Far-left Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has accused Donald Trump of personally attacking him because of his “ethnicity” and Muslim faith, in comments likely to reignite the Labour politician’s long-running and very public antipathy towards the U.S. president-elect.
As Breitbart News reported, Khan has previously decried Trump with a litany of insults, saying, “I’m quite clear, I understand on Trump… He’s a racist. He’s a sexist. He’s a homophobe. And it’s very important, particularly when you’ve got a special relationship, that you treat them as a best mate.
“If my best mate was a racist, or a sexist or a homophobe, I’d call him out and I’d explain to him why those views are wrong.”
The pair became embroiled in an extraordinary war of words during Trump’s first presidency, initially sparked by Labour leader Khan opposing a U.S. travel ban on people from certain Muslim countries.
He further demanded Trump be refused a state visit to the UK in 2017 when he met with Queen Elizabeth II.
Khan argued Trump should not be afforded the normal diplomatic niceties granted to U.S. leaders because he used “xenophobia, racism, and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic,” asserting the president only cared about “White America.”
Trump then accused Khan — the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital when he was first elected in 2016 — of doing a “very bad job on terrorism” and called him a “stone cold loser” and “very dumb.”
The mayor in turn allowed an obscene blimp of Trump dressed as a baby in a nappy to fly above protests in Parliament Square during his 2018 visit to Britain, as Breitbart News reported.
The stars and stripes upside down with the Trump Baby, a six metre high inflatable blimp flying above Westminster prior to protests against the state visit of U.S. President Donald Trump on 4th June 2019 in London, United Kingdom. the display was approved by London Mayor Sadiq Khan. (Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
The balloon flew next to Britain’s Houses of Parliament at Parliament Square Gardens during the U.S. president’s visit.
It was funded with nearly £17,000 in crowdfunding donations. A spokesman for the baby Trump group behind the stunt said of the creation that it was meant as an “obscene mutant clone of the president.”
“The Mayor supports the right to peaceful protest and understands that this can take many different forms,” a spokesman for Sadiq Khan told Sky News.
Khan said more recently a Trump return to the White House would imperil his own safety.
Speaking on a podcast recorded before Trump’s re-election on November 5 and released earlier this week, Khan, a son of Pakistani immigrants to Britain, said he viewed Trump’s past targeting of him as “incredibly personal.”
“If I wasn’t this colour skin, if I wasn’t a practising Muslim, he wouldn’t have come for me,” he told the High Performance podcast, which interviews prominent people in different sectors, the Daily Mirror reports.
Nevertheless Khan said he would be happy to “show him around” the capital if Trump visits the UK during his next term in office.