JEREMY CORBYN was branded “unfit” to be Prime Minister as he snubbed the Queen’s invite to dinner with Donald Trump.
The Labour leader sparked uproar by ripping up the invite – and slamming Theresa May for “rolling out the red carpet” to the US President.
AP:Associated Press
The state banquet is due to take place before leaders head to Portsmouth to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day on June 5th.
In a statement Mr Corbyn accused Mr Trump of being someone who rips up “vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric”.
The Labour leader – accused of calling Mrs May a “stupid woman” in December – insisted he was happy to meet with US President for face-to-face talks.
But furious MPs said he was “insulting” Her Majesty and “guilty of student politics”.
John Woodcock, independent MP for Barrow, told The Sun: “Here’s a man that is happy to sit down with actual terrorists and anti-Semites and call them his friends but draws the line at the President of the United States.
“It shows what a disaster he’d be as Prime Minister.”
Who Jeremy Corbyn’s been happy to meet with in the past
- At the height of the troubles he met with Sinn Fein’s President, Gerry Adams, and invited IRA volunteers to the House of Commons weeks after a bomb killed five at the Tory party conference in 1984.
- And he attended a conference with senior Hamas leaders too. Their political wing is now a proscribed terror group in the UK.
- Jeremy Corbyn accepted a free trip to meet President Assad of Syria in 2009
- The Sun revealed last year he’d had a take-away dinner with a Hamas boss Khaled Mashal in Gaza
- In 2015 he attended the state banquet at the Palace and met China’s leader President Xi Jinping
- Last year he was slammed for laying a wreath in a graveyard where Munich terrorists were honoured in Tunisia
- He’s appeared on Iranian state TV
Critics pointed out Mr Corbyn had previously invited IRA volunteers to the Commons after the Brighton bombing of 1984.
In 2010 he spoke of enjoying a takeaway with Khaled Mashal – the head of Islamic Palestinian organisation Hamas.
In 2015, he defended a meeting with militant group Hezbollah by saying: “You have to talk to people with whom you profoundly disagree.”
Tory MP Michael Fabricant added yesterday that he attended the state banquet of Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2015 – despite the labour camps in the country. Tory
Eurosceptic Jacob Rees Mogg told The Sun: “This isn’t an insult to Mr Trump, it’s an insult to the Queen.
“Someone wanting to be Prime Minister should remember the duty they would have to maintain relationships with friendly countries, not to reject constitutional convention.
“He’s dealing in student politics.”
Mr Corbyn’s decision came after The Sun revealed Commons Speaker John Bercow had declined the invitation. Lib Dem Vince Cable on Thursday morning was the first to snub the dinner.
Last night SNP leader Ian Blackford followed the Labour leader by saying he too would be snubbing the Banquet.
He said: “Rather than laying out all the pomp and ceremony of a state visit, Theresa May should instead be holding meetings to challenge the US administration and raise key issues.”
AP:Associated Press
AP:Associated Press
The Sun Says
IT won’t bother Donald Trump one bit that political pygmies like Jeremy Corbyn and Vince Cable are dodging the Queen’s State banquet in his honour. Why would it?
Their childish protest is just what we would expect from two old lefties lacking the statesmanlike wisdom to separate the man from his office.
Labour’s leader accused the President of “racist rhetoric”. Is he really unaware that when you are yourself an anti- semitic racist who calls Hamas’s murderers “friends” you cannot look down on the leader of the free world from the moral high ground?
More troubling, though, is the outrageous snub by Commons Speaker John Bercow. Here is the supposedly impartial lynchpin of our democracy, publicly insulting our Queen and our No1 ally.
Bercow’s personal views ought to be irrelevant. Yet, as with Brexit, he abuses his authority in order to impose them.
For too long he has disgraced his historic position. This is a new low for which he deserves to lose it.
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