Senior Labour MP Dame Emily Thornberry, has suggested King Charles should ‘delay’ his trip to the US to avoid being left ’embarrassed’ by President Donald Trump
A senior Labour MP has suggested King Charles should “delay” his trip to the US to avoid being left “embarrassed” by Donald Trump.
The monarch and Queen Camilla are set to meet the erratic US President next month in a much-anticipated state visit. But calls for the visit to be cancelled or postponed are gathering pace as alarm grows over Mr Trump’s increasing attacks on the British government.
Dame Emily Thornberry, a Labour MP and chair of the foreign affairs committee in the Commons, said she suspects it would be “safer to delay it” given the backdrop of the war in Iran.
Asked if it is appropriate for the King’s state visit to go ahead, she said: “If it goes 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 His Majesty, their Majesties, embarrassed.”
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Pressed on whether she thought it should be delayed, Dame Emily told BBC Radio 4: “I don’t know what the discussions are. 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 it’s appropriate to go ahead now, or 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.”
Dame Emily said that at the moment the US has 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”.
She said at times it means saying “no” to Mr Trump, adding: “But it’s not going to last. There will be another President coming and our relationship with the United States will fundamentally remain strong, I believe.”
Last night Mr Trump again turned his fire on Mr Starmer – saying the UK should be “enthusiastically” helping to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route that has been blockaded by Iran. The US President said he was “not happy” with the UK and was “very surprised” over its response to the conflict in the region.
Addressing reporters in Washington, he criticised the PM for not immediately falling in line with his demands. Mr Trump said the US had considered the UK the “Rolls-Royce of allies” but that its response to the war had been “very disappointing.”
He appeared to criticise the PM for seeking the advice of aides on the issue of Hormuz following a call between the two leaders on Sunday, claiming the Prime Minister had said he was “meeting with my team” before making a decision.
It comes after the unpredictable president lashed out at Mr Starmer’s refusal to let UK bases be used in the initial wave of attacks on Iran. Mr Trump told the Financial Times over the weekend: “The UK might be considered the number one ally, the longest serving et cetera and when I asked for them to come, they didn’t want to come,” he told the Financial Times.
“And as soon as we basically wiped out the danger capacity from Iran, they said, ‘oh well we’ll send two ships’, and I said, ‘we need these ships before we win, not after we win’.” And implying the Nato alliance could be at risk, he ominously said: “I’ve long said that Nato is a one-way street.”
Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson said Britain’s relationship with America “will definitely persist”, following Mr Trump’s latest criticism of the PM. He told Sky News: “Different people say different things at different times.
“But if you look behind the words that are said day-to-day, we’ve got a really significant defence and security partnership with the Americans, there’s massive trade between our two countries. The depth of our partnership will definitely persist over time and it’s definitely worth focusing on.”