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Donald Trump to visit UK on day of EU referendum result

Presumptive Republican US presidential nominee to visit Britain on 24 June to officially open Turnberry golf resort

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the US presidential election, has confirmed he is to visit the UK later this month to attend the official reopening of his hotel and golf resort in Scotland.

The billionaire property developer will be at the Turnberry hotel at the golf course in Ayrshire on 24 June for its official relaunch following a £200m redevelopment.

Trump’s announcement throws up the question of whether David Cameron will meet him, as the visit comes the day after the UK’s referendum on EU membership on 23 June – a vote some polls suggest the prime minister faces losing.

The Turnberry hotel, which Trump bought in 2014 for £35m, opened to guests on Wednesday. It features a £3,500-a-night presidential suite and, f-rom August, the Donald J Trump ballroom – “the most luxurious meeting facility anywhe-re in Europe”, according to his publicists.

View of the Trump Turnberry resort after the redesign. Photograph: David Cannon/Getty Images

 View of the Trump Turnberry resort after the redesign. Photograph: David Cannon/Getty Images
 

“Very exciting that one of the great resorts of the world, Turnberry, will be opening today after a massive £200m investment. I own it and I am very proud of it,” Trump said in a statement. 

He will not be officially confirmed as Republican nominee until the party’s convention in July. And his campaign did not say whether he planned any political activity while in the UK – or whether his trip was a coincidence.

Trump has often weighed in on the referendum, and believes the UK should leave the EU. He told Fox News in May: “I know Great Britain very well. I know the country very well. I have a lot of investments there. I would say that they’re better off without it. But I want them to make their own decision.” He recently toldHollywood Reporter, “Oh yeah, I think they should leave”, after being initially unfamiliar with the term “Brexit”.

 
 
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Cameron has publicly deplored the tycoon’s attacks on Mexican migrants and Muslims. On 5 May, Cameron said Trump deserved respect for triumphing in the Republican primary race but would not retract his earlier statement that the attacks on Muslims were “stupid, divisive and wrong”.

The prime minister has said he would be willing to meet Trump, as is usual with US presidential candidates passing through the UK.

However, no specific arrangements have been made for a meeting – and senior government sources pointed out that 24 June is likely to be a busy day for Cameron.

The visit will be Trump’s first visit to Scotland, whe-re he owns two golf resorts, since coming under attack f-rom across the political spectrum for his views on Muslims and on Mexican migrants to the US.

There was a huge clamour for Trump to be denied entry to the UK in December after an online petition to parliament attracted nearly 360,000 signatures in 24 hours.

The demands led to a parliamentary debate at Westminster but were rejected by the UK government.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, stripped Trump’s honorary title as a “GlobalScot” business ambassador in December 2015 – a title given to him by the then Labour first minister Jack McConnell in 2006 after the property magnate promised to spend £300m on his first Scottish golf resort in Aberdeenshire.

 
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The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen on the same day revoked Trump’s honorary doctorate, awarded in 2010 in recognition of his “business acumen and entrepreneurial vision”.

A Scottish government spokesman said Sturgeon had no plans to meet the Republican candidate but was careful to tie that statement to his Turnberry event. “The first minister does not plan to meet Donald Trump on this visit,” he said.

In March, Sturgeon told a Scottish election campaign event that she found the businessman’s views on Muslims “really abhorrent”, and that she had her fingers crossed he would not win the presidential elections.

Trump has made great play of his mother’s roots in Stornoway in the Western Isles, although the tycoon has only visited once and very briefly as he prepared for a bitterly fought planning inquiry for the Aberdeenshire golf resort.

He held a press conference at Turnberry in July last year to declare he would “unite the world” if he became president.

“I think I would be a great uniter. I think that I would have great diplomatic skills; I would be able to get along with people very well,” Trump said. “I had great success [in my life]. I get along with people. People say, ‘Oh gee, it might be tough f-rom that standpoint’, but actually I think the world would unite if I were the leader of the United States.”

Trump has criticised Cameron repeatedly on Twitter over his support for wind energy. The real estate developer tweeted in 2014 “PM @David_Cameron should be run out of office for spending so much of England’s money to subsidize windfarms in Scotland.”


Author: The Guardian

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