Donald Trump has said he will visit the UK on the day before Britons go to the polls to decide whether to remain in the European Union.
The presumptive Republican nominee in the US presidential election has said he will come to the country on a whistle-stop tour of his golf resorts in Britain and Ireland.
Trump, a billionaire property mogul-cum-reality TV star, had been due to appear at the relaunch of his Turnberry hotel golf course, in south-west Scotland, on 24 June, the day of the referendum result. But it now appears he will arrive on 22 June and will have moved on to his golf resort in Doonbeg in Ireland by the time polls have closed.
The change in timing raises the question of whether Trump will meet David Cameron, the prime minister, who will be in the midst of campaigning to keep a sceptical British public from voting to leave the EU.
It also raises the prospect that Trump, who is pro-Brexit, will attempt to lend political weight to the leave campaign.
In a series of Twitter posts, Trump said his trip would begin on 22 June and he would first call at Turnberry and Aberdeen, before visiting Ireland and returning to the US on 25 June.
On June 22- I will be going to Scotland to celebrate the opening of the newly renovated @TrumpTurnberry Resort, the worlds best.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2016
After @TrumpTurnberry I will be visiting Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe, to see my great club, @TrumpScotland.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2016
After @TrumpScotland, I will visit @TrumpDoonbeg in Ireland, the magnificent resort fronting on the Atlantic Ocean.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2016
Then, on June 25th- back to the USA to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2016
Trump’s visits to Britain and Ireland could prove uncomfortable for the leaderships of both countries, where political leaders have made damning criticisms of his attitudes to immigration. But it comes at a sensitive time for Cameron should the referendum look as if it is not going his way. Trump has said he believes Britain should leave the EU, while Cameron has condemned the tycoon’s pledge last December to ban Muslims entering the US as “divisive, stupid and wrong” – comments he refused to withdraw.
Trump responded last month by saying he might not have a “very good relationship” with Cameron, adding: “Number one, I’m not stupid.”
However, Cameron struck a slightly more conciliatory tone in an interview with Good Morning Britain on ITV on Friday. “I was making a comment on a specific proposal that he had, which was to ban Muslims from entering the United States of America. I wouldn’t remove any of the adjectives that I used to describe that policy,” the prime minister said.
“I think it would be a dangerous policy because it would divide, it somehow tries to paint all Muslims with the brush of extremism, which is completely unfair.”
Cameron said he believed the proposal had since been dropped, and added that he would be willing to meet presidential candidates who visit the UK during their campaigns. Asked if he could ever get on with Trump in particular, he said: “The special relationship is bigger than the individuals involved. I’m sure that we would find a way.”
The last time Trump visited Ireland, officials rolled out the red carpet for him, with the finance minister, Ed Noonan, greeting him from his plane. But now Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, is expected to face similar difficulties to Cameron, after he branded Trump’s campaign statements “racist and dangerous”.
Trump is expected next month to be formally named as the Republican nominee for the White House at the party’s national convention in Cleveland, Ohio.
