US Immigration Policy

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I think that I gave an answer a moment or two ago. I do not comment on the confidential conversations that take place between the Prime Minister and her opposite number. We have worked with our friends in the White House, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to understand exactly how the measure is to be implemented and to ensure that we secure the protections that this country needs.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

James Rottger, my constituent, emailed me to say that being received with the pomp and ceremony of a state visit will be presented by Trump and his cronies as a ringing endorsement from the UK and therefore, unfortunately, Scotland. Does the Foreign Secretary appreciate that we are judged by the friendships we keep and by the way in which we react to our friends?

[Boris Johnson]

I understand the feelings of many people in this country and around the world. They have expressed themselves. I have seen the numbers on the petition. I will repeat my point to the House: it is our job as a sensible Government to work with the most powerful democracy in the world, the leadership of which is absolutely indispensable for our security and for the stability of NATO and the western alliance. That is what we are going to do. Just as every other President before him who has come to the UK, it is entirely right that Donald Trump should receive a state visit.