LONDON MAYOR SPARKS ANGER WITH OBAMA JAB
London Mayor Boris Johnson, a leader of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, was facing strong criticism Friday for suggesting U.S. President Barack Obama may have an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire” because of his Kenyan roots.
On a visit to the U. K., Obama weighed in to Britain’s debate about European Union membership, urging voters to back staying in the 28-nation bloc.
Johnson said Obama’s advice was “paradoxical, inconsistent, incoherent” because Americans “would never contemplate anything like the EU for themselves.”
Writing in the U. K.’s Sun newspaper, Johnson recounted a claim that a bust of former British prime minister Winston Churchill was removed from the Oval Office after Obama was elected and returned to the British embassy.
Johnson wrote that some said removing the bust “was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dis- like of the British Empire, of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”
Obama’s father was from Kenya, a former British colony that gained independence in the 1960s.
The White House has said the Churchill story is untrue, and the bust is still in a prominent place in the presidential residence.
“I love the guy,” Obama said at a news conference Friday with U.K. Prime Minsiter David Cameron. But as the first African-American president, he said, he “thought it appropriate” to have a bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Oval Office.
Obama spoke on the first day of a three- day visit to London. The visit comes two months before a June referendum on leaving the union. Polls suggest it will be a close-fought race.
“Let me be clear, ultimately this is something that the British voters have to decide for themselves but ... part of being friends is to be honest and to let you know what I think,” he said. “It affects our prospect as well. The United States wants a strong United Kingdom as a partner.”
Earlier Friday, Obama and his wife, Michelle, travelled by helicopter to Windsor Castle for lunch with Queen Elizabeth II, who turned 90 on Thursday, and her husband, Prince Philip, 94.
As the blades stopped, the Duke pulled his navy blue Range Rover forward so he and the Queen could welcome their guests. A bodyguard then jumped behind the wheel and turned the car around ready for the Duke to make the return journey.
Unaccompanied by any bodyguards, the Queen, the Duke, the President and the First Lady made the shortest of road trips from the helicopter to the castle doorway.
“She is an astonishing person and a real jewel to the world, not just to the United Kingdom,” the President said later during the press conference with Cameron.
‘PART OF BEING FRIENDS IS TO BE HONEST AND TO LET YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK.’ — U. S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA