London Mayor Sadiq Khan has approved plans to fly a giant inflatable figure depicting President Donald Trump as a baby over the city during his visit in the UK.
President Trump is due to meet PM Theresa May at 10 Downing Street on July 13.
Campaigners raised almost £18,000 ($24,000) for the helium-filled 20ft high figure, which they said reflects President Trump’s character as an “angry baby with a fragile ego and tiny hands”.
The White House did not comment on the issue.
Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage tweeted that the plan was “the biggest insult to a sitting US President ever”.
Under the plans the inflatable will be allowed to fly for two hours on the morning of Friday, July 13.
Leo Murray, who is behind the crowd-funded idea, said: “[President Trump] really seems to hate it when people make fun of him.
“So when he visits the UK on Friday, we want to make sure he knows that all of Britain is looking down on him and laughing at him.
“That’s why a group of us have chipped in and raised enough money to have a six-metre high blimp made by a professional inflatables company, to be flown in the skies over Parliament Square during Trump’s visit.”
He said organizers initially “didn’t get off to the best start with the mayor’s office over this, who originally told us that they didn’t recognize Trump Baby as legitimate protest”.
However, Leo Murray said City Hall had “rediscovered its sense of humor – Trump Baby will fly”.
A statement on behalf of the London mayor said Sadiq Khan “supports the right to peaceful protest and understands that this can take many different forms”.
Sadiq Khan’s city operations team met organizers and gave them permission to “use Parliament Square Garden as a grounding point for the blimp”.
More than 10,000 people signed a petition calling for the inflatable to be given permission to fly, activists said.
Sadiq Khan and Donald Trump have repeatedly clashed on Twitter, including in the aftermath of the London Bridge attack.
Before the inflatable can take off, campaigners will also need permission from the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) as the project constitutes a “non-standard flight in controlled airspace”, a spokesperson said.
Because Parliament Square sits within restricted airspace, additional approvals are also needed from the Metropolitan Police.
Max Wakefield, who is one of the people working on the project, said the group is “confident it will obtain all necessary permits”.
He said the initial crowd-funding target was just £1,000 ($1,300), but this was reached within 24 hours.
The extra cash will now be used to send the balloon on a “world tour” and “haunt” President Trump wherever he goes, Max Wakefield added.
Donald Trump Jr. has criticized London Mayor Sadiq Khan, shortly after the terror attack on the UK capital that killed four people on March 22.
President Donald Trump’s son tweeted an article written last year, in which Sadiq Khan said terror vigilance had become “part and parcel” of life in a global city.
“You have to be kidding me?!” said Donald Trump Jr., immediately sparking accusations that he was exploiting the tragedy and misrepresenting the mayor’s point.
The attacker drove a car through pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and then fatally knifed a police officer who tried to stop him entering the Houses of Parliament. He was then shot dead.
Two hours later, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted an article from the Independent newspaper in September 2016.
The tweet added: “Terror attacks are part of living in a big city, says London Mayor Sadiq Khan.”
Image source Flickr
In the article, Sadiq Khan was speaking shortly before a meeting with New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, on the day after three bombs exploded in New York City and nearby towns, wounding 29 people.
The attacks had given him a sleepless night, he said, as he pondered the dangers faced by big Western cities like New York and London.
“Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you have to be prepared for these sorts of things, you have to be vigilant, you have to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you have to support the security services,” Sadiq Khan said.
On March 22, after the attack in Westminster, Mayor Khan said that Londoners “will never be cowed by terrorism” and that the city stood together in the face of those seeking it harm.
Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, has previously clashed with Donald Trump Jr’s father, in January denouncing his travel ban as “shameful and cruel”.
In 2016, Sadiq Khan accused the then-candidate Trump of being “ignorant” about Islam.
Donald Trump responded by challenging the mayor to an IQ test.
The president’s eldest son, who now manages his father’s business and has no White House role, has been accused of insensitivity before.
London Mayor Boris Johnson says he intends to renounce his American citizenship to prove his “commitment to Britain”.
He told the Sunday Times that his citizenship was “an accident of birth that has left me with this thing. I’ve got to find a way of sorting it out”.
Boris Johnson, who was born in New York, has in the past been forced to pay US tax because of his American citizenship.
He has just completed a six-day tour of cities in the US.
Boris Johnson said he would approach US ambassador Matthew Barzun to explore what steps he had to take to give up his American nationality.
The Conservative politician – who was born in Manhattan in 1964 and owns a US passport alongside a British one – said that relinquishing his citizenship was a “laborious business, they don’t make it easy for you”.
Boris Johnson’s passport was renewed in November 2012 but he had previously stated that he would give it up after being told in 2006 that, as a native born American, he could only use a US passport to travel in that country, and not his British one.
“The reason I’m thinking I probably will want to make a change is that my commitment is, and always has been, to Britain,” he said.
In January Boris Johnson settled a US tax bill he had previously described as “absolutely outrageous”.
The mayor had faced a demand from the US authorities to pay capital gains tax on profits from the sale of his house in north London.
American law requires all citizens to pay US taxes even if they live abroad.
Boris Johnson is running for parliament in Uxbridge and South Ruislip in the forthcoming general election.
In 2012 Boris Johnson told David Letterman that he could “technically speaking” become US president, as that nation requires its presidential candidates to be born there.
His trade mission to the US this week was aimed at bolstering London’s science and technology industries.
Boris Johnson began his east coast tour in Boston before heading to New York City and Washington DC.
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