Sir Sadiq Khan has seemingly been told to keep quiet after making jibes against Donald Trump as the US President begins his second term.
Mr Trump was inaugurated yesterday after staging an impressive political comeback to return to the White House once again.
Just hours before the inauguration that took place on January 20, the newly knighted Mayor of London mentioned in a comment piece for the Observer the AfD party in Germany, the National Rally in France and Mr Trump in the US, branding them “opportunists who seek to divide people for personal and political gain”.
Sir Sadiq added: “We should be in no doubt, this is a perilous moment. The spectre of a resurgent fascism haunts the West.”
Now, he has been told by a prominent Labour figure that “a period of silence would be most welcome”.
Tory peer Lord Dobbs said in the House of Lords on Monday: “I wish the Government well in its attempts to get a free trade deal with the United States, but surely isn’t it time for a little bit of joined-up thinking? While the Prime Minister himself says this is what he wants, the Labour mayor of London insists on calling, over the weekend, President Trump essentially a fascist and that we are on the road to the 1930s. This isn’t a special relationship, they are turning it into a sack of ferrets.”
He then asked: “Does the Government agree with the Labour mayor of London or will it repudiate the comments he made over the weekend?”
Responding, Labour Lord Leong, who as a Lords whip holds the same constitutional position as a minister, said: “I disagree with the Mayor of London.
“President Trump won the election… and he has a mandate and we have to work with him. Sometimes I would say a period of silence would be most welcome.”
Talking to the BBC after his recent column, Sir Sadiq said that he “wanted to work closely with the American President”. But he also expressed his hope that Mr Trump would be “different from the last time he was President”.
In 2019, Mr Trump called the London Mayor a “stone-cold loser” ahead of visiting the UK.
Mr Trump wrote: “Sadiq Khan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly ‘nasty’ to the visiting president of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom.
“He is a stone-cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me.”
A spokesman for Mr Khan said at the time that “childish insults should be beneath the president of the United States”.
Express.co.uk has contacted the Mayor of London for comment.
