2nd June, 2019
London Mayor Sadiq Khan wrote a fiery op-ed Saturday that the United Kingdom is on the “wrong side of history” ahead of President Trump’s coming state visit this week.
“In years to come, I suspect this state visit will be one we look back on with profound regret and acknowledge that we were on the wrong side of history,” Khan said in op-ed published by The Guardian.
While he wrote that he understands that “it’s too late” to stop the president’s planned three-day visit, which has been scheduled for months, he said “it’s not too late for the prime minister to do the right thing.”
“Theresa May should issue a powerful rejection – not of the US as a country or the office of the presidency, but of Trump and the far-right agenda he embodies,” Khan wrote. “She should say that the citizens of the UK and the US agree on many things, but that Trump’s views are incompatible with British values.”
“History teaches us of the danger of being afraid to speak truth to power and the risk of failing to defend our values from the rise of the far right. At this challenging time in global politics, it’s more important than ever that we remember that lesson,” he wrote.
In the op-ed, Khan specifically called out the president over a number of actions he likened to those similar of “European dictators of the 1930s and 40s” and the “military juntas of the 1970s and 80s.”
“Theresa May should issue a powerful rejection – not of the US as a country or the office of the presidency, but of Trump and the far-right agenda he embodies,” Khan wrote. “She should say that the citizens of the UK and the US agree on many things, but that Trump’s views are incompatible with British values.”
“Praising the ‘very fine people on both sides’ when torch-wielding white supremacists and antisemites marched through the streets clashing with anti-racist campaigners. Threatening to veto a ban on the use of rape as a weapon of war,” he wrote in reference to Trump.
“Setting an immigration policy that forcefully separates young children from their parents at the border,” he continued. “The deliberate use of xenophobia, racism and “otherness” as an electoral tactic. Introducing a travel ban to a number of predominately Muslim countries. Lying deliberately and repeatedly to the public.”
“These are the actions of the leader of our closest ally, the president of the United States of America,” Khan went on. “This is a man who tried to exploit Londoners’ fears following a horrific terrorist attack on our city, amplified the tweets of a British far-right racist group, denounced as fake news robust scientific evidence warning of the dangers of climate change, and is now trying to interfere shamelessly in the Conservative party leadership race by backing Boris Johnson because he believes it would enable him to gain an ally in Number 10 for his divisive agenda.”
Khan also slammed Trump earlier this month in an interview with LBC, a British talk-radio station, saying that he didn’t feel the president was in the “same class” as his predecessors.
“Of course we should have a close relationship with the president of the United States, but we shouldn’t be rolling out the red carpet; we shouldn’t have a state banquet,” Khan added.
*Originally published by thehill.com