Issue a a prohibition order
Britain’s ambassador to the US made a formal protest yesterday.
Theresa May condemned the president’s decision on Wednesday to share propaganda videos tweeted by the deputy leader of Britain First and is expected to address the issue again in a speech in the Middle East on Thursday.
But government sources revealed that Sir Kim Darroch, the ambassador to Washington, had already raised the issue formally.
In Westminster, MPs lined up to condemn the president’s behaviour, and urge the government to formally cancel the state visit invitation made by May when she became the first world leader to visit the Trump White House last year.
But the home secretary said nope we’re not going to cancel…but she also said that no date had been sent. Could be one of those jam tomorrow things.
Privately, government ministers do not expect such a visit to take place in the foreseeable future, amid concerns about the possibility of widespread protests.
And there’s zero reason to think Trump will become less awful (and plenty of reason to think he will only become worse), so “foreseeable future” probably means ever.
Chris Bryant, a senior Labour backbencher, has written to May urging her to go further, and officially ban Trump from entering the UK on the grounds he is condoning fascism and his presence is “not conducive to the public good”.
Bryant, a former Foreign Office minister, said the prime minister should issue a prohibition order against the president like those that apply to other far-right figures from the US.
Wouldn’t that be great? It won’t happen, but it’s a lovely fantasy.
He cited the cases of two US far-right bloggers, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who were banned by May in 2013 from entering the UK to take part in English Defence League rallies, as precedents for taking action against Trump.
In his letter to May, he said: “I am writing to you to ask you and the home secretary to take immediate action to ban the president of the United States, Donald Trump, from entering the United Kingdom, due to his apparent support for far-right groups in this country.
“In retweeting Jayda Fransen’s posts, it is absolutely clear to me that President Trump is supporting and condoning fascism and far-right activity. This activity has frequently taken the form of violence on our streets. Ms Fransen herself has a long history of racism and Islamophobia, some of it criminal. Many of the people you have rightly banned from entering the UK were guilty of less than this.”
In parliament, Doughty said the president’s decision to share Britain First material showed he was “racist, unthinking or incompetent – or all three”.
Oh yes, he’s all three, and more.
You could send them a list.
Let’s see, add Narcissistic, Misogynist, Homophobic, Abusive, Vulgar…
I may need a new dictionary to cover all the things Trump is – and I might as well erase words like Altruistic, Intelligent, Compassionate, Competent, Focused, Generous…
Some of us, in a spirit of schadenfreude, would actually like the visit to take place. Anti-Trump feeling is very strong here. The protests would be historic…
Yes, but the protest the day after the inauguration was historic, yet it made no apparent dent in Trump.
Oh, I didn’t say it would achieve anything. Except to get in his face, which seems like a worthy enough goal.
Fair enough.
It would be a thing of beauty to see Trump wait and wait in front of the cameras to be greeted by QEII, only for it to become apparent that she was refusing to come out a see him. Especially if you could arrange a crowd of jeering people (around a million) to point at him and mock as he left for the airport. Better still, arrange everyone including he Police to moon him on the way.
Madge is subtler than that… actually she’s savvy enough to make sure there is no possibility of the two of them coming face to face. Or within several miles of each other.
It was estimated that there were about two million people who were planning on protesting Trump’s visit. How many of them get together in one place really depends on where the visit was held, but when it was suggested he visit the reasonably-inaccessible Balmoral estate there was much quite serious discussion about hiring coaches and even trains to transport protestors there… London is easy in comparison.
I strongly suspect the visit won’t come off. May’s government really don’t want him here, the security would be horrendously complicated and expensive – far more people are likely to want to harm Trump than pretty much any other Head of State who has visited the UK, and there would be protests on a scale that would be potentially very embarrassing.
So I think Ophelia hit it on the head. It’s “jam tomorrow.”
After all they can simply say “Not just yet” until the time runs out.
Madge? I still like Brenda.
I think that’s what will happen.
Brenda’s good too!
But Steamshovelmama, I don’t want subtlety. I want Trump publicly humiliated.
I’d like to see the kinds of placards that anti-Trump demonstrators would come up with, from the inevitable “Down With This Sort of Thing”, to the idiosyncratic “Piss Off Home, You Utter Wanker”, and everything in between. It would be nice to imagine Donnie having to work his tiny brain to simply understand what some of the signs even meant… even though he’d probably avoid them if he could, and refuse to think about them if he couldn’t.
Well, didn’t they have state visits from Mugabe?