Opinion: Demonstration against President Trump is essential

In less than four weeks, Donald Trump is due back in the UK, but this time he is being invited to London and potentially Portsmouth, on an official state visit.

Trump should expect another vibrant, diverse and loud carnival of resistance on the streets of London, and across towns and cities in the UK, where people are mobilising to organise a people’s parade. The UK should be turning its back on Trump’s harmful and divisive politics, not honouring his agenda with a state visit.

People will be turning out in force to show their outrage and opposition to Trump, to the politics that he represents and to the administration that he is leading. Protestors will be standing up to normalising a racist, misogynistic, bigoted world leader who is a climate crisis denier.

Trump’s visit to the UK last year mobilised people in 50 towns and cities all over the UK, including outside Blenheim Palace, in Woodstock, where thousands of people stood outside in a powerful protest full of humour and outrage at Trump’s policies. Many first time protestors joined the crowd, including young women, children, minorities and Americans.

Last summer, The Stop Trump Coalition mobilised a quarter of a million people to march in the biggest weekday demonstration ever to take place in London.

Thousands of people from all walks of life from across the political spectrum protested, many for the very first time in a nationwide ‘Carnival of Resistance’, with the baby Trump blimp proudly taking to the skies and later in the day baby Trump arrived at the rally in Trafalgar Square to a roar of applause and joy from the massive crowds.

As a founding member of the The Stop Trump Coalition, we are busy coordinating and planning for this year’s carnival of resistance.

We aim to bring together a wide cross section of people who believe that we must stand up to the policies and politics that the President of the United States represents. This year, we expect the protest to be even bigger. The Climate Crisis is the central issue at the heart of the protest, as we mobilise with protestors from the school climate strikes, Extinction Rebellion, and other grassroots climate justice groups. The Climate Crisis is connected to the global human rights crises that are forced migration and closed borders.

The Stop Trump Coalition believes the honour of a state visit should be reserved for those who deserve it.

Trump is far from being a normal president and we are not living in normal times, with the government weak and in a shambles over Brexit, a state visit should be far from May’s mind, instead her government should be holding Trump and his actions to account and not going cap in hand in humiliation, seeking any Brexit trade deal they can by bending over backwards for a discredited president.

Trump’s ideas include making EEC banned chlorine washed chicken available in our supermarkets, shops and food chain, lowering environmental protections and offering up public services like our treasured NHS to corporate greed.

Over the past year, Trump has continued with his charged rhetoric of hate and bigotry, fuelling a rise of extreme right nationalism. This hate filled rhetoric from the most powerful leader in the free world has created a context where attacks against synagogues, black churches and mosques in the US have increased. The mainstreaming of white nationalism and white supremacy has resulted in an increase in attacks and violence against minorities and their places of worship.

Despite Trump’s horrifying and long record of racist comments, allegations of sexual violence (which he denies), the separation of migrant children from their families, Prime Minster Theresa May and Buckingham Palace have still decided to roll out the red carpet for an official state visit from June 3 - 5.

This year's carnival of resistance will also connect the ongoing disaster that is the hostile environment, the Windrush scandal, the rising anti-Muslim bigotry, the scapegoating of migrants, and the failure of our own politicians to act on the climate crisis.

What happens in America impacts the rest of the world and what the President of the United States does and says also matters to the rest of the world, which is why we will be on the streets of London and the UK to protest against this president.

Shaista Aziz is a Stop Trump Coalition protest organiser and Oxford City Councillor