‘150% support’: Jeremy Hunt displays devotion to Trump in ‘racist tweet’ row

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt demonstrated more devoted loyalty to the US and its president as he continued his futile bid to replace Theresa May as prime minister amid a ‘racist tweet’ row.

Hunt, who pleaded last week for journalists to stop accidentally replacing the letter ‘H’ with the letter ‘C’ when pronouncing his name, has backed Donald Trump’s latest attack on London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Trump retweeted a diatribe from right-wing provocateur Katie Hopkins, which labeled the British capital ‘Khan’s Londonistan’ after more incidents of violence.

The US president, oblivious to claims that the tweet contained more than a hint of racism, commented simply: “LONDON needs a new mayor ASAP. Khan is a disaster – will only get worse!”

The majority of the other Tory leader wannabes currently vying for the honor of losing to Boris Johnson in the race for Downing Street were critical of Trump’s online backing for Hopkins. Sajid Javid called it “unbecoming,” Dominic Raab called it “not helpful or constructive,” and Michael Gove said it was a “mistake.”

Hunt, however, quite literally couldn’t have shown more support if he tried. He said: “I 150 percent agree with the president.” He was at pains to point out, however, that he only agreed with Trump’s “sentiment” rather than his wording. “The sentiment is enormous disappointment that we have a mayor of London who has completely failed to tackle knife crime and spent more time on politics than the actual business of making Londoners safer.”

That appears to be an extremely generous interpretation of the president’s likely ‘sentiment’ because Trump and Khan have a whole history of Twitter spats, and the insults definitely appear more personal than political these days.

Hunt knows on which side his bread is buttered, however, and keeping Washington onside will do him no harm at all. Just days earlier, he was backing America’s version of events concerning an attack on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman simply because “they’re our allies.”

In the row with Khan, he could have supported Trump just 100 percent, which would have been more than enough, but he went that extra 50 percent. This works on two levels, because it shows his future boss (Boris) that he’s the right man to remain as foreign secretary, and it also shows a devotion to his actual boss, the US president. Win-win.

By Simon Rite

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