A hate mob and no room at the Palace... WELCOME, MR PRESIDENT!
Activists vow to hold huge demos ...and launch new giant baby blimp
ACTIVISTS opposed to Donald Trump last night threatened to stage mass demonstrations to overshadow the President’s first state visit to Britain.
Buckingham Palace announced yesterday that Mr Trump and his wife Melania would make a three-day trip in June to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
The President will be enjoy a lavish banquet hosted by the Queen – but will not get a carriage ride down The Mall because of security fears. Opponents of Mr Trump – with apparent encouragement from Labour – yesterday warned they would attempt to spoil the visit from June 3 to 5 with angry protests.
They vowed to outdo demonstrations last July when more than 100,000 people flooded the streets of London during a working visit by Mr Trump.
They also threatened a five times bigger version of the 20ft ‘baby blimp’ which flew over the capital in mockery of the US leader.
The four-day visit last year – when Mr Trump mainly avoided London – cost more than £14million to police. Asad Rehman, of the Stop Trump Coalition, warned that the campaign of civil disobedience by climate change protesters in London in recent days would be ‘nothing compared to what will be out on the streets with people opposing Donald Trump’.
He told BBC Radio 4: ‘It’s simply a disastrous move from the Government and it should not be taking place. We will be planning a huge mobilisation of people.
‘I think we will be easily expecting way more than the 250,000 people who turned out last time. It will be very visual, it will be very creative, it will be a carnival atmosphere, but people will be seeking to make sure that Donald Trump doesn’t have the photo-opportunity that he wants.’
Mr Rehman said of the blimp: ‘Wherever it flies, it will be close to Buckingham Palace and Donald Trump will have no option but to see himself up there in the sky. We think it’s important we send a powerful signal to Donald Trump – he’s a climate change denier and fosters bigotry and hatred.”
Sabby Dhalu, from Stand Up To Trump, claimed the US leader was ‘the world’s No1 racist, warmonger and misogynist’.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan told BBC News: ‘I think there will be protests – it does not take a crystal ball to predict that. Many of the things this President has said people find objectionable – the amplification of tweets from racists, for example, and some of his views around people who belong to my [Muslim] faith.
‘One of the great things about living in a democracy is that people will make their views known. The key thing is that any protest is peaceful and lawful as well.’
Other senior Labour figures lined up to criticise the decision to go ahead with the state visit, first promised by Theresa May shortly after Mr Trump entered the White House.
Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said the President had ‘systematically assaulted all the shared values that unite our two countries’.
She added: ‘Unless Theresa May is finally going to stand up to him and object to that behaviour, she has no business wasting taxpayers’ money on all the pomp, ceremony and policing costs that will come with this visit.’ Labour MP David Lammy described Mr Trump as ‘deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic’, adding: ‘Theresa May is selling out the UK to a serial liar and a cheat.’
Shadow Treasury minister Clive Lewis urged protesters to ‘dust off the blimp’. During the visit, Mr Trump will join the national commemorations of the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Portsmouth.
But the Liberal Democrat leader of the city council yesterday said the President should not attend.
Gerald Vernon- Jackson stressed: ‘I am disappointed because it will change the nature of the event a great deal.
‘With Donald Trump coming, I think the chances are that it will move from being around commemoration and instead it will be a day of controversy.’ He added: ‘If he hasn’t learnt the lessons of World War Two then why he is he coming here?’
Last year Mr Trump’s trip to the UK saw almost 10,000 police deployed, with nearly every force in the country providing staff to support the operation.
This time the President is expected to be invited to address MPs and peers in the Lords to get around a ban on him addressing Parliament by Commons Speaker John Bercow. Mrs May yesterday hailed the visit as a chance for the UK and the US ‘to strengthen our already close relationship’, while the White House said it would ‘reaffirm the steadfast and special relationship’ between the two nations.
Mr Trump is only the third US President to be afforded a state visit, after George W Bush in 2003 and Barack Obama in 2011.
‘See himself up there in the sky’
Even before Buckingham Palace had made the announcement yesterday, the usual suspects were up in arms. The mere prospect of the democratically elected leader of our greatest ally setting foot on British soil had kickstarted mass hysteria masquerading as high-minded piety.
Westminster’s shoutiest rent- a- quote MP, Labour’s David Lammy, declared: ‘Donald Trump is no friend of Britain. He is not fit to hold public office, let alone worthy of a banquet with the Queen.’
Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry was quick to echo him, harrumphing: ‘This is a president who has systematically assaulted all the shared values that unite our countries. Unless Theresa May is finally going to stand up to him, she has no business wasting taxpayers’ money on all the pomp, ceremony and policing costs.’
So we can take it that’s a ‘No’ to Ms Thornberry’s state-banquet invitation, then.
Preachy
On Twitter, there was the usual preachy chorus from the perpetually offended. It could be summed up thus: Donald Trump is not nice, so nice people like us cannot possibly tolerate his presence.
There was also talk of dusting off that ‘ Baby Trump’ helium balloon produced for the last presidential visit and flying it — or a bigger one — over the capital during the state visit.
All these people have clearly missed the point. Mr Trump is not here for sightseeing and royal glad-handing. He is in Europe for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
The vast naval and airborne armadas which left Britain in June 1944 would, unquestionably, change the world for the better. Had D- Day failed, Germany’s stranglehold on Europe would have continued indefinitely — perhaps until atomic weapons settled the matter once and for all.
Historians will debate the ‘what-ifs’ for years to come, but all agree the Normandy landings were a stunning feat of arms and strategy.
It is why the Mail is proud to support the campaign for the Normandy Memorial to the 22,442 British troops who fell there. This was a joint operation by Britain, the U.S. and the Commonwealth (notably Canada), all of whom are justly proud of the role they played i n liberating France and, thereafter, the rest of Europe.
Certainly, France and other European countries remain indebted to their liberators. Anyone who has previously been in Normandy for the June 6 ceremonies and parades can vouch for that.
Rest assured that if anyone tries to embarrass Mr Trump on French soil, nice President Macron will ensure they are dealt with swiftly and firmly.
Donald Trump is coming to Britain and France as leader of our greatest partner in that heroic wartime alliance.
The American people, even those who would rather stick pins in their eyes than vote Trump, still expect their head of state to represent them at such events and to honour the thousands of Americans who never made it home.
He is not coming as the bombastic, wall-building, skirtchasing, Brexit- loving New York billionaire whom his critics demonise.
He will be in Britain as a guest of the Queen, as a friend and ally, to salute shared endeavours and remind us that we are not quite the bunch of incompetent losers that some of us want to think we are.
At a time when we have never been in greater need of influential friends, how can anyone think it is remotely sensible to blow raspberries at the most influential one of all? It will not just play badly as the U.S. tunes in for the commemorations: it will look appalling.
The Government has asked the Queen to lay on the same welcome she has accorded more than 100 heads of state in 67 years. Many have been representatives of regimes which the bien pensant Left might — with good reason — regard as anathema.
Some have been monsters, notably Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu ( invited by Jim Callaghan’s Labour government in 1978) and Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko (invited by Ted Heath’s Tories in 1973). Both repelled the Queen.
She found Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, so disagreeable that, on spotting them in the Palace gardens, she hid behind a bush. Few have seen her angrier than on the day she learned that Mobutu’s wife, the aptly-named Marie-Antoinette, had smuggled a small dog into the Palace in her luggage.
The monarch was duty bound to endure these tyrants. Yet we heard not a bat- squeak of protest from the Left.
Over the years, there have been a few modest demonstrations against one or two state visitors, notably China’s Jiang Zemin in 1999 and George W. Bush in 2003. However, nothing has compared to the crowds who turned out to show how jolly cross they were about Mr Trump during his official visit to the UK last July.
The same crowds were nowhere to be seen, of course, when, say, sexist Saudi Arabia or forest-burning Indonesia were getting the full royal treatment. Yet they will again hit the streets to raise two fingers to the United States.
Opposed
It is their right, of course. But we should, at least, expect the grown-ups to behave — starting with the Commons Speaker. Most important state visits in recent years have included an invitation to address MPs and peers at Westminster.
Back in 2017, when this state visit was first mooted, John Bercow announced he was ‘strongly opposed’ to any such honour for Mr Trump.
He was grossly over-stepping the mark. Any such address is a joint matter for the Speakers of both the Commons and the Lords in consultation with the Queen’s representative, Black Rod. Between them, they are expected to reflect a consensus, not to parade their own virtues and prejudices.
Mr Bercow was forced to apologise for speaking out of turn. This time, he might also reflect that he is the Joint President of the British-American Parliamentary Group, an honour that goes with the office of Speaker.
If he does decide to ban the elected head of state of the USA, he will have to resign from that position immediately. I suspect he will be shrewd enough to let this one go, and find a pressing alternative engagement on the day.
He should study what happened in 1982 when several Labour MPs — led by Tony Benn — opposed an invitation for President Ronald Reagan to address both Houses. Mr Reagan was not even on a state visit, just an official one.
Exaggerated
There was a further quarrel when the PM, Margaret Thatcher, wanted Mr Reagan to speak in the Great Hall ( where President Obama spoke during his state visit). Labour leader Michael Foot was firmly opposed.
In the end, a deal was agreed whereby Mr Reagan would speak in the palatial (though less prestigious) Royal Gallery while Mr Benn and his cohort boycotted the event. Everyone went home happy.
Let us also hope London’s ineffectual Mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the Metropolitan Police can show a modicum of gravitas and common sense.
Those who want to protest against an elected president — but not a Middle Eastern autocrat — might be narrowminded hypocrites but they must be allowed to exercise this important right.
However, they have to stage their halo-polishing contest within the law. That means proper, rigorous policing, not the sort of fluffy, anything-goes, skateboarding law enforcers we saw during last week’s eco-protests.
The fabled ‘special relationship’ may be greatly exaggerated, and nowhere near as ‘special’ as it once was. For all that, it has achieved great things, none more so than on that chilly dawn 75 years ago.
That should be uppermost in our minds this June, not the double standards of the Left.