The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)

President’s cancelled trip divides Government and City Hall

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Mr Trump’s cancellati­on of a visit to the UK has left the Government and City Hall at loggerhead­s as Boris Johnson accused London Mayor Sadiq Khan of endangerin­g the “special relationsh­ip”.

There was initially confusion as Downing Street was unable to say whether the foreign secretary was speaking for the Government when he said Mr Khan and Jeremy Corbyn were putting the “crucial relationsh­ip at risk”.

Mr Khan had said the president had “got the message” from Londoners and would have been met by “mass peaceful protests” if he went ahead with plans to open the new US embassy in the capital.

A No 10 source said: “Boris expresses himself in his own inimitable way, but we agree that any risk to the crucial US-UK relationsh­ip is not in our country’s best interests.”

Mr Trump said the embassy’s move from Grosvenor Square in the Mayfair district of central London to an “off location” at Nine Elms was a “bad deal”.

Mr Khan said: “It appears that President Trump got the message from the many Londoners who love and admire America and Americans but find his policies and actions the polar opposite of our city’s values of inclusion, diversity and tolerance.”

Then Mr Johnson tweeted: “The US is the biggest single investor in the UK – yet Khan & Corbyn seem determined to put this crucial relationsh­ip at risk.”

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