King Charles’s US state go to must be delayed to keep away from the monarch being ’embarrassed’ by the Iran battle, Labour peer claims

King Charles‘s US state visit should be delayed to avoid his Majesty being ’embarrassed’ by the backdrop of the Iran War, a Labour peer has said.

Dame Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs committee, said that she believes it would be ‘safer’ to delay the King’s visit to the US, which is reportedly scheduled for next month, due to the ongoing fighting in the Middle East.

The visit has not yet been formally announced, but Charles, 77, and Camilla, 78, are expected to visit Washington and New York to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence ahead of the July 4 celebrations.

Dame Thornberry, MP for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning: ‘If it was to go ahead, it would go ahead against a backdrop of a war and that, I think, is quite difficult – and the last thing that we want to do is to have their Majesties embarrassed’.

The Dame is the latest of several politicians to call for its delay or cancellation over fighting in Iran, like Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey earlier this month and ex-US ambassador Sir Peter Westmacott.

Asked if she was in favour of delaying the proposed visit, Dame Thornberry said: I don’t know what the programme would involve, but I think it needs to be thought through very carefully as to whether or not is appropriate to go ahead now, or to maybe have a limited programme or delay it – but we can’t just pretend that there isn’t a background of war.’

She added: ‘I suspect it would be safer to delay it but I don’t know the details’ 

President Donald Trump has a warm history with King Charles after his own unprecedented second state visit to Windsor, where a grand banquet was held last September.

Trump said afterwards it was ‘one of the highest honours of my life’ and hailed Charles as a ‘wonderful’ King.

Despite the growing pace of calls to postpone or cancel the visit, the president personally believes that Charles will be visiting. He said yesterday that the ‘King of England, a great guy, he’s coming in very soon’ when talking about his controversial White House ballroom, which is due to be finished in 2028.

Buckingham Palace said whether the trip was postponed was a matter for the Government, with state visits undertaken on the advice of the Foreign Office.

Dame Thornberry took aim at Donald Trump himself, saying that he is a president ‘who indulges in the most extraordinary abusive behaviour of leaders and their countries, putting private messages into the public and insulting entire countries and mimicking fellow leaders and that sort of thing‘.

Sir Peter Westmacott, one of the UK’s most senior diplomats, who was ambassador to the US from 2012 to 2016, shared Dame Emily’s misgivings about the King’s proposed state visit, saying it would be ‘problematic’.

He told The Royals podcast that the government had ‘a duty to protect the monarchy in a situation like this’ and ‘a duty to reflect public opinion in this country’. 

He said: ‘I personally think that at the moment … while this war is continuing … it is problematic. The United States government is conducting a war, which the British government initially thought clearly was illegal.

‘Both the prime minister and I imagine the palace will be asking themselves, ‘What does British public opinion really feel about this? How will a state visit to the United States at this time be perceived, how will it be felt? Is this indicative of the King … endorsing what the president of the United States is doing?’

‘While this goes on, that must be a matter for discussion.’

A recent YouGov poll found 46 per cent of Britons believe the King should cancel the official visit and not travel to the US this year, while 36 per cent said it should go ahead and 18 per cent did not know. 

Sir Ed Davey has led calls from MPs to cancel the visit since the start of the war. 

He said at the beginning of the month: ‘A state visit from our King would be seen as yet another huge diplomatic coup for President Trump, so it should not be given to someone who repeatedly insults and damages our country.’ 

He added: ‘At a time when Trump has launched an illegal war that is devastating the Middle East and pushing up energy bills for British families, it’s clear this visit should not go ahead.’

Trump has been openly criticising Keir Starmer and other NATO allies over lack of enthusiasm to help out the US-Israeli war in Iran.

The president said Starmer was ‘no Winston Churchill’ when he denied him the use of UK bases for the initial strike on Iran at the end of February and said that the UK’s approach to the conflict in Iran was ‘terrible’.

Starmer has also said the UK will not be drawn into a ‘wider war’ so would not be sending warships to help the US secure and reopen the Strait of Hormuz – a vital global oil shipping lane on the coast of Iran – which has been shut by Iranian forces amid the fighting.

Other European countries followed suit, with German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz saying the Iran war was not a matter for NATO. Paris also said it would not deploy naval forces to the Strait while Finland said it would not escalate the conflict through military action.

The President lashed out yesterday and said NATO would have a ‘very bad future’ if help was refused and today said he would ‘remember’ who did not send support when the dust settles in the Middle East.

He added that NATO member should get involved ‘quickly and with great enthusiasm’ and said that Japan and China should step up as the price of oil remains in a choke hold due to the Strait being closed. The cost of Brent crude oil was at $104 dollars this morning.

However, with the special relationship in jeaopardy, Kemi Badenoch said that the state visit should go ahead.

The Conservative leader remarked that the king represents ‘standards which both Keir Starmer and Donald Trump could actually learn from.’

She said: ‘The relationship is between the US and the UK, not between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer.

‘The King is our head of state and actually, he’s going for a very significant anniversary, the 250th anniversary of American independence.

‘So I do think that makes sense and it also reminds people that there are some people who are above this diplomatic row.

‘I think the king is a huge asset to our country. He is very much loved. He represents so much about our country – history, tradition – and I think the standards which both Keir Starmer and Donald Trump could actually learn from.’

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the tensions with the US make the King’s planned visit ‘even more imperative’.

He said: ‘There are considerable tensions between the American president and British prime minister, that is true, and they appear to be worsening frankly by the day.

‘I would say that makes the King’s visit even more imperative, even more imperative.

‘There is absolutely no question that Trump has a sort of awe-like respect, he did for the Queen, that’s for certain and he genuinely likes Charles, I know that.

‘No, the King’s visit becomes even more important… without America we are defenceless, defenceless, so whatever short-term disagreements there may have been, we have to reach a working relationship whilst not necessarily always agreeing on everything.

‘So the King’s visit absolutely must go ahead.’

Royal author Robert Hardman backed Badenoch and Farage’s calls and also believes, despite the ‘problematic’ nature of the visit, that it should still go ahead.

He told the Today Programme: ‘Of course, it’s going to be problematic but I think it will be more problematic to cancel or postpone because this state visit has been held against a very specific date, and I think that date allows the King and the Government to sort of switch the focus away from the war, which is the 250th birthday of the United States.

‘It’s 250 years since independence, and that’s why this visit was originally planned for this year and it’s going to be big, as Trump would say. You can frame a visit against sort of deeper, longer lasting relationships.’

He added: ‘The news agenda moves so fast and history shows us that the monarchy does help, does sort of apply a certain sort of balm when the so-called special relationship stops being special, and we’ve seen that time and again.’