Rishi Sunak avoids Ron DeSantis on his UK visit

Rishi Sunak will not meet the US presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis on his visit to the UK.

On Friday, Mr DeSantis met James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary and Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary.

Formally, the meetings are in his role as governor of Florida, the third most populous US state.

Downing Street said Mr Sunak will not meet Mr DeSantis in part because it is not standard protocol for a prime minister to meet a state governor.

There is additionally an issue of logistics, with Mr Sunak in Scotland on a pre-planned trip to the Conservatives’ conference there.

'Welcome to London'

However, the governor was met by the prime ministers of Japan and South Korea on an earlier leg of his trip.

Dan Eberhart, a former Trump donor who is now backing Mr DeSantis, said the trip was “laying the foundation” for the governor to “discuss his foreign policy experience and ideas on the debate stage”.

Mr DeSantis addressed a group of 50 business leaders at a private roundtable discussion with Ms Badenoch.

Mr Cleverly tweeted a picture of the pair, captioned “Welcome to London”.

The UK regularly ranks as Florida’s top business partner, and there are more than 600 British businesses in the state, employing more than 50,000 Floridians.

Mr DeSantis is trailing badly to Donald Trump in the polls to be the Republican presidential candidate. But his supporters say the numbers could change when he formally declares his bid.

It has also been reported that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is also trying to secure a meeting with Mr DeSantis.

But Mr Farage said they had met before, and that there would be no new meeting.