The UK’s Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey will boycott a state banquet for Donald Trump when the US President visits the UK next month, in protest against his position on Gaza.
Mr Davey announced that he would decline an invitation to the dinner, becoming one of the most senior politicians in the UK to directly challenge Mr Trump on the issue.
Speaking on Thursday, Mr Davey said Mr Trump was the one person who could stop the war in Gaza due to his influence over Israel and Middle East states, and the issue needed to be raised when he is in Britain.
The US President will make his second state visit to the UK from September 17 to 19, which will include a banquet at St George’s Hall in Windsor Castle.
Mr Davey said he and his wife Emily had “spent all summer thinking about this” and had “prayed about it”, before deciding it was “the one way” to send a message to both Mr Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“We need to put pressure on [Mr Trump],” Mr Davey told the BBC. After a summer of seeing “horrendous images of children starving and emaciated hostages”, the “horrific” situation had gone on far too long, he said.
If a ceasefire is to be achieved, aid brought into Gaza, and hostages released “the one person who can make it happen is Trump”, he said.
He said: “There is no honour like an invitation from the King, and not to accept his invitation goes against all of our instincts.
“But I fear we could have a situation where Donald Trump comes to our country, is honoured with a lavish dinner at one of our finest palaces, yet no one reminds him that he has the power to stop the horrifying starvation and death in Gaza and get the hostages released.
“If Donald Trump tells [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu to stop this, it ends tomorrow. If Donald Trump uses his influence over Qatar and the other Gulf states that Hamas relies on, all the hostages could come home tomorrow.”
Mr Davey has criticised the recent decision by the UK government to proscribe the activist group Palestine Action, which has led to hundreds of people being arrested at rallies after showing support.
He called for a review of the law because people were being arrested “en masse”, although he agreed Palestine Action had committed criminal acts and “are a very worrying organisation”.
The Lib Dems had abstained from the decision to proscribe Palestine Action “because we didn’t think the government had made that case”, Mr Davey said.
Mr Trump has offered mixed signals on Israel’s war in Gaza. He has called for an end to the conflict and to the “real starvation” in the territory while rejecting calls to recognise a Palestinian state and proposing to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and redevelop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
The UN last week confirmed that Gaza city was suffering a famine. Israel was also accused of killing five journalists and 15 others in a strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Monday.
Mr Davey added: “Boycotting the banquet is the one way I can send a message to Donald Trump and Keir Starmer that they can’t close their eyes and wish this away.
“We have to speak up. They have to act. Donald Trump must act to end this humanitarian crisis.”
Mr Trump’s first state banquet was snubbed in 2019 by then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, then-Lib Dem leader Vince Cable, then-SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford and Commons speaker John Bercow.
The US President’s upcoming UK trip makes him one of the few world leaders to be invited for two state visits.
The honour is usually reserved for monarchs, with Queen Margrethe II of Denmark the last person to make a second state visit in 2000, although French president Raymond Poincare made two state visits in the early 20th century.
Details of Mr Trump’s visit are still to be announced, but it will not include an address to Parliament as the Lords and Commons are not sitting while he is in the country.
