http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/760517 ... t-petition

good ...

and just to add ...
Seven "failed" states with travel ban/vetting. Forty (of a certain religion) majority states completely unaffected. Just to give some proportion.

I can see the logic in their position - if the petition had been started earlier it might have been able to have an effect, but diplomatic reality is that once such an invite is given it wouldn't be withdrawn unless there was a direct conflict of interests of some sort between the two nations. The petition does at least present a clear statement that a fair chunk of the UK population doesn't like Mr Trump all that much.

However, make no mistake, this visit will not go that well for us. It will almost certainly have to be stage managed and secured to an insane degree (at massive cost to the UK taxpayer) because there will be significant and noisy protests and people willing to go to extreme lengths to disrupt it, although hopefully nobody will be stupid enough to think violence will be a valid response.I have no interest in Trump being physically harmed, nor some hapless soul shot by a DS-9 marksman.

Basically, it is probably going to cost us all several million pounds to allow the rather crass and unlikeable Mr Trump to showboat for a couple of days on our soil. Given I suspect not inviting him on an immediate state visit wouldn't actually have done us much harm in the long run (I'm fairly certain he has no idea what one is), I don't really see how it's of any benefit to us really. Several million quid of taxpayer's money wasted.

Are you in favour of that then Steve? I thought you were very much against our tax money being spent on useless things?

having the duly elected President of the USA here is never a waste of money its good business value even more so in this particular instance with a major trade deal in the offing ...

I can see that as an argument, but I'm not sure I buy it. Do you think if we hadn't offered Trump a state visit straight away he'd refuse to sign a trade deal with us? I'm not sure he even knows what a 'state visit' actually means, or that he had an expectation we'd bring him over as soon as possible.

IMO, there's no requirement to give him a state visit straight away. we could happily have not mentioned it at all and things would have gone on more or less the same way. because at the end of the day, a state visit doesn't actually affect the trade deal at all, the profits to be made are identical either way. It just seems to me to be entirely un-necessary, and doing it right at the beginning, when things are always likely to be heated, seems even less prudent.

Basically, I don't buy we HAVE to spend several million of taxpayer's precious money being nice to Trump. Several million is only a tiny bit of the total government wallet obviously, but I just think we could find uses for it which give a much bigger benefit to the UK taxpayer.

no one is asking you to buy it the state visit was offered then came the protests the offer of a state visit will not be withdrawn. the trade deal is going to be huge for this country out weighing anything the EU can offer without the EU attached baggage. i do wonder about the direction of the protests is it anti President Trump or anti any trade deal, maybe both, to enable the UK to leave the EU, i just wonder. (smile)

but please note the leave voters are going to change the face of politics within this country and we will do it at the ballot box not on the streets. sit back, relax wait and watch the up and coming elections in February it will be a fore taster to the next general election which i believe will happen sooner rather then later. we are going to rock your world ...

Er.. I said exactly that up the page. Just because I accept it's going to happen doesn't stop me thinking it's a bad use of UK public money.


OK, you know we already trade with the US, right? So what you're saying is the new trade deal with the US will be a bigger increase in our trading balance with them than our entire trading balance with the EU. Given 48% of our total trade is with the EU, that's more or less mathematically impossible. I genuinely doubt this is going to be the case.


It's anti-Trump, that's totallyobvious. The majority of the people signing it almost certainly don't give a flying one about the UK's balance of trade figures. When we had protests about the like of TTIP hardly anyone turned up and the parliamentary petition on it got signed by about a tenth as many people as the Trump one has. A lot of people don't like Trump on a personal level. It's not tricky.


I'd say they already have done.


Well, you know what they say about living in interesting times.

Well, if you stop being so perocial, the whole world is criticising Trump for being racist and masoganistic. I doubt anybody, apart from paranoid Brexiters, is thinking about how standing up for civility could harm a trade deal. Get over yourself, not everything in the world is a conspiracy to sabotage Brexit, the pro-Brexit politicians are doing enough on their own, they don't need additional help.

On the other side of the coin, Angela Merkel berated Trump in a telephone call at the weekend about his treatment of people trying to enter the USA. There was a Green politician who was supposed to be going to the USA as part of a delegation, but he now cannot represent Germany in the talks: even though he is a German citizen and a German MP, he was born in Iran.

And banning American citizens from returning home is unconstitutional. The guy just doesn't seem to understand what being President means.

Trump fires Attorney General for not supporting Muslim Ban
Because surrounding yourself with 'yes men' rather than people who know what they're doing always ends well.

there is another petition which welcomes President Trump to the UK. the wife and i have just signed it ...

the AG was an acting AG who was installed by President Obama a replacement AG was awaiting approval. this just moved the appointment along ...

Let him dig his grave while the rest of the world watches

Lord Ricketts of Disney?

Poor old Liz had had to meet a lot of undesirables in her time - its part of the job - she will smile, shake his hand and then nip round the back and throw darts at his picture

not the whole world. by the way how are AfD progressing ...