During her visit to the White House in January, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May had extended an invitation to President Donald Trump to visit the UK but it was subsequently put on hold because of mass protests in the country. There was opposition to the visit and an online petition emerged with signatures of nearly 1.85 million people who were against the visit. Protesters also threatened mass demonstrations in case the visit materialized and it was, therefore, postponed indefinitely.
Moreover, this visit did not appear in the speech of the Queen – this speech is on the opening a session of Parliament and normally, there are mentions of important events scheduled in the next two years in the speech.
But, the State Visit of Donald Trump did not feature in it and the conclusion was that it had been pushed back to 2019 at the earliest.
Situation has changed
Sky News reports that the controversial state visit of President Donald Trump to the UK will take place next year and there are possibilities that he could make an unofficial visit to Britain to check out the golf courses he owns in Scotland. The developments have come after the G20 summit where he had an opportunity to interact with Theresa May. He announced his plans to visit the UK soon after the summit.
In case his intention was to have an unofficial visit to the UK ahead of his official state visit, his itinerary could include his golf courses in Scotland.
One of these is the championship course in Ayrshire which has hosted several British Opens. The other course is in Aberdeenshire and it is scheduled to host the Scottish Open in 2019.
Incidentally, official sources have confirmed that there are no major international summits like G7 or G20 planned in Britain to justify his presence in the near future.
Obviously, it is an awkward situation for him and his backroom boys would have to work overtime to work out a strategy and prepare a schedule.
The future is unpredictable
Prime Minister Theresa May has invited Trump and, as per a spokesman of No 10 Downing Street, an invitation was extended and accepted but it was not included in the Queen's Speech because there was no firm date.
May is still in control of Downing Street, but her continued presence there is not guaranteed. White House spokesman Sean Spicer has cut short speculations by saying that the President is looking forward to visiting Britain but it will not be in the next two weeks.
It may be recalled that the relation between Donald Trump and Britain soured when there was a terror attack on London Bridge in June and a war of words ensued between him and Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London and the state visit was postponed.
