Outgoing UK prime minister Theresa May has slammed US president Donald Trump after he said certain Democratic congresswoman from minority backgrounds should "go home".
Mrs May, who was recently criticised by Mr Trump for her approach to Brexit, said the US president’s remarks were “completely unacceptable,” her spokesman said.
Referring to the group of US politicians, Mr Trump had tweeted they “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came” as opposed to talking negatively about his immigration policies.
Only one of the four politicians Mr Trump was believed to be speaking about was born abroad – Ilhan Omar, who spent the first ten years of her life in Somalia before moving to the US and gaining asylum three years later.
“The prime minister’s view is that the language that was used to refer to those women was completely unacceptable,” Mrs May’s spokesman said on Monday.
Transatlantic relations have taken a hit in recent weeks after it emerged the UK’s then ambassador to the US, Sir Kim Darroch, had in 2017 called the Trump administration as “dysfunctional” and “inept.” Mr Trump hit back and said Sir Kim was a “pompous fool” and “wacky.”
The ensuing uproar resulted in the ambassador resigning last week, reportedly in part because Mrs May's likely successor, Boris Johnson, did not show enough support for Sir Kim. Mr Trump has described Mr Johnson as a friend.
In 2013 when she was interior minister, Mrs May was forced to drop a small-scale but controversial pilot billboard campaign that told illegal migrants to "Go home or face arrest."
