Donald Trump could visit UK before US elections

[Bad Dog]

The government is preparing for the possibility of presidential hopeful Donald Trump visiting the UK before the US elections, the BBC has learned.

Diplomats expect Mr Trump to come after his formal nomination as the Republican candidate in July.

Relations between the UK government and Mr Trump are not good, and the prime minister and Mr Trump have clashed.

No request or offer has been made but most presidential nominees travel to show off their diplomatic credentials.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron says Mr Trump's plan to ban Muslims from the US is stupid and wrong. The presumptive Republican nominee says he and the prime minister are not going to have a good relationship.


In December, Mr Cameron said: "I think his remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong and I think if he came to visit our country I think it'd unite us all against him."

Speaking on ITV's Good Morning Britain on Monday, Mr Trump said: "It looks like we're not going to have a very good relationship, who knows.

"I hope to have a good relationship with him, but it sounds like he's not willing to address the problem either."

But that is not stopping ministers and diplomats quietly preparing for Mr Trump to visit the UK in the coming months.

The mood in Whitehall is that the government must now prepare for the possibility that Mr Trump could be the next US president and efforts need to be made to repair relations with the millionaire property magnate.


In 2012, the then Republican nominee Mitt Romney visited the UK and caused some offence by suggesting Britain was not ready for the Olympic Games.

On Tuesday, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan invited Mr Trump to visit him and his family in London to learn about Islam.

He told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "If I can educate the presumptive Republican presidential nominee about Islam, I'm happy to do so."

Government sources say they have been struggling for months to convince parts of Whitehall to take Mr Trump seriously. And they say it is possible his potential rival, Hillary Clinton, could face indictment over the alleged use of private email for government business.

One source described Mr Trump as a political tsunami sweeping up blue collar workers, while Mrs Clinton had not tried to do anything different.

So diplomats are now trying to build a relationship with Mr Trump's team and get ready for the moment they come to the UK.

A petition advocating a ban on Mr Trump coming to the UK after his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering US following the San Bernardino shootings in California in December attracted 574,000 signatures.

In a Commons debate, Labour MP Paul Flynn said barring him from the UK risked being seen as anti-American, but SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh said a ban would be justified on the grounds of "religious harmony".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36314026

He will not be welcome, hatred of Trump unites all politicians across the political divide. Even far right UKIP leader Nigel Farage thinks Trump has gone too far, although he has recently backtracked.

Donald Trump’s comments about Muslim immigration to the US are “a political mistake too far,” Ukip’s leader has said.

When asked about Mr Trump’s comments Nigel Farage told BBC News that the UK had a “huge problem” but said the Republican presidential nomination contender had “gone too far”.
“I think Mr Trump’s somewhat knee-jerk reaction to this, saying that all Muslims should be banned from coming into America was perhaps for him a political mistake too far,” he told the new channel.

“I think with this comment he’s gone too far, I would expect people to say this look – this is unreasonable, because what you would be doing is punishing a lot of very good people because of the actions of a few.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-says-donald-trumps-policy-of-banning-muslim-immigration-to-the-us-is-a-political-a6765431.html

[Ghost Dog]

1. You need to cut the excerpts down to 4 or 5 paragraphs, Bad Dog,

because: DU TOS on copyright infringement.

(Even though, in the BBC's case, each sentence is often rendered as a paragraph.)

[Bad Dog]

4. Thanks.

Btw, I heard on the radio that expats are eligible to vote in the referendum if they've been on a UK voting list in the past 15 years. Don't know if that would include you, I don't know how long you've been in Spain

[Ghost Dog]

6. Yeah. No. I've been here officially 15.5 years, and actually

out of UK since October 1987.

Other EU nationalities are not disenfranchised in this way.

[Bad Dog]

8. It's not on.

Especially when you remember that Thatcher suddenly enfranchised a load of apartheid era South Africans to prop her vote up.

[Ghost Dog]

10. Thatcher. One big reason why I left. n/t

[Bad Dog]

11. One reason I opened a bottle of champagne in 2013

Was it really that long ago? I was sure it was last year she died.

[Ghost Dog]

12. Did exactly that in Barcelona when she left power, November 1992.

The news was announced during a David Byrne concert in the Pobla Nou by the man himself: "Thatcher's gone", iirc.

Some of my older friends had done the same when Franco was finally shut down. Younger friends understood... The political death was enough for me.

Sadly, there's been little if any improvement in UK government since, it seems to me.

[Bad Dog]

13. Despite himself Blair did some good.

Peace in NI working tax credits, extra funding for education and the NHS, but Cameron is doing his best to reverse it.

[Ghost Dog]

14. Fair enough. Especially having been willing

to work alongside Sinn Fein in that context.

[Bad Dog]

16. If Al Gore had won the election

who knows what Blair's legacy might have been. As it is he's remembered for one thing only, the illegal war in Iraq.

[Bad Dog]

21. More bad news I'm afraid.

Two Britons living abroad have lost their Court of Appeal battle over the right to vote in June's EU referendum.

The legal challenge was brought by World War Two veteran Harry Shindler, 95, who lives in Italy, and lawyer and Belgian resident Jacquelyn MacLennan.

Under law, UK citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years cannot vote.

The pair took the case to the Court of Appeal after losing their application for a judicial review last month.

Mr Shindler and Ms MacLennan had argued the in-out vote on EU membership, on 23 June, directly affected them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36341839

It's still not on.

[Ghost Dog]

22. Yep. Well, I expect a vote to leave, and then piecemeal arrangements

between all, for UK, overseas parties will start to get made... Plenty of employment for mandarins and minions... Or is it UK that wants to be the Top Offshore Haven?

So outcomes will be unpredictable, especially given the wider context.

Expect plenty of fog in all channels.

[Bad Dog]

23. I'm slightly more optimistic than you.

I think we'll stay, but I'm worried we won't.

[haikugal]

2. How embarrassing for us....ugh! The Fluorescent Yam in London....nt

[Ghost Dog]

18. Perhaps he could be arrested in London

as an alleged child-rapist.

... Or would that turn out like the Pinochet case...?

[Person 2713]

3. Even nasty RW UKIP KNows he is no good. What has become of the USA that such a large % here

are Trump voters when even the extreme right in UK condemn him? Tells you where this country is at

[Bad Dog]

5. I don't know what to say.

other than agreeing with you, but it's one thing to criticise your own country. It's quite another for an outsider like me to come in and do it.

[Person 2713]

7. Well i just called UKIP nasty and do not subscribe to emperors without clothes but yes I know

what you mean.

[Bad Dog]

9. Farage is nasty.

He's backtracked on Trump and he's warning of violence if the referendum result does not go his way.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

15. Perhaps he will begin a world tour and Muslim terrorists will get him!

I sure don't get him... He's verbally attacked so many groups and some people still think he is qualified to run the USA.

[Bad Dog]

17. I think the terrorists will leave him alone.

He's an even better recruiting sergeant than Dubya. He gives their lies some credibility.

[T_i_B]

19. Wondering what publicity stunts will be involved

Perhaps a trip to City Hall for an argument with Sadiq Khan?

Or maybe joining Boris Johnson & Michael Gove on the "vote leave" campaign? Especially as the movement to get the UK out of the EU would need to have old fartface win the presidency if they were actually to win this ridiculous referendum.

[Bad Dog]

20. I was thinking more of the protests.

According to John Oliver one thing that really gets under his skin is being told he's got stubby little fingers.

[leftynyc]

24. Sadiq Khan

should either refuse to meet with him (say he's waiting until after the election to see whether he has to bother) or agree to a meeting and keep him waiting a very long time because some official business is taking up his time.

[Ghost Dog]

25. Oh, the latter, and keep him waiting sitting on cushions on the floor,

Beduin-style.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Donald Trump says he has been invited to Downing Street

Donald Trump says he has been invited to visit Downing Street - and expects to "do just fine" with David Cameron.

The presumptive US Republican presidential candidate did not give details, but said he "might do it".
...
Number 10 said it was "longstanding practice" for the PM to meet candidates visiting the UK.

But a spokeswoman added: "Given the parties have yet to choose their nominees, there are no confirmed dates for this."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36344771

[underpants]

27. Steep learning for him to learn the language, manners, sentence structure.

[Bad Dog]

28. When people are taking the piss,

because we will, and it's always so much fun when they don't realise we're doing it.