Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has labelled US president Donald Trump “a danger” and “a racist”, adding: “He is an asteroid of awfulness that has fallen on this world.”
Thornberry’s damning comments represent one of the most outspoken attacks on Trump by a UK politician, and stands in stark contrast to the more compromising tone of foreign secretary Boris Johnson.
This week President Trump said he was cancelling a proposed visit to open the new US embassy in London, saying the new embassy was a “bad deal”.
However, reports have suggested he called off his trip because he felt he had “not been shown enough love” by the British Government.
Thornberry was scathing about the US president following reports he had branded Haiti and some African states “shithole” countries.
“He is an asteroid of awfulness that has fallen on this world,” Thornberry told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show. “I think that he is a danger and I think that he is a racist.”
The North London MP also said that Theresa May had humiliated the Queen with the controversy over inviting President Trump to the UK.
“I don’t want him to come to the country. I don’t think that he should have been given an invitation in the way that he was,” Thornberry said.
“That it was wrong for Theresa May to so prematurely give him a state visit.
“I think that it embarrasses the Queen. I think that it is humiliation for her. I think it is wrong to have brought her into this in this way.
“It is very difficult once an invitation for a state visit has been made to withdraw it. Only the Queen can withdraw it and I don’t want to put her in that embarrassing position.”
Last week, Johnson branded Sadiq Khan a “puffed up pompous popinjay” after the London Mayor welcomed Trump cancelling the trip.
The foreign secretary took to Twitter to launch the astonishing attack on his City Hall predecessor, just hours after Khan said Trump had “got the message” from that he isn’t welcome in London.
Speaking to the Evening Standard today, Khan said that “without doubt” Trump’s visit would have been met by huge protests.
Underling the deepening the rift between Britain’s main opposition and the US president, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has distanced himself from the so-called “special relationship”, saying the US is not Britain’s most important relationship with another country.
Corbyn, appearing on ITV’s Peston On Sunday, said the UK had to maintain many important relationships around the world, as he hit out at “endless offensive remarks” by Trump about women, minorities and different faiths.
However, Tory Party chairman Brandon Lewis said it was right that an invitation for a state visit had been extended to President Trump, saying Britain should be developing its relationship with the US.