The Cairns Post

Trump Jr weighs in

Son in fresh attack on May’s handling of Brexit negotiatio­ns

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US President Donald Trump’s eldest son rebuked UK Prime Minister Theresa May over her faltering Brexit tactics on Tuesday, claiming she had unnecessar­ily prolonged Britain’s EU withdrawal by ignoring his father’s advice.

In a biting op-ed in the Euroscepti­c Daily Telegraph newspaper, Donald Trump Jr criticised the British leader’s latest plan to request a delay to Brexit, saying it signalled “that democracy in the UK is all but dead”.

“Mrs May ignored advice from my father, and ultimately, a process that should have taken only a few short months has become a years-long stalemate, leaving the British people in limbo,” Trump Jr stated.

“Now, the clock has virtually run out and almost all is lost – exactly as the European elites were hoping.” The comments come the week after the US president himself spoke out on Brexit, saying May “didn’t listen” to his ideas on how to negotiate and that he was “surprised to see how badly it has all gone”.

Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29 but is mired in division and perpetual political crisis.

The prime minister is set to seek a delay to the country’s departure at an EU summit starting Thursday after MPs twice rejected an unpopular divorce deal struck last year.

Trump Jr argued the move would ignore “the will of the people”.

“Since 2016, Prime Minister Theresa May has promised on more than 50 separate occasions that Britain would leave the EU on March 29, 2019,” he stated. “She needs to honour that promise.”

He said the issue mattered to Americans because “Brexit is an example of how the establishm­ent elites try to subvert the will of the people”.

“The people of both the UK and the US must reaffirm the decisions they made in 2016 (votes) to stand up for themselves against the global elite,” Trump Jr added.

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