Tell him you have other plans that day
Shame on Theresa May.
(I’ve never liked that phrase – “shame on ___.” But I’m afraid it’s going to become indispensable in our new reality.)
She is refusing to tell Donald Trump to forget about that state visit. Well she damn well should tell him that.
US President Donald Trump’s planned state visit to the UK will go ahead no matter how many people sign a petition against it, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday.
More than a million people have so far called for the visit to be cancelled.
The petition, if accepted by Parliament, will force MPs to debate the motion: “Prevent Donald Trump from making a State Visit to the United Kingdom.”
However, Theresa May insisted the visit would still go ahead, no matter how many people signed a petition against it.
It shouldn’t. I know it’s a very big deal to cancel a state visit, but what Trump is doing is a much bigger deal – which means that the fact that canceling is a big deal is all the more reason to cancel.
The realpolitik of the situation is that the relationship between the US and it’s allies is not an equal one and hasn’t been for a long long time. That has mattered less during times when America’s interests aligned closely to its allies or attitudes to whatever the situation happened to be were matched. Even when there were differences, as long as the President of the day was prepared to be Statesman like and predictable you could tip toe around issues. This is what happened when NZ introduced a nuclear ban back in the ’80s and was essentially tossed out of ANZUS. There was blow back, but all parties contained it within bounds and a fundamentally good relationship was maintained without NZ having to grovel.
Now, US allies are quite simply afraid. Not afraid of the US itself, but of the US Administration. It’s unspoken, but there is real concern that anyone who speaks to strongly against Trump’s policies will be punished, no matter how good an ally they have been in the past. Official NZ response has been positively muted “This is not the NZ way…” while Australia has supported Trump’s policy and UK has rolled over and begged to have its tummy scratched. Then again May’s government has one eye on Brexit and in any case are largely xenophobes who want to pretend they never played a role in the debacle that is the middle east.
Yes, US allies are afraid. And it doesn’t help that Britain has put itself in a very vulnerable position with the Brexit vote.
But now is the time for pushback, because it will just get more painful the longer it’s put off. And it won’t become any less necessary at any point over the next four years. At some point, poiticians in a lot of Western countries are going to simply become unelectable if they appear too friendly to Trump.
What an exquisite dilemma for the British, they’ve outed themselves from the EU and really don’t have anywhere else to go except to arse-lick Trump’s America or attempt to grease their way back into Europe. Their famous diplomatic expertise will be tested to the limit.
Europe would be rational, but at this point both ends of the political spectrum are more interested in pandering to nationalists and racists than behaving in anything approaching a reasonable manner.
Rob,
Both ends of the political spectrum probably have absolutely no idea what to do next, there’s no clear path. In countries with written constitutions and a tradition of direct democracy, the way forward would be clear, it’s not in the case of the U.K. The so-called ‘referendum’ was actually a plebiscite, it’s not legally binding on Parliament or the UK government.
The British political elites are probably hoping that if they delay long enough the plebs will forget about the entire issue and it will be business as usual, however they certainly will be terrified of alienating the US.
There are other factors in the Brexit vote, class for example, not just xenophobia.
The reason that the Oz government is keeping its own counsel in regard to the latest Trump outrage is obvious. The Obama administration agreed to accept refugees from Australia’s notorious off-shore detention camps. So far, surprisingly, the Trump administration appears to be honoring the previous agreement.
Are these refugees white? If so, it’s not that surprising.
Iknklast,
No, they’re not. The entire ‘agreement’ is just bizarre.
Oh, and I have to admit that I thought all the fuss over Trump was essentially the Left having a little tanty, ‘we woz robbed’, and that he couldn’t be that bad. I was wrong, he’s worse.
She said it after talking with Turkish officials about an arms deal. Fresh from protecting our future ability to sell weapons to a despot she said she’d ignore what lots of British people said about another despot on the grounds that such a thing would be ‘popularist’, forcing the irony meter industry to go back to first principles and start again.
Today the UK media is full of the shame of…. of…. May putting the queen in an uncomfortable position. Not of, you know, the shame May has brought on all of us. I keep telling everyone what a nightmare May is but as usual either I’m wrong or everyone else in the world is.
‘I thought all the fuss over Trump was essentially the Left having a little tanty, ‘we woz robbed’, and that he couldn’t be that bad. I was wrong, he’s worse.’
Sorry to be first with the Hitler comparisons. But the man is only doing EXACTLY what he said he was going to do.
John,
Hitler didn’t have the problem of democratic institutions, Trump does.