Sir Keir Starmer will be hit by a rebellion from Labour MPs if he requests that Donald Trump should receive the honour of addressing Parliament, The i Paper has been told.
Labour MPs said it would be “completely inappropriate” for Trump to be granted a speech in Parliament, with some backbenchers also calling for the Government to reverse the “stupid” decision to give the US President a second state visit.
Trump was offered an unprecedented second state visit in February as part of charm offensive by Starmer aimed at winning him round on issues such as trade and continued US support for Ukraine.
Last week, Trump suggested that the King, who will formally host the state visit, is looking at “setting a date for September”.
Some parliamentarians, including the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, have urged Starmer to request that Trump be invited to address Parliament during his visit – an honour that has only been extended to three US presidents – Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
For a foreign leader to be invited to speak in Westminster Hall, the Commons Speaker, the Lord Speaker and the Lord Great Chamberlain must all agree after a request is made by the Government.
Donald Trump meets Keir Starmer at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., February 27, 2025. (Photo: Reuters)However, a number of MPs and peers have already written to the two Speakers urging them to block Trump from addressing Parliament.
Last week, The Times reported that the Labour MP Kate Osborne had written a letter to the Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, saying that such an invitation would be “inappropriate”.
Now, two more Labour MPs – Kim Johnson and Rachael Maskell – have gone on-the-record with The i Paper in calling for Trump to be blocked from addressing Parliament.
Maskell said: “It would be completely inappropriate for the US President to address the Houses of Parliament.”
A third MP told The i Paper that they too had written to Hoyle opposing the move.
The MP, who asked not to be named, said that Starmer should go further by rescinding the state visit invitation, which they said was a mistake.
“It was a stupid idea to invite him and a hostage to fortune given his temperament and his administration’s stated objectives,” the MP said.
“However, it was done. But since the invite his actions domestically in the US, in the Middle East and in Ukraine mean he should have his invite revoked. Millions of Americans came out on the streets to defend their democracy from his administration this week. What signal does this invite send to them? They want solidarity from their Atlantic cousins. Not complicity.”The MP added: “I’m afraid this invite is yet another example of an increasingly desperate government prepared to sacrifice what little credibility it has left on the mythical alter of GDP growth. It won’t work and the sooner they understand this the sooner we can start to reverse our dire polling.”
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Read MoreA spokeswoman for Hoyle told The i Paper that no request had yet been made for Trump to address Parliament.
She said: “Should a request be made to address the Houses of Parliament, it will be considered in the usual way. No request has been received, but any decision would be made by both Speakers.”
However, when contacted by The i Paper, a Downing Street source insisted that the issue rested with the parliamentary authorities.
In the Lords, the former Labour minister Lourd Foulkes has coordinated the letter to the Lords Speaker, Lord McFall, opposing a Trump speech.
On Monday, Lord Foulkes called Trump an “apologist” for Vladimir Putin and said that the US President’s speeches are “gobbledegook”.
He told Times Radio: “[Trump’s speeches] are nonsense and for us to be gathered together to listen to someone coming over and talking nonsense to us would really be quite an insult.
“We need to make it absolutely clear that an invitation to address the two houses of Westminster is an important invitation and one that we think about very carefully. And I suspect that if he was to be invited there would be a huge boycott by most MPs and members of the House of Lords.”
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