Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a visit to the Benn Partnership community centre in Rugby, in central England on November 27, 2025, a day after his government unveiled its annual budget.
LONDON - Since US President Donald Trump's post-G20 summit outburst on social media against South Africa, much attention has turned to how Pretoria's allies will respond. Particularly when it comes to President Trump's insistence he will in some way try to bar South Africa from participation in the US G20 presidency in 2026.
The South African government said, 'We call on members of the G20 to reaffirm its continued operation in the spirit of multilateralism, based on consensus, with all members participating on an equal footing in all of its structures.'
So what of the UK?
In the run-up to the G20, eNCA repeatedly asked the UK government whether it believed there was a genocide happening in South Africa. Repeatedly, it declined to comment, and I wrote about that here.
But President Trump's latest stance calls for a new response for the UK. Because next year, London would ordinarily be expecting to take part in G20 events in the US, with its South African allies, and others. There are now all sorts of questions about whether that can happen.
eNCA has therefore reached out to the UK government with a series of questions:
- Will the UK attend G20 events held by the US if South Africa is barred?
- Will the UK make representations to the US to allow South Africa's participation?
- Does the UK believe the leaders' declaration from the G20 leaders' summit in Johannesburg can still be followed through on?
- Does the UK believe there is a genocide happening in South Africa, as President Trump has now claimed again?
Publicly, the UK government is not, for now, making any comment.
But UK government sources do tell me the following: On the question of whether the UK would attend G20 events and meetings if South Africa was barred, they will only say at this stage that 'ministerial attendance will be confirmed in the usual way.' That is not a confirmation either way that the UK will definitely be attending, or not.
On President Trump's renewed claims of a genocide in South Africa, government sources are now responding in a slightly different way than previously. They tell eNCA 'the longstanding position in line with the Genocide Convention, is that the determination of genocide is a matter for competent international courts and tribunals, rather than governments or non-judicial bodies.' That is something of a change to previous (and recent) responses to this question, which saw the UK declining to comment on the record, but with government sources insisting it was not an issue being raised with the UK by Pretoria.
UK government sources also continue to stress to me that 'The UK and South Africa share a strong partnership focused on driving economic growth and expanding trade between our countries.'
All of this would seem to suggest that the UK is well aware that questions around South Africa's participation in the G20 are likely to intensify ahead of the 2026 US Presidency. And those questions around US claims of a genocide in South Africa required a slightly updated response.
By Olly Barratt - eNCA London Correspondent