Desperate to interpose itself between Farage and Trump, Downing Street decided to deploy its biggest weapon, the Queen

The idea of inviting the 45th president of the United States on a state visit to the UK was conceived at a time when the Conservative government was desperate to interpose itself between Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader.

The government had been blindsided by Trump’s victory, and Farage, the eternal thorn in the side of the Conservative leadership, was taunting the Foreign Office about his proximity to Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon.

The photograph of Farage beaming in the gilded Trump Towers was a humiliation for British officials, as was his one-hour meeting with Trump, which made him the first British politician to meet the president-elect.

Some newspapers were suggesting Farage should replace Sir Kim Darroch as the UK’s ambassador to Washington. There was even a fear that Trump, ever willing to ignore protocol, might endorse the idea.

In this febrile context, the idea of an invitation from the Queen to the president was spawned. The plan for a summer visit was briefed to the Sunday Times on 20 November, a fortnight after Trump’s election.

A source who has discussed the invitation with a cabinet minister said: “The government has decided that their secret weapon to get in with Trump is to offer him an early visit to the Queen, him and [his wife] Melania staying at Windsor Castle.”

Another cabinet source said: “The Queen is the key here. She’s not a secret weapon, she’s the biggest public weapon you have. Nigel Farage can’t get [Trump] in front of the Queen.”

The invitation looks like a mistaken act of over-compensation, an effort to make sure the UK, an early backmarker, reverted to its traditional position of primus inter pares, the Special One. Since it was leaving EU, the UK simply could not afford to lose traction in Washington, and with so much flux in Trump’s thinking, Downing Street decided to throw everything it had at its disposal to retain influence with the Republicans.

Although there was an ungracious attempt by Downing Street to blame an obscure Foreign Office committee for the decision to extend the invitation – “the Foreign Office holds the pen on this” – no such invite would have been made without agreement at the highest level.



Theresa May’s two most trusted advisers, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, visited Washington in secret before Christmas, and the idea was discussed then, as well as policy issues such as Trump’s likely approach to Nato, Syria and a free trade agreement.

Buckingham Palace would have been consulted but does not in practice operate a veto and knows these visits are politically driven. In the national interest, the Queen has over the years had to toast a steady supply of dictators, sheikhs and wealthy leaders with an open chequebook. Only last year, the Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit was a brutal occasion that saw backs turned and Prince Charles boycott the state banquet.

But Buckingham Palace did not object to the most remarkable aspect of the Trump invitation, its hastiness. Many US presidents have been granted state visits – Ronald Reagan in 1982, Bill Clinton in 1995, George W Bush in 2003 and Barack Obama in 2011 – but they were all after at least two relatively stable years in office.



Given the divisive nature of Trump’s election campaign and the uncertainty about how he would choose to govern, the offer of a state visit, as opposed to a normal political visit, was premature – a criticism raised by Peter Ricketts, the former Foreign Office permanent secretary in a letter to the Times published on Tuesday.



Lord Ricketts suggested May had put the Queen in a difficult position and claimed there may be a way in which the visit could now be dialled down. But even Ricketts, the ultimate diplomat, accepted this might be an impossible manoeuvre to pull off. Trump would be on a state visit, travelling in a gilded carriage alongside the monarch, or not. There is no grey area.

There are only two areas of flexibility. The first surrounds timing. At a press conference on Monday, May corrected herself, saying no official invitation had been sent. If the visit was delayed until the autumn or even next year, Trump may have settled down – or imploded. The travel bans, for instance, may by then have been lifted and the mood on the streets calmed.

There are also ways to keep Trump from the public eye on a state visit. He may not, for instance, address both houses of parliament, a bauble often offered as part of a state visit. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, in a deft parliamentary performance on Monday, said no decision had been made on this.

Many government members see the criticism of the state visit as a surrogate war by those that lost the EU referendum, but the Commons on Monday showed it was not just pro-Europeans that felt uncomfortable about the choices May has made.

As one Conservative MP, Simon Burns, warned the foreign secretary, paraphrasing John F Kennedy: “Those who ride on the back of a tiger end up inside it.”