State Dept. Puts Trump Visit to Britain on Ice After President’s Anti-Muslim Tweets Chill Special Relationship
‘He Should Be Treated as Anyone Else Who Breaks the Law, and Charged With Inciting Racial Hatred’
President Donald Trump will not be flying across the pond to the UK any time soon. The U.S. Department of State has now postponed the president’s January working visit to Britain in the wake of international outrage over Trump’s Wednesday morning anti-Muslim hate tweets. The president three times retweeted the acting head of Britain First, a far right wing white ultranationalist anti-Islam neo-Fascist British political group. Those tweets, one of which was “fake news,” were designed to incite hatred and violence against Muslims.
Calling it “a war of words between the two countries’ leaders,” The Telegraph Thursday evening reports “the trip has been pushed into the long grass, with no new date in the diary picked.”
This is not the first time a Trump visit to the UK has been scrubbed. Trump was to visit earlier in his presidency, but quietly canceled when it became clear protests would be extreme.Â
As it is, Trump’s January visit was scaled down and considered a working visit, not an official visit, to ensure he did not meet with the Queen, thus embarrassing her.
On Wednesday and Thursday reaction to Trump’s hate tweets drew strong condemnation from British lawmakers, some who called for his trip to be canceled, others who called for him to be banned from entering the country.
Trump “has disgraced himself again and again, and he worries us because his impulsive finger is on the nuclear button,” a Labour Member of Parliament said Thursday, the Evening Standard reported.
“If he’s allowed to come to this country now, he should be treated as anyone else who breaks the law, and charged with inciting racial hatred.
“The Government should withdraw the invitation.”
Earlier this year an official UK Government petition demanding Trump be prevented from making an official state visit to the UK garnered nearly 1.9 million signatures.Â
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