Donald Trump is the democratically elected President of our closest ally and our single largest trading partner. Every other American President has come to Britain, and Her Majesty the Queen has entertained overseas heads of state from a number of countries about which she and the Government of the day may have had reservations, including Nicolae Ceausescu and Robert Mugabe and more recently, the President of China. Details of the visit will be decided at a later stage.
I am pleased that our Foreign Secretary and our Home Secretary have secured assurances that all British passport holders remain welcome to travel to the US, whether dual nationals or otherwise. I agree with Boris Johnson when he said in the Commons that 'most fair-minded people would say that that shows the advantages of working closely with the Trump Administration and the advantages of having a relationship that enables us to get our point across and to get the vital protections that UK passport holders need. The approach taken by the Labour party, of pointlessly demonising the Trump Administration, would have achieved the very opposite'.
It cannot be emphasised enough that these changes are American policy and ones that the British Government fundamentally disagrees with. It is our hope that US critics, such as Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham, will eventually be able to influence the President in this regard.