Donald Trump

• I WAS proud that Hampstead & Kilburn and Holborn & St Pancras Labour parties, with Camden Momentum, marched on the Together Against Trump demonstration.

The Labour Party showed solidarity with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating their objection to Donald Trump’s visit.

Inviting Trump to our country and rolling out the red carpet for him, provides his dangerous views with credibility and establishment approval. It normalises his far-right views and helps to legitimise racism.

During Trump’s visit we saw a pro-Trump demonstration on the Saturday, with his supporters gleefully doing Nazi salutes and linking up with the “Free Tommy Robinson” demonstration – an abhorrent display of credibility Trump’s visit gives racists in the United Kingdom.

The usual argument for providing a platform for far-right extremist politicians does not apply here. Trump wasn’t given a mere platform, he was given super favourable treatment and an audience with the Queen.

The argument goes that by giving someone like Trump a platform, you can publicly challenge their ideology. However at no point did prime minister Theresa May challenge Trump’s.

A Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn has been rightly critical of Trump and of his presidency. Labour under Corbyn’s leadership will continue to challenge Trump’s brand of extremism.

It’s sickening to see the Conservatives endorse and support him. How far does Trump have to go before they will challenge him? At the Together Against Trump demo there was an absence of any “Tories against Trump” signs.

By giving Trump favourable treatment and failing to challenge him, when they ought to, the Conservative party is complicit in spreading the dangerous ideology of the Trump presidency and its islamophobic rhetoric.

I’m proud that Labour, led by Corbyn, is challenging this extremist far-right presidency at every opportunity.

REBECCA SHIRAZI
Vice-Chair & Campaigns
Hampstead & Kilburn
Labour Party