Majority of Cabinet wanted Trump banned from addressing UK parliament
In January 2017, days after Trump’s inauguration, twelve current Cabinet ministers put their names to an early day motion (EDM) that “calls on the Speaker, Lord Speaker, Black Rod and Serjeant at Arms to withhold permission from the Government for an address to be made in Westminster Hall, or elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster, by President Trump”...
The motion was signed by Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, David Lammy, the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, the science secretary, Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, Ian Murray, the Scottish secretary, Jo Stevens, the Welsh secretary and Lucy Powell, the leader of the House of Commons.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, was a signatory and co-sponsor of the motion.
I'd forgotten this stunt, but what the blue blazes did they think they were doing?
It was infantile then and feels even more infantile now. Something Guardian readers might propose, but not a stunt MPs should stoop to. Yet they did, lots of them, MPs who presumably took and still do take themselves seriously.
It's a reminder. Describing Keir Starmer's Cabinet as a 'rabble' isn't wildly inappropriate. Should be but isn't.
6 comments:
Puerile piffle from poltroons.
It looks like the most crass form of short-termism. They probably calculated that they would pick up a few votes (and status points) from student constituents. There was no thought about possible longer-term consequences.
Mind you, nobody could have predicted how quickly the Tories would collapse. A student committee who wake up with a hangover and finds themselves in the cabinet room.
Also, do people remember that left-wingers thought that Trump was coming here to buy the NHS ? Such political acumen!
Worse than incompetence … they’re ideologues.
dearieme - it was a warning.
Sam - yes, acumen indeed. It's not easy to make sense of that claim, not unless we see it as drunken students being daft. Maybe that's one for teetotal folk - drunken silliness can become permanent.
James - incompetence with no exit.
Should Donald Trump become the next President how will the current Labour Government be treated? I would expect that Trump might agree to meet a few, after all he is a deal-maker. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were not treated with respect.
DJ - yes he's a deal-maker and probably won't deliberately upset the Labour government, but may not go out of his way to avoid it either.
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