London district the Royal Borough of Greenwich said they work hard to make their area a “welcoming and peaceful place” but that they would suspend that attitude for U.S. President Donald Trump because they disapproved of his use of micro-blogging platform Twitter.
Elected councillors of Greenwich, one of the 33 local authority areas that make up Britain’s capital made the decision to ban President Trump this week in a motion vote just months before a potential working visit to the city to open the new U.S. Embassy.
Despite having no legal ability to enforce their decision, the council made the decision earlier this week and at a meeting expressed their “alarm at the decision of President Trump to retweet Islamophobic Propaganda”, reports London’s LBC radio station.
Greenwich Labour Councillor Chris Kirby was behind the council motion attempting to censure President Trump for his retweeting a number of videos purporting to show Muslim violence. He said of the vote: “President Trump has regularly expressed abhorrent and aggressive views and in doing so has enabled the spread of division and hatred.
“We have worked incredibly hard in this Borough to build strong community ties across all faiths and backgrounds – President Trump’s views, attitude and policies are totally incompatible with that work.
“We could not stand by and watch the level of public debate be poisoned by the rhetoric that the President and others like him have continued to use.
“There is no place for aggressive, bigoted and hateful rhetoric in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.”
Labour Council leader Denise Hyland added: “On a daily basis we work hand in hand with residents from all communities to ensure this borough is a peaceful and welcoming place that celebrates difference and diversity, but in the case of President Trump we are willing to make an exception.”
“Barring” President Trump from the Greenwich area follows calls by Sadiq Khan, a long-time critic of the President who even travelled to the United States to campaign against him before the 2016 election, for Trump to be banned from the whole of the United Kingdom. Despite being the mayor of only the capital, the Muslim mayor assumed to speak for the whole nation when he said: “It’s increasingly clear that any official visit from President Trump to Britain would not be welcomed.”
He added that he had “previously called on Theresa May to cancel her ill-judged offer of a state visit”.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.