President Trump: State Visit

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt]

I draw the right hon. Gentleman’s attention to what is actually happening. This President, who comes from an area where he was not disciplined in the requirements of our profession or those of the services, is issuing undisciplined statements. What has he had to say about torture? He has said that he will concede his judgment to that of his Defence Secretary. I was told cheerfully by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender friends of mine that he was about to rescind employment protection for LGBT people in the United States. He did not, as it happens. Who won out in the row between his national security adviser and his vice-president? His vice-president. The immigration ban is being overturned by the judges—another element of the separation of powers in the United States. We are seeing this Administration develop following the extraordinary and unprecedented election of this individual to the presidency.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Crispin Blunt]

Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me if I do not? I am out of injury time.

The point I am making is that these are early days, and the need for a disciplined Administration is beginning to crowd in on this President. We will see how things develop, but it is incredibly important that our Prime Minister secured the first visit of a foreign leader to the White House.

The truth is that we need to calm and take the hype out of this debate—not just the debate in this Chamber but, frankly, the national debate. The invitation has been issued. I do not think that it should or could properly be rescinded, so there is the possibility that it will be taken up this year. I think that would be a mistake. We need to point out that 2020 will be the 400th anniversary of one of the most remarkable events in British-American history: the pilgrim fathers’ settlement. That is incredibly important in the United States, and it would be an utterly appropriate moment to be marked by a state visit to the United Kingdom by whoever is the US Head of State at that time. We should focus the Administration’s attention on that opportunity. A Head of Government visit this year would be entirely appropriate. If we do not take the hype out of this debate, given the number of people who signed the petition, there is every possibility that the President’s visit will become a rallying point for everyone who is unhappy with the direction of American policy or British policy, or anything else, and the poor old commissioner of the Met will be left with a rather significant public order issue to manage.

There is an opportunity to look forward and celebrate a great anniversary in British-American relations, and extract ourselves from the practical difficulty of the invitation having been issued. But issuing that invitation secured a reaffirmation of the special relationship, a commitment by the President of the United States to NATO—that was reinforced in Europe this weekend by senior members of his Administration—and an opportunity for us to reinforce the voices in the White House of the State Department, the Republican caucus, the Pentagon and the CIA, and that was infinitely the right thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

There are two ways in which those who agree that the state visit should go ahead can approach the debate. There is the argument along the lines of national self-interest, which is the relatively easy way, and there is the more difficult way: we have got to seek to understand what Mr Trump means to many people in America. I will start with the first. It seems obvious to me that great countries such as our own act in their own national self-interest, and they issue these invitations in order to further that self-interest.

Presumably, when we invited not one but two Presidents of China, we were prepared to overlook the fact that China is effectively a police state, that there is no freedom of expression, of movement or of association, and that there is outright religious persecution. In every single respect it is a state that does not share our values in any shape or form. Presumably, when we issued an invitation all those years ago to President Ceausescu and awarded him a knighthood, we felt it was in our national self-interest so to do. Indeed, we rescinded the award of the knighthood only on the day before he was executed by his own people.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is making a valid point that there is not a great deal of consistency about the way in which we offer state visits, or for that matter the content of them. It was particularly useful when we offered one to the President of Colombia because that helped progress the peace process in Colombia. Would he not support the idea of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Procedure Committee doing a proper review of state visits so that we get it right for the future?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a perfectly valid point and I have no objection to it.

To continue the historical analogies, presumably when we invited President Mugabe, a racist homophobe, to have tea with the Queen, we were prepared to overlook his transgressions, and when we invited King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who presided over the ultimate misogynist state, presumably we felt that Saudi Arabia was an important ally of ours.

We have to be careful about what we wish for. Just think for a moment: if we listened to the petition—I accept that people have signed it in perfectly good faith, and it is a perfectly reasonable point of view—and accepted it and, as a result of the debate, we were to rescind the invitation, that would be catastrophic to our relationship with our closest ally. I will not labour that point, but surely my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has won the argument in the sense that our peace and security and the peace and security of the whole western world depends on our using influence with President Trump. I for one believe that our Prime Minister’s visit was an absolute triumph not only in furthering our national self-interest but by binding President Trump and his new Administration to NATO. We see the effects of that in terms of what the vice-president has been saying only this week. There is no doubt in my mind that it is in our national self-interest to accord respect and honour to our closest and greatest ally. Whether we like it or not, this man is the duly democratically elected leader of the free world.

To me, that is the easy argument to make, but I feel I have to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) in making what is probably a much more difficult and controversial argument. We had a debate a year ago on Mr Trump when speaker after speaker —even on the Conservative side—condemned him, saying he was outrageous. I was the only one who tried to understand the phenomenon and why people were supporting and voting for him. I made the point then, and will make it now, that it is unwise of us to try to transfer our own views and prejudices to the other side of the Atlantic. For instance, most people here think that I am on the far right of the political spectrum in this House, but here I am, a person who warmly supports gun control, who opposed the Iraq war and who relies entirely on the NHS. All of those things would make me an abomination in large parts of the Republican party. It is very foolish for us to lecture our conservative colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic about what is the right or improper nature of conservativism.

Mr Trump is not my sort of conservative—I have nothing in common with him—but let us look at some of his comments and the charge of misogyny. Of course, what he was reported as saying in a private conversation was horrible and ridiculous—I hope none of us would make those comments—but which one of us has not made some ridiculous sexual comment at some time in our past? [Hon. Members: “Me!”] Well, in private. Let he is without sin cast the first stone. He has apologised. That is not really a reason to withdraw an invitation.