London Mayor Sadiq Khan has surprisingly said that US President Donald Trump is welcome to visit the UK. In an interview with "Sky News", quoted by BNR, he defended his previous attacks on Trump, saying that standing up for your city sometimes means being tougher, but times are different now than in the president's first term.
"Sky News" noted that this was a major reversal after Sadiq Khan himself called on the government to ban the US president's state visit to the UK in 2019.
In the past, the mayor of London has repeatedly branded the president as "ignorant" about Islam, "racist", "sexist", "homophobic" and likened his tactics to those of 20th-century fascists. Asked if he still held those views, he said:
"President Trump has honestly won a second term. Let's judge him by what he does in his second term, not what he did in his first term“.
Sadiq Khan was speaking after a meeting with the 27 ambassadors of the EU member states, which he hosted:
"We have a lot of great American companies that have invested in London, whether it's culture, financial institutions, legal and other projects. We do great business with the US in terms of services and goods. I want that to continue," said the mayor of the British capital.
He added that he wanted President Trump to come to London to see that "there is no threat to free speech in this great city". To see that in fact Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs do not just tolerate each other, but respect each other, celebrate and embrace each other together. To see that diversity is a strength, not a weakness, Khan concluded.