At least Trump won’t threaten the corgis

The Queen greets President Mobutu on platform 2
at London Victoria

A Yorkshire Terrier called Cara sparked a minor diplomatic panic in 1973 when it emerged the dog had been smuggled into Britain from abroad, bypassing the country's strict quarantine laws, and could potentially come within biting distance of the Queen's prized corgis.

The dog had sneaked along with the party accompanying President Mobutu Sese Seko as he came to the UK that year, blessed with the honour of a state visit. Cara was first noticed at Gatwick Airport but was still allowed to reach Buckingham Palace.

There, according to a Times report at the time, the rules were explained to the Zairean ruler and he promptly ordered the dog to be dispatched to his country's embassy in Brussels until the visit was over.

The story reassuringly, added: 

‘During its four-hour stay at Buckingham Palace Cara remained in the Zaire suite and did not, according to a Palace spokesman, come into contact with the Queen’s corgis or any other animal.’ 

Phew!

As Mobutu's sojourn here shows, invariably, controversy accompanies state visits as reliably as night follows day.

And the impending state visit of the president of the United States to this country has got an awful lot of people, on all sides of the argument, very angry incredibly quickly.

It is inevitable that Donald Trump's arrival will prompt enormous demonstrations in the capital and they will do their best to disrupt his visit wherever they can. And the visit’s announcement triggered protests from the Labour Party with shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry saying:

‘This is a president who has systematically assaulted all the shared values that unite our two countries, and unless Theresa May is finally going to stand up to him and object to that behaviour, she has no business wasting taxpayers’ money on all the pomp, ceremony and policing costs that will come with this visit.’ 

Meanwhile, on the opposing side many are lining up to accuse those planning to demonstrate of petty politics, when our alliance with the US, especially post-Brexit, is undoubtedly critical, and hypocrisy for failing to stage similar demonstrations against previous unsavoury visitors including President Xi Jinping in 2015 and the three-day non-state visit of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2018.

Ross Clark in the Telegraph, pondering whether Mr Trump would be afforded the offer of addressing bother Houses of Parliament, wrote it ‘would be foolish and hypocritical for the Speaker to carry out his threat’ [to deny the US president such a privilege]. Adding:

‘…not least because he would inevitably be reminded of the oleaginous speech he made to Chinese President Xi Jinping before that leader was invited to address members of the Commons and Lords in October 2015. I don’t criticise Bercow for his toe-curling performance on that occasion. He was simply doing his job in welcoming a foreign leader whom the government had invited to Britain. Bercow was paying homage not to the individual but to the office he holds – as leader of the world’s second largest economy and a country with whom it is vital that we do business if we are to avoid global conflict.’

For the Queen, of course, the latest controversial welcome will hardly cause a ripple, she has seen it all before, and not just with Mobutu. Since succeeding to the throne in 1952 she has had to host a steady trickle of thoroughly unpleasant world leaders including Mobutu, Nicolae Ceausescu, Hasting Banda and Robert Mugabe.

Whether protests greeted Zaire's president, I haven't been able to establish but it's safe to say if they occurred, they were ignored. To be fair, at the time, the gross excesses to which Mobutu’s regime would later reach, the pillaging, the mind-boggling levels of courrption, the epic human rights abuses and his role in the Congo Wars of the 1990s, were scarcely imaginable, despite his ruthless role in the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba. 

Colin Legum, writing in The Observer during the visit, noted: 

‘It is a hard thing to admit, but it is probably true that Zaire needed a leader like Mobutu to rescue it from its post-colonial fate.’

Historically, though, it’s hard to imagine a more awkward state visit than that of the Emperor Hirohito of Japan in 1971, who ruled from 1926 until the royalty became a constitutional monarchy in 1947 (though his reign lasted until his death in 1989).

This trip came just 26 years after the end of the Second World War, with memories still bitter and fresh. His few days here were part of a goodwill tour through Europe and, as he rattled down The Mall in an open top carriage with the Queen, he was met with the largest crowds of the whole trip. But the New York Times noted there were ‘few cheers, and the crowds were curiously quiet, considering their size’.

Queen Elizabeth II with Emperor Hirohito riding towards Buckingham

Palace in 1971.

One unidentified 27-year-old man threw his coat towards the emperor as he passed along The Mall prompting two Life Guards riding along with the royal carriage to wave their swords towards him. The coat-thrower faced no charge.

Lord Mountbatten of Burma, who accepted the surrender of Japanese forces, refused to attend the state banquet but a spokesman told The Times no snub was intended and he received invitations to attend 20 to 30 functions a week. It is hard, though, to imagine what invitation was so pressing that it topped a state banquet.

The Times also reported that a man laid a wreath at Bristol Cenotaph with a card reading: 

‘Our memories are not as short as government which today welcomes those who inspired your suffering and death.’

And memories are short. There were demonstrations against the state visit of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2007 - it was so serious the Liberal Democrats boycotted the whole affair - and against President Xi Jinping of China in 2015. The latter, though, was perhaps more notable for the strange crowds supporting the president wearing t-shirts reading I Heart China and messages such as ‘Welcome Big Buddy Xi’, all seemingly shipped over in an operation orchestrated by the Chinese State.

It’s fair to say, however, these protests will be dwarfed by the ones that will greet, and follow, President Trump. Politically, such a visit is a no brainer if a sign of desperation. Trade agreements with the US after Brexit will be vital though it’s currently hard to envisage how the UK government will be able to secure something of worth with such an unreliable and erratic President.

Equally, the protests are certain and perhaps, rather than bickering, the country should just accept and understand both inevitabilities. 

It could, of course, be that the reaction against Donald Trump is likely to be so large and vigorous, in comparison to earlier protests, precisely because the United States is our closest ally. The values of this country and the US should be closely aligned and people might hold the view that the current occupant of the Oval Office denigrates the history and standing of his position.