NOW TRUMP MISSES OUT ON ROYAL WEDDING
After Mail reveals his US embassy snub...
DONALD Trump faces the embarrassment of not being invited to the royal wedding, insiders said last night. The US President is notoriously sensitive to snubs and might have expected to be asked to attend Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s big day.
But a Royal Household source pointedly said: ‘Although the guest list hasn’t yet been announced, there is no reason he would be invited.’
The potential snub is a second setback to Mr Trump following the cancellation of a planned visit to Britain next month. In other USUK developments last night:
UK officials privately expressed
their hope that the President could come to Britain at some point this year;
Ministers are examining the idea of him visiting Scotland instead;
The President’s claim that the lease on the old embassy in Mayfair had been sold for ‘ peanuts’ was supported by documents showing the US received nearly £200million less than thought.
Mr Trump said he had called off the London trip because he disagreed with the decision to sell off the old embassy cheap. Observers suggested he did not want to run the gauntlet of protests.
But official sources said Mr Trump made the decision following a series of perceived slights. He had clashed with Theresa May over his posting of videos by British antiMuslim extremists and with London mayor Sadiq Khan over the terror threat.
The cancellation of the visit came as a ‘shock’ to No 10, according to the Times.
Mr Khan was among those on the Left who gloated yesterday, saying it was clear that Mr Trump had ‘got the message that many Londoners’ did not want him here. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also said he should not be invited.
Boris Johnson took aim at both men last night, accusing them of putting Britain’s relationship with America at risk.
He labelled Mr Khan a ‘puffed up, pompous popinjay’. Downing Street appeared to back his stance, with a source saying: ‘We agree that any risk to the crucial US-UK relationship is not in our country’s best interests.’
The row over the visit, which sparked headlines around the world yesterday, threatens a new crisis in Britain’s relations with the Trump administration. There is now no date for a visit by the President, who has been in office for a year.
Royal Household sources made clear that Prince Harry’s nuptials were not a state occasion and would be, by royal standards at least, a more low-key, family affair than the wedding of his parents or brother.
‘Although the wedding is being attended by the Queen, it isn’t an official, state occasion. It is a family event,’ the source said. ‘Unless the President was a close personal friend, which he is not, there would be no protocol, no reason for him to be invited.
‘Harry and Meghan have made clear that this is very much an occasion and a celebration for their close family and friends.’
Downing Street said it was a matter for the Royal Household. Previous royal weddings of those low down the succession list have not been attended by US presidents.
Richard Nixon was not present at the November 1973 wedding of Princess Anne to Captain Mark Phillips. Ronald Reagan was not present at the July 1986 wedding of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson. Bill Clinton was not at the 1999 wedding of Prince Edward to Sophie Rhys-Jones.
But it does leave open the question as to whether Barack Obama, who was interviewed by Prince Harry for broadcast on Radio 4 only last month, is likely to be asked. Harry now counts him as a close personal friend and his instinct would certainly be to do so.
Michael Wolff, the US journalist behind a controversial book on Mr Trump, warned earlier this week that he ‘doesn’t like being snubbed’.
The Mail revealed yesterday that Mr Trump had scrapped his plan to make his first visit to the UK as President next month to open the £1billion US embassy in Nine Elms, south of the Thames.
A few minutes before 5am, Mr Trump confirmed the story, tweeting that he had cancelled his trip because he was ‘ not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for “peanuts”.’ US ambassador to the UK Robert Johnson said he agreed that the embassy’s old location on Grosvenor Square was ‘perfect’ but that a move was forced by security concerns.
Madame Tussauds arranged for Mr Trump to visit the embassy yesterday – in waxwork form. Diplomatic staff and construction workers crowded around the model and posed for selfies.
British officials were last night still hoping the President could come to Britain at some point this year. Ministers have discussed a plan for him to meet the Queen at Balmoral instead of London.
But Mr Khan, who clashed with Mr Trump after he criticised his handling of the London Bridge terror attack, said: ‘His visit next month would without doubt have been met by mass peaceful protests.
‘This just reinforces what a mistake it was for Theresa May to rush and extend an invitation.’
THERE’S something deeply treacherous about the Left’s gloating over Donald Trump’s decision – revealed in yesterday’s Mail – to cancel his visit to Britain. Whatever anyone may think of the President (and this paper has made its own reservations clear) our national interest in cultivating good relations with our strongest ally is obvious for all to see. This is particularly true now, as we look forward to our freedom to negotiate trade deals outside the EU.
Until yesterday, we seemed enviably placed to profit from Mr Trump’s declared love of our country by strengthening links with America, with which we already run a surplus of £33billion a year (in contrast to our £82billion deficit with the EU).
After all, Theresa May was one of the first he welcomed to the White House. And where Barack Obama threatened to send us to the ‘back of the queue’ for a trade deal, he promised to move us to the front.
But now petty, posturing Left-wingers have put all this goodwill in jeopardy, queueing up to insult the President and his country by telling him he isn’t welcome.
Perhaps most damnable of all is Sadiq Khan, the self-obsessed Labour Mayor of London. How can this ‘puffed-up, pompous popinjay’ (to quote Boris Johnson’s apt description), claim to speak for the whole population of a capital whose economy benefits hugely from US investment?
True, Mr Trump claims he has called off his visit in protest against his predecessors’ decision to move America’s embassy from its prime site in Grosvenor Square to the decidedly less prestigious Nine Elms (another example, incidentally, of how US investment helps regenerate the capital).
Clearly, however, he has also been put off by Left- wingers’ threats of mass demonstrations against him. Why don’t they aim their sanctimony at tyrannical regimes like Iran, instead of directing it against our great democratic ally?
The upshot is that countries such as France, Germany, China and Japan – all of which have welcomed Mr Trump – stand to gain benefits Britain may now be denied.
This eccentric President is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea (though no one can gainsay his successes in such areas as tax reform). But the silent majority in Britain feel tremendous goodwill towards the country he represents.
The exhibitionists who insult him, putting self-promotion above jobs and the national interest, speak only for themselves.