TRUMP SNUBS CORBYN
Jeremy wanted to meet me but I said no, claims Donald
DONALD Trump branded Jeremy Corbyn a ‘negative force’ yesterday – as he rejected the Labour leader’s request for a meeting.
In a sign that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the United States would be threatened by a Corbyn-led government, Mr Trump said he could see no point in meeting the leader of the opposition.
Mr Corbyn snubbed an invitation from the Queen to attend a state banquet with Mr Trump and his wife Melania at Buckingham Palace on Monday, despite having previously attended a similar event to honour China’s communist ruler.
Yesterday he took part in a rally against the US President in London, accusing him of creating a ‘sense of hate’ in the US.
Speaking moments later at a joint press conference with Theresa May, Mr Trump revealed the Labour leader had asked to meet him during his visit.
Asked about Mr Corbyn’s hostile stance, he said he did ‘not know him, never met him, never spoke to him’, adding: ‘He wanted to meet today or tomorrow and I decided I would not do that. I think he is, from where I come from, somewhat of a negative force.
‘I really don’t like critics as much as I like and respect people who get things done – so I decided not to meet.’ Mr Trump dismissed the London protest in Parliament Square, which was much smaller than those that greeted his first official trip to the UK last year.
Demonstrators flew a ‘ Baby Trump’ blimp as the President’s motorcade made its way to Downing Street, while a 16ft robot of the US leader sitting on a gold toilet was put in Trafalgar Square.
Labour confirmed that Mr Corbyn had sought a private meeting with Mr Trump, despite opposing his visit to the UK. SNP MP Stephen Gethins said Mr Corbyn was guilty of ‘hypocrisy on several levels’.
He added: ‘It seems that Jeremy Corbyn was desperately trying to get a meeting with Donald Trump and then, at the very time he would have been having the meeting if he had not been spurned, went out to protest against his visit. That truly is hypocritical.’
With Mrs May announcing her departure and UK politics in turmoil, Mr Trump is taking the opportunity to hold private talks with a string of senior politicians, including Tory leadership candidates Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, and even former Tory Cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson. But Labour’s hostile approach to the state visit has irritated the Trump camp and, despite the possibility that Mr Corbyn could be prime minister before the end of the year, the President rejected the idea of a meeting. Mr Trump also continued his war of words with Labour’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who he branded a ‘stone cold loser’ on his arrival in the UK.
Mr Khan yesterday described Mr Trump as the ‘poster boy of the far-Right’. Mr Trump responded: ‘He has been a not very good mayor, from what I understand. He has done a poor job, crime is up, a lot of problems, and I don’t think he should be criticising a representative of the US that can do so much good for the UK.
‘He should be positive not negative – he is a negative force not a positive force.’
Other senior Labour figures have branded Mr Trump a ‘fascist’.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry launched an extraordinary attack on him, saying he has ‘grabbed women and boasted about it’, adding: ‘He is a sexual predator, he is a racist.’
Mrs May warned Labour against alienating Britain’s closest ally.
She said the state visit was a vehicle to discuss ‘the future of this most important relationship between the US and the UK’. She added: ‘It is this deep and special relationship that ensures our safety and security and that of others around the world.’
Organisers who had optimistically forecast 250,000 protesters would attend yesterday’s event were forced to concede it had attracted far fewer people than hoped. Estimates suggested that just a few tens of thousands of protesters turned up, with many leaving early because of the rain.
Mr Trump dismissed the protests as ‘fake news’ and said he had seen ‘thousands’ of supporters on the streets, waving American flags. Scotland Yard said 3,182 officers policed the protest. Only one arrest was made – a woman in possession of a knife.
‘That truly is hypocritical’
‘I like people who get things done’
A GIANT 20ft inflatable lampooning Donald Trump as a big baby. A talking robot of the US President on a gold toilet.
Bang on cue, the usual gaggle of shrieking professional demonstrators and hard-Left diehards swooped on Westminster with a series of juvenile stunts intended to humiliate the leader of our closest ally.
Luckily, they could protest without fear of repression, for 75 years ago courageous British and US troops fought and died to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny. Mr Trump was here to commemorate the anniversary of D-Day – and the awesome sacrifices made in freedom’s name.
Was this irony lost on Jeremy Corbyn as he addressed the shrill, hate- filled mob (alongside, incredibly, a fanatic who defended the killing of UK soldiers in Iraq)? Probably.
Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry backed her Marxist leader’s refusal to attend a State banquet for Mr Trump, escalating the infantile virtue-signalling by calling the President a ‘racist sex predator’.
How rich for a party that turns a blind eye to the most vile anti-Semitism and refuses to suspend a senior Corbyn acolyte accused of sexual harassment.
Miss Thornberry also ludicrously claimed it was ‘different’ when the Labour leader attended a dinner for Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. Indeed it is. One is a communist tyrant who serially abuses human rights, and the other is the democratically-elected leader of the free world.
No prizes for guessing which one the lunatic Left-wing despise. Yes, the President has myriad faults. But, terrifyingly, Labour could be in power within months.
In volatile times, the national interest in nurturing good relations with our strongest ally is plain for everyone to see.