Speaking at an anti-Trump rally in London on Tuesday, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who refused to attend Monday’s state banquet at Buckingham Palace featuring Trump but did attend a banquet for Communist Chinese president Xi Jinping, told an estimated 30,000 anti-Trump protesters that Trump treated refugees like “enemies’,” ignored climate change, and tried to exploit the NHS for profit.
As the Daily Mail reported, Corbyn ranted:
When you’ve created that sense of hate, when you’ve destroyed people’s self-esteem by those forms of racism, do you know what? You haven’t built a house, you haven’t built a school, you haven’t trained a nurse, you haven’t defended our natural world – all you’ve done is created a greater sense of hate and hatred that goes with it … I say to our visitors that have arrived this week. Think on please about a world that is one of peace and disarmament, is one recognizing the values of all people, is a world that defeats racism, defeats misogyny, defeats the religious hatreds that are being fuelled by the far-Right in politics in Britain, in Europe and the United States.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan echoed the attack on Trump after Trump blasted him on Twitter on Monday. Khan snapped, “This is the sort of behavior I would expect from an 11-year-old. But it’s for him to decide how he behaves. It’s not for me to respond in a like manner. I think it’s beneath me to do childish tweets and name-calling.”
On Sunday, Khan had referred to Trump as a “growing global threat,” writing, “Donald Trump is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat. The far right is on the rise around the world, threatening our hard-won rights and freedoms and the values that have defined our liberal, democratic societies for more than seventy years.” Khan added, “That’s why it’s so un-British to be rolling out the red carpet this week for a formal state visit for a president whose divisive behavior flies in the face of the ideals America was founded upon – equality, liberty and religious freedom.”
Emily Thornberry, a member of the Labour Party who serves as the Shadow Foreign Secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today that Trump was a “sexual predator.” She stated, “A state visit is an honor and we don’t think this president deserves an honor. The truth is he has tried to close borders with Muslim-majority countries, he is caging small Mexican children, he has grabbed women and boasted about it. He is a sexual predator, he is a racist and it’s right to say that — we need to think about when is it our country got so scared?”
Thornberry defended Corbyn having dinner with Xi Jinping but skipping the banquet with Trump by saying, “When you have a close friend and they’re going wrong, you are more likely to be adamant with them and clearer with them than someone who has not been as close a friend and someone you are trying to build a relationship up with.”