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The galleries at Westminster Hall were packed, and demonstrators filled Parliament Square outside, as Britain’s House of Commons on Monday debated President Trump’s upcoming state visit and whether the welcome mat should be pulled.
A total of 1.85 million United Kingdom residents have signed a petition to keep Trump out for the duration of his presidency. A debate in the House of Commons is automatically triggered by 100,000 signatures.
In words of the petition, Trump’s “well-documented misogyny and vulgarity disqualified him from being received by Her Majesty to Queen or the Prince of Whales.”
A competing petition, saying Trump should be invited, “because he is the leader of a free world,” drew 311,000 signatures.
Prime Minister Theresa May extended the invite barely a week into Trump’s presidency. President Obama waited 758 days to receive an invitation, and George W. Bush received his after 978 days in the White House.
When he crosses The Pond, Trump will receive a royal welcome from Queen Elizabeth II. He will be feted in a military ceremony and will review a guard of honor. The President will process to Buckingham Palace, perhaps by carriage, and be honored with a formal state banquet.
It’s all too much for Scottish MP Alex Salmond, a former Scottish first minister, who said: “As an example of fawning subservience . . . the Prime Minister’s holding hands across the ocean visit would be difficult to match.”
“What exactly are the shared values that this House, this country, would hope to have with Donald Trump.”
In the words of veteran Labour Party MP Paul Flynn: “The intellectual capacity of the President is protozoan.”
Flynn noted Trump’s complaints about vote fraud, excuses for losing the popular vote, and the multiple untruths flowing from the lips of the 45th President. Trump is, he said, behaving “like a petulant child.”
Conservative MP Julian Lewis, chairman of the Commons’ defense committee, argued for the visit, given the United States’ role in defending Europe and preventing war.
“If you knew that it’d make a significant difference to bringing him on side to continuing the policies that prevented a conflagration on that scale, do you really think it is more important to berate him, castigate him and encourage him to retreat into some sort of bunker?” asked Lewis.
Conservative MP Nigel Evans had words of praise for Trump, saying he sees “no evidence that he is racist” and noting that Britain feted China’s president 10 years after the Tienanmen Square massacre and, “Where was the protest?”
“He (Trump) is going to go down in history as being roundly condemned as the only politician to deliver on his promises,” said Evans.
The House of Commons is required to debate petitions. It dd not actually conduct a vote on whether Trump is welcome.
The Commons has been here before. Last year, 500,000 British citizens signed a petition asking that Trump be barred from the United Kingdom. Trump has extensive golf holdings, and has conducted extensive feuds, in Scotland.
Then-Prime Minister David Cameron denounced Trump’s views as “stupid and wrong”, particularly his call for a Muslim ban, but saw no reason to bar him from the British Isles.
A state visit raises the scales.
“We didn’t do this for Kennedy, we didn’t do this for Truman, we didn’t do this for Reagan,” said Labour MP David Lammy. “I think this country is greater than that . . . I’m ashamed, frankly, that it has come to this.”
Queen Elizabeth II has been through 109 state visits by foreign rulers during 65 years on the throne.
She has gone through some with stiff upper lip, while enjoying U.S. visitors as disparate as Ronald Reagan and Barack and Michelle Obama. The first President Bush took her to a baseball game at Baltimore’s Camden Yards, where thousands of fans mimicked the Queen’s wave.
Elizabeth II has received visits from such odious figures as Zimbawe’s leader-for-life Robert Mugabe, Indonesia’s corrupt President Suharto, and Italy’s libertine mogul-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
One key question about the Trump visit remains unanswered. Will The Donald be invited to address the House of Commons?
The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow — heard often shouting “Order! Order!” during Monday’s debate — has set off a row with right-wing Conservatives by saying Trump should not be invited to speak at Westminster. The privilege of addressing Parliament, said Bercow, is not an “automatic right” but an “earned honor.”
Labour MP Diane Abbott, Labour’s shadow Home Secretary, put it bluntly during debate Monday, arguing:
“I would say that Donald Trump has done nothing to be honored for. As for Donald Trump addressing MPs in Parliament, that was an honour reserved for people like Nelson Mandela. How can anybody think that would be appropriate for Donald Trump.”
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