History will judge those who stand by Trump after Charlottesville – the UK should cut its ties with him immediately
Let us not put a state visit on hold, but cancel it altogether. Parliament should hold a debate on how to isolate the Trump administration now, before he and his supporters do global damage
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Your support makes all the difference.As we watch events unfold across the Atlantic in which white supremacists march with impunity, emboldened and enabled by a president who refuses to condemn them until pushed by voices from all sides, many of us here in the UK will seek to gain comfort from the distance between ourselves and what is happening in present-day America.
Indeed, it is tempting to think that there is not much we can do because of that distance – yet act we must, and decisively so. After the latest events, during which Donald Trump’s woeful response to a far right uprising has been roundly condemned by even members of his own party, there can only be one response: to cut off our ties with the Trump administration once and for all.
Undoubtedly many will think this as unthinkable and rash. But the question we must ask ourselves is this: are we happy to court Trump and maintain the “special relationship” with a president who threatens nuclear war one day and refuses to openly condemn the actions of white supremacists in the very same week?
The unthinkable is already happening. The fact that David Duke claimed that the Charlottesville protests were about “fulfilling the promises of Donald Trump, that's what we believed in, that's why we voted for Donald Trump, because he's going to take our country back'' should be enough for many of us to think about whether we wish to be aligned with a president who receives a ringing endorsement from the former leader of the KKK. “I highly recommend you take a good look in the mirror and remember it was white Americans who put you in the presidency,” he tweeted over the weekend.
Let that sink in. If that's not enough to show that this is no normal president which means it can't be business as usual, then we must ask ourselves what actions he has to undertake before we are willing to consider open condemnation and an end to our usual diplomacy with America.
There can be little doubt that Trump’s words emboldened those in Charlottesville: the trail apparently leads back to him. He has been happy to make disgraceful remarks about Mexicans and Muslims, and happy to employ Steve Bannon as chief executive of his presidential campaign, a man who “proudly” told a reporter at the 2016 Republican convention: “We’re the platform for the alt-right.” The white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville are people to whom Trump appeals, and he is only ever interested in shoring up his support amongst those who voted for him. That is, of course, why he took so long to disavow them.
The question for our own Government, then, is: what to do next? How do we deal with a man who seeks refuge in moral equivalence when there was only one perpetrator of hatred over the weekend, only one killing and it was that of a woman protesting against neo-Nazis?
We can't offer pathetic, underwhelming statements which simply state that we stand with America in its fight against racism and violence. How about standing against Trump, the man who many believe has helped such ideologies fester and grow?
Let us not put a state visit on hold, but cancel it altogether. Parliament should hold a debate on how to isolate the Trump administration, for he is already being isolated by his own party members who have decided enough is enough.
Are we that desperate after Brexit that we're willing to go cap-in-hand for trade deals with his administration, after all the condemnation he has received from across the world? Prioritising trade deals and cooperation with forward-looking and progressive countries would surely be in our nation’s interests, especially given our British values: values of tolerance, respect and equality for all.
The Prime Minister should now make a statement about how we stand against Donald Trump, his supporters and his worldview. By cutting off our ties with Trump and stating that there are some conditions to our love of the US – namely, that we can’t stand by them when the country descends into xenophobic chaos – we'd be doing nothing more than asserting our belief in our values and strengthening our reputation on the global stage.
This is not a call to cut off ties with America in its entirety but a call to break relations with the Trump administration. Are we willing to blindly follow and prioritise a relationship with a man who is unable to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis unless pushed to do so? Are we truly happy to hold his hand?
History will judge those who stick by Trump harshly. This week, Britain decides which side of history we will be on.
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