David Lammy, Guyana, UK, and America

Congratulations are in order to David Lammy on his victory as a MP and his appointment as Foreign Secretary. As commented by a reporter last May, few British politicians have American ties as deep as those of David Lammy, age 51, Britain’s new Foreign Secretary (Minister of Foreign or External Affairs).

Lammy is the son of Guyanese immigrants to England. He grew up poor in working-class London and studied there. He spent summers with Guyanese relatives in Brooklyn and Queens and doing a stint at Con Edison. He did a master’s degree at Harvard Law School where he met and befriended Barack Obama. Lammy canvassed for Obama in Chicago during his first presidential campaign in 2008. This writer met Obama at CCNY in the late 1980s when I was President of the Graduate Student Council (GSC); Obama visited as a community organizer seeking support to mobilize students against tuition increases. This writer also canvassed for Obama in New York and Pennsylvania in 2008 and 2012 through the UFT where I was Chapter Leader.

Lammy has become Britain’s chief diplomat and he finds himself facing a potentially hostile American political landscape. Lammy has been close with Democrats who could lose the White House and Congress to Donald Trump and the Republicans. The Democrats are imploding over the Biden’s candidacy as they try to hold off a resurgent Trump whose campaign could have long coattails electing Republicans on down ballot.

Lammy should be an asset to promote democracy and good governance in his parents’ Guyana.