Quotables
Boris Johnson defends Trump's visit to the queen by citing similar state visits by brutal dictators
More than one million citizens of the U.K. have signed a petition in protest of an official state visit by President Donald Trump. The petition explains that while Trump should be allowed in Britain, an official state visit would "cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen."
To that, some British politicians say rubbish, the BBC reports. A state visit from "a democratically elected president of our closest ally and our single biggest trading partner" is "absolutely in our national interest," Tory MP Philip Davies argued. The U.K.'s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson added that "both Nicolae Ceaușescu and Robert Mugabe have been entertained by Her Majesty."
"What a relief that we didn't have to meet either of them," Speaker John Bercow interrupted.
Johnson's defense wasn't likely too encouraging. Ceaușescu is the former brutal dictator of Romania, while Zimbabwe's Mugabe has been in power since 1987 and is a mass murderer.