It is deeply touching that so many British politicians and members of the public have suddenly developed great sensibilities for the feelings of the Queen. Of course many of them, like Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, are in fact republicans who are usually the ones demanding that Her Majesty should be thrown out of Buckingham Palace as part of some dreary new egalitarian settlement.
Yet, miraculously, they have become deeply concerned for the monarch, worried about the apparent indignity she will suffer at having that ghastly vulgar fellow Donald Trump staying under her roof for a couple of nights.
There’s only one problem with this. If their concern is true, why have they been so quiet in the past when other leaders have visited the UK?
The Queen has hosted more than one hundred State Visits since acceding to the throne in 1952. When foreign leaders come to London she doesn’t choose which ones are allowed to come to stay with her. She accepts the advice of the government of the day – that is part of her constitutional duty.
President Xi Jinping of China came on a State Visit in October 2015. Jeremy Corbyn, as the newly elected Labour leader, turned up at the Palace for “cordial and constructive” talks. Corbyn even wore white tie and tails for the State Banquet. Yet Corbyn now tweets that Trump “should not be welcomed to Britain while he abuses our shared values.”
Does Corbyn feel “shared values” with Xi Jinping? China remains a one-party dictatorship. Religious and ethnic minorities are persecuted – with the destruction of Christian churches in Zhejiang province and Buddhist temples in Tibet. Independent trade unions are banned, the media is censored and thousands are imprisoned for their political beliefs.
Another British politician, Lib Dem Leader Tim Farron, frets that the Queen is being “placed in an impossible position”. Yet when President Xi pitched up Farron duly attended – meekly sitting in the fourth row during the Westminster Hall address.
Farron’s predecessor, Paddy Ashdown, tweets that he finds it “impossible to bear” that the PM is “forcing” President Trump on the Queen. Oh really? So why didn’t we hear from Paddy expressing similar emotions about Robert Mugabe’s State Visit in 1994?
Some have complained that President Trump has been too soft on President Putin. They make a good case. But where is the logic in cancelling Trump’s State Visit when Putin was granted this courtesy in 2003?
Among the earlier State Visits was Nicolae Ceaușescu, the brutal Communist dictator of Romania who came to Britain in 1978. The Queen hid the silver in case it was pilfered. In 1985 it was the turn of Hastings Banda of Malawi – noted for his habit of having cabinet colleagues murdered if he took a dislike to them.
Naturally in the age of social media and online petitions these occasions are easier to scrutinise and challenge these days and that is a welcome development. There have been some spectacular misjudgments over the years with some choices the Foreign Office has made over who merits an invitation.
But the double standards of some of the politicians in opposing a Trump visit are pretty extraordinary. The United States is a democracy that upholds the rule of law and maintains individual liberty. It is an important ally indeed, Britain’s most important ally. Those who object to his State Visit risk looking like opportunists who have jumped on an anti-Trump bandwagon. They must calm down, accept that he is the democratically elected leader of the free world, and make the best of it.
Anyone who doesn’t want Trump to visit the UK but who shrugged off the arrival of President Xi only 15 months ago – along with all of the monsters that preceded him – lacks any shred of credibility.
