God save the Queen ... from Trump: Petition
PROSPECT OF PROTESTS PUTS QUEEN IN ‘DIFFICULT POSITION’
Should Donald Trump be received by the Queen? More than 1.6 million Britons believe she should be saved from the embarrassment of meeting him and have now forced parliament to debate the issue.
An online petition calling for Trump’s state visit to the U. K. to be cancelled went viral following the president’s immigration ban targeting Muslim-majority countries.
“Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the U. K. in his capacity as head of the U. S. Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen,” the petition says.
While lawmakers don’t have the power to rescind the invitation — issued by Prime Minister Theresa May when she met Trump recently — the petition forces parliament to debate the matter on Feb. 20.
The debate puts May in an awkward position and shows what an antagonizing figure Trump has be- come, even outside the U.S.
A state visit is a carefully choreographed event and involves grand pageantry in the heart of London.
The Queen and other senior royals greet visitors with a ceremonial welcome, usually on Horse Guards Parade, followed by a horse carriage procession to Buckingham Palace. A multi-gun salute is fired from Green Park and the Tower of London, and there is traditionally a formal banquet with roughly 150 guests gathered in the palace ballroom.
There is usually a stay with the royal family at either Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. Trump has said his mother, who born in Scotland, was an ardent supporter of the monarch.
The prospect of protests outside the palace when Trump comes calling has put the Queen in a “very difficult position,” said Peter Ricketts, formerly a top official in the Foreign Office.
In a letter to The Times Tuesday, Ricketts said the “state visit” should be downgraded to a lower level “official visit” to spare the monarch any embarrassment. He said the offer should not have been made in the first days of Trump’s administration.
“It would have been far wiser to wait and see what sort of president he would turn out to be before advising the Queen to invite him,” Ricketts said.
However, William Hague, former Conservative leader and a former foreign affairs minister, said the Queen could easily handle a Trump visit.
“A Queen who has been asked over the decades to host tyrants such as Presidents Mobuto of Zaire and Ceausescu of Romania is going to take a brash bill i onaire f rom New York effortlessly in her stride,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
The Queen, who has famously never given an interview in her more than six decades as monarch, has steered clear of any politi cal commentary. Prince Charles, her son, tends to speak out on issues he cares about.
On Monday, as the controversy over Trump raged on, the heir to the throne said that he fears the lessons of the Second World War have been forgotten.
He was speaking at a f undraiser f or a Jewish charity that helps Syrian refugees and shared a platform with the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who criticized Trump for his “totally unacceptable” travel ban on seven mainly Muslim countries.
Prince Charles never mentioned Trump but did say it was vital to “reach across the boundaries of faith and community ... particularly at a time when the horrific lessons of the last War seem to be in increasing danger of being forgotten”.
Royal aides insisted that the Prince’s speech was written a week ago and that he was repeating his long- held views against religious persecution, and was not aiming at Trump.
But his comments were widely interpreted as a message to the U. S. president; on social media they were described as “a veiled warning” and “a shot at Donald Trump”.
Meanwhile, Labour and Tory MPs are also trying to stop Trump addressing Parliament.
Sarah Wollaston, a Conservative MP, said the privilege should be “reserved for leaders who have made an outstanding positive difference in the world”.
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