'Dinosaur' or 'old friend'? MPs split over Donald Trump's controversial visit
5 min read
MPs remain sharply divided on Donald Trump's visit to the UK, as the US President kicked things off by tearing into Theresa May's Brexit plans and heaping praise on Boris Johnson.
The controversial commander-in-chief said the Prime Minister's Chequers Brexit plans - set out in a white paper this week - would "kill" any trade deal with the United States.
And he said Mr Johnson, who quit the Cabinet this week, would make a "great prime minister".
The incendiary comments to The Sun came as Mr Trump enjoyed a lavish dinner with Mrs May at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill.
Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston said President Trump appeared "determined to insult" Mrs May and hit out at his "divisive, dog-whistle rhetoric" on immigration.
Mr Trump told The Sun that Britain was "losing its culture" because of immigration, and repeated a claim that one unnamed British hospital was so badly hit during a crimewave that it had "blood all over the walls".
Ms Wollaston fumed: "If signing up to the Trump world view is the price of a deal, it’s not worth paying."
That view was echoed by Labour's Ben Bradshaw, who accused Britain of kow-towing to Mr Trump for little in return.
"Our Prime Minister is so weak she still rolls out the red carpet for a man who does nothing but insult her," he said. "Humiliating."
'BAD NEWS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT'
Meanwhile, Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas told PoliticsHome she was "deeply worried" Mrs May would be forced to ignore concerns over the environment in a bid to win support from "climate dinosaur" Mr Trump for any post-Brexit trade deal.
The US President has already pulled America out of the Paris climate accords designed to curb global carbon emissions, and taken the axe to the United States' own environmental protection agency.
Ms Lucas said: "I fear that in her enthusiasm to conclude some kind of trade deal with the US, concerns around climate change, concerns around environment protections more generally, are not going to be uppermost in the Prime Minister's mind.
"I don’t think as yet we’ve seen any real guarantees that our environmental standards are going to be upheld in any of those trade negotiations.
"Obviously we will be pushing very hard but the risks of chlorine chicken and probably a lot worse have’t gone away."
She added: "I think in order to save face Theresa May is going to probably feel under pressure to accept a trade agreement on almost any terms. And that’s likely to spell bad news for the environment and for consumer concerns in this country."
Ms Lucas is among MPs who will be joining protests against the US President in London today.
Also hoping to take part is Labour MP LLoyd Russell-Moyle, who said the Prime Minister had shown "a lack of judgement" by choosing to roll out the "red carpet" for Mr Trump.
He told PoliticsHome: "Donald Trump has not particularly furthered global cooperation. He’s not based his work on a rules-based mechanism, those things that provide security and fundamentally provide long-term peace for places.
"And whilst he might be able to badger one or two countries into supporting him and not being nasty to him, it doesn’t create much long-term stability, his kind of approach."
The MP added: "The US is an historical ally and that is always great. But it doesn’t mean that you need to roll out the red carpet when someone is doing something manifestly wrong... What is the point of friendship if you can’t tell your friends when they’re doing something wrong?"
'MOST IMPORTANT ALLY'
But, amid criticism over the multi-million pound policing costs of Mr Trump's visit, Home Office Minister Nick Hurd yesterday stood by the "robust" security measures put in place by the UK to protect the President.
He told MPs: "Any visit from any President of the US is a significant and historical event for this country.
"The reality is that president Trump is the democratically-elected leader of our most important ally and the relationship has enormous consequences for the security and prosperity of all our constituents."
Mr Trump's visit was meanwhile defended by Conservative MP Michael Fabricant, who tore into plans to allow a giant blimp depicting President Trump as a baby to fly over London as part of protests expected to attract tens of thousands.
"The Trump visit protests are a little hypocritical as there have been no similar large protests when despots who have imprisoned thousands of political prisoners have visited the UK," he said.
His fellow Tory backbencher Daniel Kawczynski meanwhile took aim at Mr Trump's critics, saying the "widespread, mob-led, response to President Trump" had left him "very concerned about the future of this country".
"In the post-Brexit world that the UK will inhabit and shape, we should be standing with President Trump in trying to create a world free of tariffs with seamless free trade, rather than supporting the continuation of the status quo - essentially a continental protectionist racket," he wrote in a piece for PoliticsHome's sister title The House magazine.
The Conservative MP added: "We should remember that the US is the UK’s largest single trading partner, accounting for a fifth of all exports, worth over £100 billion a year. The UK should take the generous slice of American pie on offer, rather than a minuscule serving of German sauerkraut."
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