Trump plans provocative UK visit 1 day after Brexit vote, but will Cameron greet him?
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will visit Scotland on June 24, just a day after the UK votes on whether to leave the EU, to open his Trump Turnberry golf resort.
The trip will be Trump’s first since the row with British Prime Minister David Cameron over the tycoon’s comments about Muslims last December.
PM has no plans to meet @realDonaldTrump during June trip says Downing Street (no surprise given date)
— Nick Eardley (@nickeardleybbc) June 1, 2016
The billionaire property magnate will be visiting the South Ayrshire golf resort, which he purchased for an undisclosed sum in 2014, for the ceremonial ribbon cutting following a £200 million (US$288 million) refurbishment.
“Very exciting that one of the great resorts of the world, Turnberry, will be opening today after a massive £200 million investment,” Trump said in a statement.
“I own it and I am very proud of it. I look forward to attending the official opening of this great development on June 24.”
Turnberry is Trump’s second golf resort in Scotland, where his mother was born.
Though Cameron said last week he would be happy to meet Trump, telling ITV he believed in maintaining the much vaunted ‘special relationship’ between the two nations, Downing Street has said the PM has no plans to meet the White House hopeful on his June 24 visit.
Britain needs a @realDonaldTrump visit like it needs a bucket of cold sick. Fortunately there will be other news on June 24th
— Sarah Wollaston MP (@sarahwollaston) June 1, 2016
“Candidates often come through the country. We are more than happy to meet him on that basis. There are no firm dates set up at the moment. There has been no formal contact,” a Downing Street source said on Wednesday.
In the days after the mass shooting in San Bernardino last December, Trump called for a “complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the US. The comments prompted widespread criticism across the globe with hundreds of thousands of people in the UK signing a petition calling for a ban on Trump entering Britain.
At the time, Cameron decried the outspoken tycoon’s comments as “divisive, stupid and wrong” during a parliamentary debate at Westminster. In subsequent months, Cameron has said although he stands by his remarks, he will work with whoever is elected president.
