Formerly, British Prime Minister Theresa May and US President Donald Trump had been pretty good friends. But that all changed yesterday when Trump retweeted a post from Britain First, the racist anti-Muslim radical group, and May said that it was “wrong” for the leader of the free world to openly express that he shares some of his views with a hate group. Fair point. Can you say she’s wrong? They’re a hate group!
The President hit back at May, telling her to mind her own business and leave him alone and instead focus on the Islamic State terrorism going on in the UK, because in Trump’s words, America is “doing just fine,” which as we all know, is far from the truth.
If ISIS had their way, they’d have Trump’s head on a pike and America would be up in flames. Is that “just fine?” Anyway, that kicked up a bit of a fuss over in Parliament, where May is holding a debate to mull over whether or not the US President should get a state visit to the UK.
May maintains that Britain First retweet was ‘the wrong thing to do’
Speaking in Jordan, May responded to Trump’s tweet attack against her by saying that the prospect of his UK visit and the man himself makes her “deeply uncomfortable,” because of his “deliberately divisive” nature, especially given the fact that he’s being “deliberately divisive” during a period in our nation’s history where that’s a bigger problem than ever and the goal is “to unite our country.” Trump stepping on British soil, especially in an official capacity, wouldn’t go very far towards mending that.
The so-called “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom is in jeopardy at the moment, after May said that just because the US and the UK “work together,” it certainly “does not mean that we are afraid to say when we think that the United States have got it wrong.” She said that when this is the case, she won’t let anything stop her from being “very clear with them” about it.
Then May reiterated that she wanted to make it “very clear” to Donald Trump that “retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do.” She condemned Britain First as “a hateful organisation” that aims to “spread division and mistrust in our communities,” standing clearly and primarily to oppose the values that “we share as a nation.” These values, she added, include those of “respect, tolerance, and dare I say it, common decency.” This was to snidely say that Trump does not have any of these values, and she may just be right.
Britain’s ambassador to Washington has condemned Trump, too
Sir Kim Darroch, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, has joined May in condemning Trump for his tweets, reiterating her point that the people of Britain “overwhelmingly reject the prejudiced rhetoric of the far right,” because they intentionally “seek to divide communities.” He also noted the same values as May did – “decency, tolerance, [and] respect” – and praised British Muslims as “peaceful and law abiding citizens.” Darroch also confirmed that he had “raised these concerns” with his contacts within the White House as well.
Even Woody Johnson, the Trump-appointed American ambassador to Britain, has said that he has raised concerns about the Britain First retweets in the White House.
It’s not like Trump only retweeted one video from Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, which would have been bad enough anyway. He retweeted a grand total of three of them. And then he criticised May for criticising him instead of combatting terrorism. But it’s groups like Britain First and world leaders like Donald Trump that are making Muslims easier to recruit into the Islamic State.
