On the morning Donald Trump was elected, I cried on the tube. I’m a lifelong Londoner, so this was not normal for me. But it was not a normal situation. Since then, almost everything we feared about Trump as president has come true. In her infinite wisdom, our prime minister has invited Trump to the UK on 13 July, when he will probably gloat and smirk over our Brexit misfortune, and hope to bully us into subjugation. To do justice to the enormity of the occasion, a group of activist friends and I have had a six-metre-high blimp made of Trump as a giant orange baby, with a mobile phone clutched in his tiny hands. Trump Baby is the kind of protest that would be impossible to ignore during the presidential visit. Trump Baby is precisely what this situation calls for.

Imagine our dismay to find that the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, disagrees. In order to secure consent to protest in Parliament Square Gardens, you have to apply via the events team at City Hall. We’re not planning to do anything that contravenes any bylaws for this space, which include using amplified music or anything you could sleep inside. We already have the public liability insurance required. Khan’s officials, however, have insisted that Trump Baby blimp “is not a protest”. “A protest is a gathering of people with banners and placards,” they say. Apparently, Trump Baby is merely “art” and therefore not a legitimate applicant to protest outside the seat of our democracy.

This could be the scene if the mayor’s office relent. Photograph: Trump Baby

Taking the piss is one of the few areas where Britain still leads the world, so the refusal from the mayor’s office to let Trump Baby fly over Parliament feels somehow unpatriotic. It’s embarrassing, too, that the London mayor has talked a good Twitter fight on Trump, but seems reluctant to follow through on his words. Filling a balloon this size with helium costs about £800, so we have been fundraising to cover the costs of this, as well as for 1,000 mini Trump Baby balloons, which we plan to give out to well-wishers on the day. We’ve also started a petition, asking Khan’s team to reconsider.

Picture the scene. As Trump Baby swells and begins to ascend to the sky above Westminster, our spirits would be lifted; what could have been a day of infamy for Britain instead becomes a day of national pride and unity. If launched, Trump Baby will spread cheer and goodwill, putting smiles on the faces of millions of people here and around the globe as we remember our common humanity, and laugh together at the idiot president. Come on Sadiq, what’s not to like? Let Trump Baby fly!

@TrumpBabyUK