‘He is not someone who should be receiving honours of any kind. The offer of a state visit should be rescinded.’
Trump’s state visit invitation has sparked backlash, with a petition to cancel it reaching over 95,000 signatures as of today (3 March).
During their Oval Office meeting last Thursday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer handed Donald Trump a letter from King Charles III inviting him for a state visit to the UK.
This would make Trump the first elected political leader in modern history to be hosted for two state visits by a British monarch, following his 2019 visit.
The day after meeting Starmer, Trump, alongside Vice President JD Vance, accused Ukrainian President Zelenskyy of being “ungrateful” for U.S. efforts to agree a peace deal with Russia during a meeting at the Oval Office.
During Friday’s meeting, Trump and Vance both berated Zelenskyy, with Trump telling him that he is gambling with World War Three and saying: “You’re not in a very good position right now” and “You don’t have the cards right now”.
The Stop Trump Coalition’s petition reads: “After Trump’s treatment of Ukraine’s President Zelensky, he has shown that he is not our friend or an ally of democracy.
“The tactic of trying to flatter him into doing the right thing has failed. He is not someone who should be receiving honours of any kind. The offer of a state visit should be rescinded.”
In a TikTok video, campaigner and commentator Zoe Gardner said that the way Trump treated Zelenskyy showed he is “nothing more than Putin’s mouthpiece”.
She added: “We already hated Trump anyway in the UK. We hate Musk, we hate the oligarch bros – we don’t want any of that ruining our democratic systems here in the UK and across Europe.”
Gardner warned that if Starmer does not cancel the state visit, which she said “seems pretty likely” the Stop Trump Coalition will mobilise hundreds of thousands of people to show Trump what the UK really thinks of him.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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