Jeremy Corbyn demands Trump UK visit be delayed amid immigration row

The Labour leader said the prime minister has lots of reasons to withhold the invitation to the US president

Jeremy Corbyn has demanded Donald Trump’s visit to the UK next month be delayed amid anger over the US president’s immigration policies that have seen children separated from their families and kept in cages.

The Labour leader attacked Theresa May for failing to properly stand up to the president, claiming she has “ample reasons to withhold the invitation”.

Ms May said in the Commons this week that images of children in cages in the US are distressing and the effects of Mr Trump’s policies are wrong, but she has held back from explicitly attacking the president himself.

More than 2,300 children have been separated from their parents since April, when the Trump administration began prosecuting all illegal immigrants and dividing youngsters from their parents at the border.

Speaking on a visit to a refugee camp in Amman, Jordan, Mr Corbyn told Sky News: “I wouldn’t have invited him and I think the prime minister’s got ample reasons to withhold the invitation if she wants to.

“We need to say very clearly to Donald Trump, We live in a multicultural society, we’re proud of it.

“Get over it and start living in one yourself.”

Pushed on whether he would delay the visit if he were prime minister, Mr Corbyn said: “We’d have to change the date to a long way down the line.”

Mr Trump bowed to pressure on Wednesday and signed an executive order declaring that children would no longer be separated from their parents.

But nonetheless, the president has continued to insist that his harsh immigration policies are in the best interests of the American people.

The United Nations has also issued a damning condemnation of Mr Trump’s policy that saw migrant children separated from their parents, suggesting it “may amount to torture”.

Ms May has ruled out delaying or scrapping the US president’s visit, but promised she will raise the immigration policy with him during his stay, due to begin on 13 July.