British lawmakers are due to debate whether to stop US President Donald Trump’s state visit because it would “cause embarrassment” to the queen.
Parliament will also debate a counter-petition that argues Trump should make a state visit to Britain “because he is the leader of a free world and the UK is a country that supports free speech and does not believe people opposed to our point of view should be gagged”.
Britons across the country are expected to take to the streets as parliament prepares to discuss the anti-Trump petition signed by 1.8mn people determined to put a stop to the president’s royal reception. However, the government has insisted it will go ahead with the visit, for which no date has yet been set.
About 16,000 people have said they will attend a protest in London’s Parliament Square organized by campaigners “Defend Migrants, Stop Trump” on Facebook.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan spoke out against the visit, citing Trump’s “cruel and shameful” immigration policies against Muslim-majority countries in an interview Sunday with ITV News.
British Prime Minister Theresa May was quick to offer the hand of friendship to US President Donald Trump, jetting over to the United States as the first world leader to meet him and extending an invitation to Britain for a state visit within a week of his inauguration.
May’s haste has been called into question, with many pointing out that it is unprecedented for a US president to be welcomed for a state visit in their first year in office — let alone to be invited within days.
According to records, only two US presidents have been given the full ceremonial treatment.
Then-president Obama visited Britain in March 2009, just two months after he took office. But Obama had to wait for 26 more months for an official welcome from the queen.
Even president George W Bush, with whom Tony Blair took great pains to build a relationship, had to wait 33 months for his royal reception in 2003.
Not to be confused with official visits, a state visit sees world leaders hosted personally by Queen Elizabeth II.
They receive a ceremonial welcome followed by a lavish state banquet in Buckingham Palace.
Lord Peter Ricketts, the former head of the Foreign Office, which advises the queen on whom to invite, told BBC Radio 4 in late January that an official visit would have been more appropriate.
Trump could still have tea with the queen, Lord Ricketts said, but without the “full panoply, the full accolade of a state visit quite so quickly”.
May’s rush to invite may be explained by the fact that she is under pressure to make good on her promise that Britain can forge its own trade deals independent of the European Union single market after its exit from the bloc, and has the US in her sights as a trading partner.
She has also faced competition in her attempts to rekindle the British-American “special relationship” from former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, who bonded with Trump over Brexit.
Flattering the new president with a state visit may seem like a quick-fix solution, but the backlash against the decision may harm May’s credibility in the long run.