organizers "says a lot more about the policing of Trump's visit than it does about what we did."
More than 1,600 police officers have been deployed to respond to protests while Trump is in the UK.
“We’re constantly told, you know, we need to see peaceful protests. Well, here’s a peaceful protest," said the spokesperson. "We projected a piece of journalism on to a wall and now people have been arrested for malicious communications."
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Declassified Report Belies UK 'Terrorism' Designation for Palestine Action
The report acknowledges that "the majority" of Palestine Action's activities "would not be classified as terrorism" under the highly contentious Terrorism Act of 2000.
Sep 12, 2025
A declassified British intelligence report published Friday by The New York Times undermined the UK government's claims and rationale for banning the direct action group Palestine Action under the country's dubious anti-terrorism law.
Speaking earlier this week, UK State Security Minister Dan Jarvis defended the government's terror designation for Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act of 2000, accusing the group and its supporters of an "escalating campaign involving intimidation and sustained criminal damage, including to Britain's national security infrastructure."
The report was published by the Times as former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock condemned the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's stance on Palestine Action, telling Middle East Eye that "simply, I can't see how belonging to or demonstrating for a group that is rightly extremely concerned about the appalling situation in Gaza is terrorism."
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock says Palestine Action are not terrorists in split with StarmerMost high-profile divide so far: Kinnock tells @MiddleEastEye people have a right to be appalled at situation in Gaza and proscription 'blunting' terror lawswww.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusi...
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— Defend Our Juries (@defendourjuries.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 8:31 AM
But the leaked report, issued March 7 by the UK's Joint Terrorism Analysis Center (JTAC) and first reported by journalist Craig Murray in August, acknowledges that "the majority" of activities by Palestine Action "would not be classified as terrorism" under the law because they typically involve relatively "minor" property damage, such as "graffiti, petty vandalism, occupation, and lock-ons."
The group's actions include damaging property belonging to weapons makers such as the Israeli firm Elbit Systems, spray-painting warplanes at a British military base, and defacing US President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland—acts experts say do not constitute terrorism.
"UK domestic counterterrorism legislation defines terrorist acts broadly to include 'serious damage to property.' But, according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages, for purpose of intimidating a population or to compel a government to take a certain action or not," United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said in July.
Türk added that the UK legislation "misuses the gravity and impact of terrorism to expand it beyond those clear boundaries, to encompass further conduct that is already criminal under the law."
Still, JTAC asserted that Palestine Action "commits or participates in acts of terrorism" under the law by perpetrating "incidents that have resulted in serious property damage with the aim of progressing its political cause."
The report accuses Palestine Action members of "using weapons, including sledgehammers, axes, and whips, to cause a significant amount of property damage" in one action, during which "two responding police officers and a security guard were assaulted and suffered injuries."
However, JTAC noted that it is "highly unlikely" that Palestine Action would ever "advocate for violence against persons."
"Any such call for action would constitute a significant escalation" of Palestine Action's "strategy and intent," the report states.
At least 138 people have been charged with terrorism offenses under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, which bans displays of symbols or wearing clothing that "arouse reasonable suspicion that [a person] is a member or supporter of a proscribed organization."
The Terrorism Act has long been condemned by civil liberties defenders, who decry the law's "vague and overbroad" definition of terrorism, chilling effect on free speech and expression, invasive stop-and-search powers, pre-charge detention and control orders, sweeping surveillance and data collection, and other provisions.
More than 1,600 people have been arrested during demonstrations of support for Palestine Action—mostly organized by the group Defend Our Juries—since the group's proscription, including nearly 900 attendees of a September 6 rally in London's Parliament Square.
Many of those arrested did nothing more than hold up signs reading: "I Oppose Genocide. I Support Palestine Action."
Arrestees include many elders, including 83-year-old Rev. Sue Parfitt, who argued that "we cannot be bystanders" in the face of Israel's US-backed genocide in Gaza, which has left more than 237,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, hundreds of thousands more starving by design, and around 1 million others under the threat of imminent ethnic cleansing as Israeli forces move to conquer and occupy the coastal strip.
"I know that we are in the right place doing the right thing," said Parfitt, who was arrested at a July 6 Defend Our Juries protest in Parliament Square against the terror designation for Palestine Action.
Last week, two Metropolitan Police officers speaking under condition of anonymity said they felt guilty and ashamed of having to arrest peaceful Palestine Action supporters.
“Instead of catching real criminals and terrorists," one of the officers told Novara Media, "we are arresting pensioners and disabled people calling for the saving of children’s lives."
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