Daily Times

LONDON: On Thursday, British Prime Minister took time out of her Middle East tour to publicly rebuke US President Trump over his far-right Britain First anti-Muslim retweets.

Speaking to journalist’s in Amman, Jordan, May said: “The 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. I am very clear that retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do.”

“Britain First is a hateful organisation. It seeks to spread division and mistrust in our communities. It stands in fundamental opposition to the values that we share as a nation – values of respect, tolerance and, dare I say it, common decency.”

She spoke on the last stop of a three-day tour in the Middle East, to deliver a foreign policy speech about Britain’s relationship with the region post – Brexit and to meet Jordanian officials. However, her visit was overshadowed by her public fallout with Trump.

The spat between the US – UK leaders began on Wednesday when US President Donald Trump retweeted anti-Muslim propaganda videos, from the feed of Jaydan Fransen, deputy leader of a British far-right group Britain First.

Britain First is a small political group in the UK with around 1,000 supporters. They have an openly anti-Islam, anti immigration agenda.

Three videos were re-tweeted to his 43.6 million followers titled: “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!”

The first video was immediately discredited when the Dutch Embassy in the US, said the assailant in the video was born and raised in the Netherlands; the other two videos showed four-year-old events without an explanation.

In London, the reaction was swift: May, criticised the president for sharing material posted by the ultranationalist group. “It is wrong for the president to have done this,” May’s office said in a statement. “Britain First seeks to divide communities by their use of hateful narratives that peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people.” In retaliation, initially getting her twitter handle wrong, Trump tweeted, “don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom.”

The Muslim Council of Britain urged the prime minister to distance herself from Trump over the comments. In a statement the umbrella body for British Muslims said: “This is the clearest endorsement yet from the US president of the far-right and their vile anti-Muslim propaganda. We cannot give such bigotry a free pass.”

Labour leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn invited Trump to visit a mosque in Finsbury Park, in his north London constituency, where he could learn about “diversity and sense of inclusivity.”

In Westminster, shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, said, Trump’s actions were “offensive not just to British people of Muslim heritage and British people of black and minority ethnic heritage, but to all decent British people.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan repeated his call for Trump’s planned state visit to be cancelled, he added: “It beggars belief that the president of our closest ally doesn’t see that his support of this extremist group actively undermines the values of tolerance and diversity that makes Britain so great.”

Addressing British MPs, British home secretary, Amber Rudd, said although, Trump was wrong to retweet propaganda from Britain First, she reminded Trump’s critics of the “bigger picture,” – the preservation of the historical US-UK “special relationship”.

Fransen, who has previously been charged in the UK with “religious aggravated harassment,” thanked Trump for advancing her message. “I’m facing prison for criticising Islam,” she wrote on Twitter, “Britain is now Sharia compliant. I need your help!”

Published in Daily Times, December 3^rd 2017.