Britain should treat Trump with respect
If people want to protest against Donald Trump’s visit to the UK, that is their business. This is a democracy, as is America, and critics of the President’s visit next week will not say anything that he has not heard before. Flying an inflatable Trump baby over the skies of London is a first, yes. But it is also an impotent gesture. Mr Trump won the US presidential election and is now the most powerful man in the world. The Government would be stupid not to welcome him with due courtesy and respect.
Other countries accept that. Emmanuel Macron is light years away from Mr Trump ideologically, and yet offered him a full state visit. Japan, Israel, Poland and others have been happy to roll out the red carpet. The only odd thing about Britain’s invitation is that it wasn’t the first. Mr Trump is the most important leader in the Western world to have embraced Brexit: it is reported that when he telephones Theresa May, he sometimes asks her, “Are you out yet?” So, why haven’t we exploited that connection to our full advantage?
The Left says that Mr Trump is uniquely flawed. Really? The UK has hosted Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping of China. Ken Livingstone, as mayor of London, invited the controversial Muslim scholar Yusuf al-qaradawi. There were protests in many cases, it’s true, but none on the scale of those threatened for the Trump visit, and none with the kind of tacit endorsement Mayor Sadiq Khan has given to the wailing baby balloon by approving its voyage. Nothing would please Mr Khan more than a hostile tweet from Mr Trump. So much online politics is playing to one’s base – and to what gain? Mr Khan has other things he ought to be paying attention to, such as a sharp rise in violent crime.
Tension between Atlantic allies is nothing new. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Edward Heath tried to telephone Richard Nixon, a man he never got on with, but was turned away because, to use Henry Kissinger’s phrase, Mr Nixon was “loaded” and far too drunk to be diplomatic. Nevertheless, a special relationship has persisted regardless of personality, and is reflected in the schedule for Mr Trump’s tour. The President will dine at the house where Winston Churchill, himself half-american, was born. He will hear the sound of the bagpipes, a nod to his mother’s Scottish heritage.
And Brexit, Mr Trump’s object of affection, brings the American Revolution home. In 1776, America broke free of a European empire. Today, Britain is trying to do something quite similar.