LONDON — The British backlash to President Trump picked up steam Thursday with fresh calls to cancel a planned a state visit and Britain’s prime minister standing by her denunciations of Trump’s retweets of a fringe anti-Muslim group.
Prime Minister Theresa May blasted Trump for crossing a line by posting the inflammatory videos on his Twitter page Wednesday — and then warning May to essentially mind her own business and focus on Islamist terror instead of him.
But officials were careful to note that ties with the United States are stronger than the current flare-up with the White House
“It’s increasingly clear that any official visit from President Trump to Britain would not be welcomed,” tweeted London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to hold the office. Khan has repeatedly called for Britain to withdraw an invitation for Trump to visit — and his stance appeared to gain more backing amid the outrage against the president.
In a sign of the disruptive wake unleashed by Trump, Britain’s Home Secretary Amber Rudd had to remind parliament and the public that Britain’s relationship with America was bigger than one president — and that important trade, security and intelligence sharing are ongoing.
The Trump tweets were widely seen in Britain as the kind of exchange he might have been directed at a hostile power, not America’s closest ally, and certainly not one facing both Islamist terrorist attacks at home and fighting alongside the United States against the Islamic State in Syria and elsewhere.
[How Trump elevated a “hateful” fringe group]
British officials were shocked at the personal nature of the tweet against May and the suggestion that Trump was boasting — even gloating — that the United States had no terrorist attacks, while Britain had suffered a string of deadly assaults.
“@Theresa_May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom,” Trump tweeted late Wednesday. We are doing just fine!”
Trump was responded to earlier statements from 10 Downing Street that the president was “wrong” to retweet three anti-Muslim videos from the extremist group Britain First, which describes itself as a defender against growing Islamic influence in Britain.
Trump later deleted and reposted the tweet aimed at May — because he had gotten the social media address of the prime minister wrong — suggesting to many British officials that the president was operating alone in a room without any consultation or support in the White House advisers.
May on Thursday reiterated her stance that Trump was “wrong” to share the anti-Muslim tweets.
But at a news conference in Jordan, she repeatedly deflected questions about Trump’s tweet that criticized her directly. Instead, she spoke about the so-called special relationship, saying it was “an enduring relationship because it is in both our national interests for that relation to be there.”
[Trump blasted Theresa May. He got the wrong woman.]
Asked if she would fire someone from her own senior leadership team if they retweeted the same account that Trump did, she said: “I have absolute confidence that my cabinet ministers would not be retweeting material from Britain First.”
When asked if Trump was an enabler of far-right groups, she said: “I think we must all take seriously the threat that far-right groups pose.”
On the state visit, she looked for some breathing room. “We have yet to set a date,” he said.
Though the effects may be likely be short-term — and waved off as Trump being Trump — the deep British-American special relationship did take another hit.
Trump has a rich history of jumping on Twitter and causing headaches for British officials. But this was the first time that he publicly took aim at the British prime minister.
Sajid Javid, Britain’s communities secretary, tweeted that Trump “endorsed the views of a vile, hate-filled racist organisation that hates me and people like me. He is wrong and I refuse to let it go and say nothing.”
This is not the first time Trump’s tweets have alarmed Britain. He once tweeted that Nigel Farage, the former leader of the anti-immigrant U.K. Independence Party, would be a “great” choice as British ambassador to the United States. Trump has also attacked the London mayor Khan following a terrorist attack at London Bridge.
Trump’s latest missives have renewed calls for the British government to rescind their offer of a state visit.
They also prompted an urgent debate in Parliament on Thursday where politicians across the political divide lined up to condemn Trump’s tweets.
“We have been clear — President Donald Trump was wrong to retweet videos posted by far-right group Britain First,” said Rudd, the home secretary.
But she also urged lawmakers to consider the bigger value of the deep ties with the United States.
Stephen Doughty, a Labour Party lawmaker, told Parliament: “By sharing it, he is either a racist, incompetent, or unthinking — or all three.”
But he also added that “I love America,” and that his great grandfather was an American soldier and that he has traveled extensively in the United States. “It is a country and people of extraordinary generosity, courage, kindness and humanity — but this president represents none of those things.”
Justine Greening, Britain’s education secretary, tried to walk a similar tightrope.
“This is a president that behaves unlike any other in the nature of the tweets he puts out. I don’t believe that should be able to undermine an overall important relationship with our country,” she told the BBC.
Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was one of many to call on May to cancel the state visit offered to Trump.
“She must end humiliating dependence of #Brexit Britain on goodwill of evil racist. Cancel visit,” tweeted Cable.
British leaders are playing a nuanced game, said analysts, trying to call out Trump when they believe he crosses a line, but also trying to stay in his good graces as it moves toward exiting the European Union. After Britain leaves the European bloc, it hopes to strike new trade deals with Washington and others.
Emily Thornberry, Labour’s spokesperson for foreign affairs, said that Trump’s tweets put Queen Elizabeth II in an “invidious” position because of the planned state visit.
“If there is a way that this can be finessed, I would support that,” she told BBC. “If he comes next year, a year which is supposed to be a really happy year for the royal family, what on earth are people supposed to make of it?”
Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, a London-based think tank, said that many British prime ministers have faced awkward moments with U.S. presidents over the years. But what stood out was the personalized nature of the latest barbs.
“There have been moments of real tension, surprise, and the impression of real damage to U.S.-U.K. relationship” in the past, said Niblett. “We’ve had this kind of thing before but not this vituperative backward and forwards,” he said. “It’s a modern variant, a Trump variant, of previous tensions.”
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