Trump-May tension ramps up
Retweeted videos lead to call to rescind queen’s invitation
LONDON — As British Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump traded criticism Thursday over his retweets of a farright group’s anti-Muslim videos, British lawmakers called the U.S. leader a hate peddler and urged May’s government to revoke an invitation for Trump to visit Britain as a guest of Queen Elizabeth II.
The shift in tone comes 10 months after Trump’s proclamation — a few days after his inauguration — of the strength of a
“most special relationship” between the two countries.
The tension began after Trump, who has almost 44 million Twitter followers, on Wednesday retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by a leader of the far-right group Britain First. The tiny group regularly posts inflammatory videos purporting to show Muslims engaged in acts of violence but without providing context or supporting information.
The U.K. ambassador in Washington, Kim Darroch, complained to the White House, and May’s spokesman said the president was wrong to retweet the group’s content.
Trump responded with a tweet urging May to focus on “the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom” instead of on him.
May countered Thursday that “we take the need to deal with the terrorist threat very seriously,” and she rebuked Trump, the leader of Britain’s closest ally.
“The fact that we work together does not mean that we are afraid to say when we think that the United States have got it wrong and to be very clear with them,” May said Thursday during a visit to Amman, Jordan. “I am very clear that retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan was one of many politicians urging the government to scrap the still-unscheduled state visit by Trump that first was announced during May’s trip to Washington in January.
Khan, the British capital’s first Muslim mayor, said the American president had promoted “a vile, extremist group” and an official visit by him “would not be welcomed.”
In the House of Commons on Thursday, lawmakers criticized Trump in unusually blunt language. Labor’s Naz Shah accused him of promoting “the hate-filled ideology of fascism.” Conservative Tim Loughton said Twitter should take down Trump’s account for peddling “hate crime.”
Labor Party lawmaker Kevin Brennan said the 91-year-old queen has a busy year coming up with the anticipated birth of a new great-grandchild, and the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May.
“Don’t those facts alone justify the government announcing a postponement of the state visit by the president of the United States for at least, say, three years?” he asked.
The chill between London and Washington comes as the United Kingdom prepares to leave the European Union and forge new economic relationships around the world.
May was the first world leader to meet with Trump after he took office in January partly because Britain is eager to strike a free trade deal with the U.S. after it leaves the EU in 2019.
But the prime minister’s bid to nurture a close relationship with the unpredictable president has not gone according to plan.
Trump greeted May with warm words, and even briefly held her hand as the two leaders walked along a colonnade at the White House.
Within hours of May’s departure, Trump signed an order banning travel to the U.S. from several majority Muslim countries. House of Commons Speaker John Bercow said soon afterward that Trump would not be invited to address Parliament during his state visit, an honor given to President Barack Obama and other world leaders.
Analysts predicted Thursday that the trans-Atlantic relationship would be strong and important enough to survive the current strain.
“The core U.K.-U.S. special relationship is cooperation in nuclear weapons, special forces and intelligence,” said Tim Oliver, an expert in Europe-North America relations at the London School of Economics. “That core has traditionally been protected from the vagaries of presidential and prime ministerial relations.
“Trump, however, is testing it in ways we’ve not seen before.”
Emily Thornberry, the Labor Party’s foreign affairs spokesman, said May had made an error in judgment in inviting Trump so soon after he took office.
“We ought to be holding him at arm’s length,” Thornberry told Sky News. “She’s put the queen in this incredibly invidious position.”
May insisted Thursday that the visit was still on — though she suggested it was not imminent.
“An invitation for a state visit has been extended and has been accepted,” she said. “We have yet to set a date.”
In addressing May in his tweet late Wednesday, Trump initially got the wrong woman.
Trump’s tweet arrived at 1 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, when many Britons were fast asleep. But the target of his tweet was not the prime minister of the United Kingdom as he had intended but in fact another woman named Theresa May Scrivener who had just six followers and a protected account.
Trump’s error was met with shock and amusement, and it left many Britons questioning who Theresa May Scrivener was.
Screen-grabs of the presidential error were taken and shared within seconds. The initial tweet reads: “Theresa theresamay, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!” Trump’s tweet was soon deleted.
Some 14 minutes later Trump tried again. This time he mentioned the correct Twitter handle and targeted the actual prime minister of the United Kingdom. Trump kept the wording of his second attempt the same.
Theresa May Scrivener broke her silence Thursday.
“If I wanted to be famous I would have gone on X-Factor,” she told The Press Association in an interview. “I was in bed by half-ten last night and oblivious to it all. I’m just waiting for a call from the White House with an apology.”
“I’m just glad he was not contacting me to say he was going to war with North Korea,” she added.