President Trump: State Visit

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Walker, for the invitation to take part in this debate, which the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) opened so energetically. He referred to our “beleaguered” Prime Minister. I look forward to the authority that she exerts when she is not quite so beleaguered. I am still puzzling about what he meant by “protozoan”. I will come back to the power exercised by the President, but first we should take a reality check. An invitation has been issued in the name of Her Majesty, and if we wanted to find a way of embarrassing her, withdrawing that invitation would be the quickest way about it. We are left in a situation where the formal word of Her Majesty, but also that of the United Kingdom, is engaged.

Let us get to the realpolitik behind this. It is very likely that opening up the possibility of an invitation for a state visit secured our Prime Minister the first call on the newly elected President of the United States. During her visit, she got the incredibly important assurance about NATO that was so expertly referred to by the Chairman of the Defence Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I heard the hon. Gentleman being interviewed on Radio Scotland this morning. He said then what he has just said: that it was very likely that the Prime Minister had used the offer of a state visit to secure the first visit to Trump. Can he confirm his source for that statement?

[Crispin Blunt]

I am simply using my own assessment and my experience from my own career of how such matters are arranged to say what might have happened. I am happy to confirm that I have no first-hand evidence of the discussions; I merely use my experience to say what might have happened. However, the Prime Minister secured that first visit. She secured the undertaking about NATO, which is immensely important to Europe’s security; she got a reaffirmation of the special relationship by being the first foreign leader to visit President Trump; and, the day before meeting the President, she gave a spectacularly successful address to the Republican caucus in Philadelphia.

We must understand what is going on. We are dealing with the first non-politician and the first non-serviceman to be elected President. He is definitively different. Dangling a state visit in front of a half-Scottish President of the United States, whose mother had an immense attachment to that country, was an exercise in pressing the right buttons to engage him and a successful use of the United Kingdom’s soft power.

The Prime Minister secured the undertaking about NATO, but let us also understand the checks and balances that this President will have to operate under. First, he will need to operate under the checks and balances that come from Congress, and the Republican caucus in Congress will be immensely important in that. For our Prime Minister to have secured a place where she has an opportunity, in effect, to put our case, which may be aligned with that of the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA, to the White House—

[Alex Salmond]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Crispin Blunt]

I will if the right hon. Gentleman is brief, because his intervention will come out of injury time.

[Alex Salmond]

The hon. Gentleman continues seriously to underrate President Trump. The idea that this President will have things determined by anything other than his own interests and what he perceives the American interest to be is a mistake of such naivety—naivety that explains the fact that he managed to get into the White House in the first place.

[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.

[Several hon. Members rose—]