British Prime Minister Theresa May insisted Thursday that she is not afraid to criticize a key ally, saying U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s retweets of a \u201chateful\u201d far-right group were \u201cthe wrong thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
But May\u2019s government dug in its heels over mounting calls to cancel Trump\u2019s planned state visit to the U.K.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s retweeting of anti-Muslim videos from far-right fringe group Britain First has been widely condemned in Britain. May\u2019s spokesman called the retweets \u201cwrong,\u201d and the prime minister gave the same verdict on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that we work together does not mean that we are afraid to say when we think that the United States have got it wrong and to be very clear with them,\u201d she said. \u201cI am very clear that retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking in Amman, Jordan, May said the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant group was \u201ca hateful organization\u201d that runs counter to \u201ccommon British decency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump responded to criticism from Britain with a tweet urging May to focus on \u201cthe destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom,\u201d rather than on him.<\/p>\n
May countered that \u201cwe take the need to deal with the terrorist threat very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
May has sought to cultivate a close relationship with Trump, visiting him in Washington days after his inauguration in January and extending the offer of a state visit hosted by Queen Elizabeth II.<\/p>\n
But the Twitter storm has prompted renewed calls for the trip to be called off. Trump had already faced strong opposition in Britain over his attempt to ban travel to the U.S. from several majority-Muslim countries.<\/p>\n
In the House of Commons on Thursday, multiple lawmakers stood to demand that the visit be scrapped.<\/p>\n
London Mayor Sadiq Khan also joined the calls. He said Trump has promoted \u201ca vile, extremist group\u201d and an official visit by him to Britain \u201cwould not be welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n
May said the visit was still on \u2014 though she suggested it was not imminent.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn invitation for a state visit has been extended and has been accepted,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have yet to set a date.\u201d<\/p>\n
The retweets by Trump, who has almost 44 million Twitter followers, provided a huge boost to Britain First. The tiny but publicity-savvy group has staged direct-action protests at mosques and is active on social media. The group regularly posts inflammatory videos purporting to show violence by Muslims, without context or supporting information.<\/p>\n
Several lawmakers called Thursday for the group to be banned.<\/p>\n
Home Secretary Amber Rudd said that \u201cBritish people overwhelmingly reject the prejudiced rhetoric of the far right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis government will not tolerate any groups that spread hate by demonizing those of other faiths or ethnicities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
British Prime Minister Theresa May insisted Thursday that she is not afraid to criticize a key ally, saying U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s retweets of a \u201chateful\u201d far-right group were \u201cthe wrong thing to do.\u201d But May\u2019s government dug in its heels over mounting calls to cancel Trump\u2019s planned state visit to the U.K. Trump\u2019s retweeting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11755,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11753\/revisions\/11755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}