There will “of course” be people protesting when Donald Trump comes for a state visit, a Cabinet minister has suggested. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that “protests are one of the amazing things about living in a democracy”, and praised the special relationship between the UK and the US.
There were demonstrations when Mr Trump was hosted by the late Queen in 2019. The King has invited Mr Trump to make a second state visit to the UK, an unprecedented gesture towards an American leader. During a meeting between the US president and Sir Keir Starmer at the White House on Thursday, the Prime Minister presented Mr Trump with a letter from the King, as he invited him for the trip.
As the two were sitting next to each other in the Oval Office, Sir Keir handed him the personal invitation from the King, later saying “this is truly historic and unprecedented”. After reading it, Mr Trump then said: “That’s a great, great honour. And that says at Windsor – that’s really something.”.
Following Sir Keir’s visit to Washington, Mr Streeting told BBC Breakfast: “I thought that the meeting yesterday was a spectacular success both on the defence and security issues that President Trump and our Prime Minister were discussing but also on the enthusiasm President Trump showed for a deeper trading relationship.”.
He said that “hard yards” are ahead on trade negotiations, and added: “This historic state visit will be an important moment. Will there be people protesting or disagreeing? Of course there will. “But I just say to people that those protests are one of the amazing things about living in a democracy. We’ve got the freedom to speak up, people protest against this Government as well.
“But the freedom to protest, our democratic freedoms are built on the bedrock of the US-UK special relationship. “And that’s why the Prime Minister went to Washington yesterday to deliver for our country, for our continent, for our world, by building that strong friendship with President Trump and deepening the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom as people would expect him to.”.
When the US president was hosted on a state visit during his last term in 2019, thousands of protesters took to the streets in London. A 20ft Trump Baby blimp was also flown above Parliament Square. At the time, Mr Trump described the protests as “organised flops”.
