London’s Mayor Says It’s ‘Un-British to Roll Out the Red Carpet’ for Trump

Donald Trump heads to London on Monday for an official
three-day visit, but the city’s mayor is making it known that the U.S.
president isn’t wanted there.

In an Op-Ed
published Saturday in The Observer,
London Mayor Sadiq Khan compared Trump
and other right-wing leaders in Europe to the European dictators of the 1930s
and ’40s and the fascist military juntas of the ’70s and ’80s.

Trump, Khan wrote,
“is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat.”

The mayor cited
Trump’s neo-Nazi-sympathizing
comments following riots in Charlottesville in 2017, his administration’s
policy of stripping
migrant children from their parents and tossing them into cages, and the “deliberate
use of xenophobia, racism and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic.”

Khan also hasn’t
forgotten Trump’s cyberbullying after a 2017 terrorist attack in London that
killed seven and injured dozens more. “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror
attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’ Trump
tweeted at the time.

Khan noted that
Trump has been spending an exorbitant amount
of time as leader of the free world retweeting
Islamophobic and far-right content from racist groups, including those
located in the U.K.

Khan wrote of the
far-right leaders, including Trump:

They are
intentionally pitting their own citizens against one another, regardless of the
horrific impact in our communities. They are picking on minority groups and the
marginalised to manufacture an enemy – and encouraging others to do the same.
And they are constructing lies to stoke up fear and to attack the fundamental
pillars of a healthy democracy – equality under the law, the freedom of the
press and an independent justice system. Trump is seen as a figurehead of this
global far-right movement.

…

That’s why it’s so
un-British to be rolling out the red carpet this week for a formal state visit
for a president whose divisive behaviour flies in the face of the ideals
America was founded upon – equality, liberty and religious freedom.

There are some who
argue that we should hold our noses and stomach the spectacle of honouring
Trump in this fashion – including many Conservative politicians. They say we
need to be realists and stroke his ego to maintain our economic and military
relationship with the US. But at what point should we stop appeasing – and
implicitly condoning – his far-right policies and views? Where do we draw the
line?

That last question is a good one, and many in the U.S. are
having the same debate, centered on whether or not Trump should be impeached (hint: yes,
he should).

Trump and his third wife, Melania, who as first lady
spearheads a nonexistent
anti-cyberbullying campaign grifted from the Obama administration, will be
guests of the Queen on Monday. A small protest is expected outside Buckingham
Palace that day. On Tuesday, Trump will meet with Prime Minister Theresa May.

A massive protest is planned for Tuesday at London’s
Trafalgar Square so that the “world will know that people here reject him
and his toxic politics,” according to protest organizers.

Here’s an ad Sky News is running ahead of Trump’s visit:

And because Trump can’t visit another country without some
sort of scandal as a backdrop, he tried to deny a misogynist comment he made
about Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, in response to comments she made
nearly three years ago.

In an Oval
Office interview published Friday by The
Sun, of all newspapers, Trump called Markle “nasty.” Later, he denied
saying that, although his own campaign tweeted the audio of him saying exactly
that.

In the same denial, Trump tried to rile up his base into attacking
CNN and The New York Times, when the original source of his
comments was his interview with The Sun.
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