LONDON ā€” Labour ministers have rejected a suggestion by Donald Trumpā€™s new running mate that the U.K. is an ā€œIslamist country.ā€

J.D. Vance, named Monday as the Republican vice presidential nominee, described Britain under the new Labour government as the worldā€™s first ā€œtruly Islamist countryā€ to have a nuclear weapon.

It was a claim which came as a blow to Labour ministers, in office for less than a fortnight, who have been keen to curry favor both with Trump and Vance.

Labourā€™s Deputy PM Angela Rayner told ITV: ā€œLook, I donā€™t recognize that characterization, Iā€™m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently. I think he said quite a lot of fruity things in the past as well.ā€

Speaking days before being adopted by Trump as his vice-presidential pick, Vance, a junior senator from Ohio, told the National Conservatism Conference: ā€œI was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about [how] one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though the Biden administration doesnā€™t care about it.