MOST Scots back cancelling Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK, The National can reveal.
Just 21% of Scottish people think Britain should roll out the red carpet for the US president if he continues with his punishing tariff regime, polling has found.
That’s compared with 58% of Scots who say King Charles’s invite for a lavish trip to the UK should be rescinded – while 21% said they didn’t know.
At least a plurality of voters from all parties think the visit should be cancelled.
Among Labour voters, 58% say it should be cancelled, while 73% of people who voted SNP last year think it should be binned.
Only Tory voters expressed significant levels of support for the visit, posited by Starmer’s people as a bid to dodge punitive tariffs on UK exports to the States, with 40% backing it.
However, 48% of Scottish Tory supporters said it should be cancelled.
In no part of Scotland is there majority support for the visit, with opposition highest in Central Scotland at 68%, according to a survey for The National by Find Out Now.
Opposition was lowest in the South Scotland region at 49% but still higher than the number of people who backed the visit at 28%.
South Scotland, a region of the country for Scottish Parliament list seats, is the site of Trump’s Turnberry golf course in Ayrshire.
The second lowest level of opposition were in North East Scotland at 54%. This is home to Trump’s other Scottish golf course in Aberdeenshire.
Starmer inviting Trump for a state visit, through a letter written by the King, was seen as a diplomatic flourish to get the US president to spare Britain from tariffs when the Prime Minister went to Washington DC in February.
But Trump imposed the base rate tariff of 10% on Britain regardless, which has remained in place despite his broader retreat in the face of market meltdown.
Tariffs still threaten to do significant damage to the world economy because Trump has displaced much of the burden onto China – though with significant carveouts for the country’s vital computer components on which the US is heavily reliant.
Stephen Flynn demanded Starmer withdraw the invite after Trump humiliated Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a live White House press conference.
Trump’s dressing down of the Ukrainian president preceded a Europe-wide movement to accede to America’s demands that its allies ramp up defence spending – as the White House bemoaned “freeloaders”.
Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said our poll showed that “people all over Scotland reject Donald Trump and his cruel, racist and divisive politics”.
He added: “He is a danger to migrant communities, women’s rights, international law and our climate. He is actively hurting the UK and global economy with tariffs, and abolishing international aid programmes. Why would we want to welcome him?
“Even Keir Starmer must see how bad a visit would look now. Donald Trump needs to be confronted and challenged, not welcomed with a red carpet and all the prestige and trappings of a state visit.
“The offer should never have been made in the first place. Now it’s time for Keir Starmer to finally listen and to cancel it.”
Downing Street declined to comment.
Find Out Now polled 1417 Scots aged 16 and over from April 7 to 11.
