Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan have led the calls for Donald Trump‘s invitation to the UK to be withdrawn.
Theresa May invited the US president to make an official State Visit a week after his inauguration in January.
Corbyn and Khan’s calls have been enthusiastically backed up by many Labour MPs, the hard-left Momentum group and a host of party supporters.
A petition to call off Trump’s visit was signed more than 2 million times and the campaign appears to have born fruit.
Although there has been no official announcement, in early June Mr Corbyn tweeted, “Cancellation of President Trump’s State Visit is welcome, especially after his attack on London’s mayor & withdrawal from #ParisClimateDeal”
Mr Corbyn’s claim the visit had been cancelled was given credence by reports Mr Trump told Theresa May during a telephone call that he didn’t want to come to the UK at present to avoid the possibility of anarchists and left-wing activists using his visit as an excuse to mount violent protests against him.
An unnamed Downing Street adviser, who claimed to have been present when the call was made, told The Guardian newspaper that Mr Trump informed the PM he didn’t want to visit the UK while there was so much hostility in the country towards him.
The official reason why the visit has not taken place is that a date has still to be decided.
In late June, French president Emmanuel Macron took advantage of this hiatus and invited Mr Trump to France for Bastille Day (July 14th).
The visit was quickly arranged and it seems to have been a considerable success.
Macron and Trump were depicted smiling broadly together at a series of functions in Paris and the two men appear to have developed an excellent relationship.
The French have made no secret of their desire to grasp any benefits and business opportunities in the wake of Brexit. Therefore, to see Macron assiduously positioning France at the head of the queue to make trade deals with the World’s biggest economy will have been a very bitter pill to swallow for many at Westminster and in the UK’s boardrooms.
It’s impossible to put a figure on how much potential business may have been lost by Trump’s UK visit being put on hold but it will undoubtedly be a very significant amount.
The Left’s public antipathy towards Trump has already cost the UK dear but it’s only the start and could easily become far more calamitous.
Whether you approve of Trump or not, to deliberately disrespect the office of the President of The United States and to encourage anti-American feelings is stupid. As the old saying goes “it’s biting off your nose to spite your face”.
The hostility of Jeremy Corbyn, Sadiq Khan and their left-wing supporters towards a sitting president ensure there will be no “special relationship” if the Labour party form the next government.
With Mr Corbyn ensconced in Number 10 Downing Street, the UK would find itself at the back of the business queue with the US.
However, the most dire consequences of the Left’s fibril antipathy towards Mr Trump is its potential to irrevocably damage the bonds of kinship, respect and shared values that have served the UK and the US so well for so long.