LABOUR’S Emily Thornberry was left red-faced after after she was forced to cancel a planned trip to the US - because the White House snubbed her request for a meeting.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary was due to cross the Atlantic next month and was hoping to arrange a string of high level meetings with Donald Trump’s aides.

2 Emily Thornberry has scrapped a plan to visit the US Credit: BBC/Andrew Marr Show

She wanted to use the visit - scheduled during Parliament’s February break - to help paint Labour as the “Government in waiting” and her as a international statesman.

But Whitehall sources revealed that the White House didn’t want to meet Ms Thornberry’s team because of her repeated criticism of President Trump.

Only last week Ms Thornberry branded him a “racist” and described his presidency as “an asteroid of awfulness that has that has fallen on this world”.

A source told The Times: “It became clear pretty quickly that the White House wasn’t especially keen to meet them. Can’t think why.”

2 Donald Trump's officials have refused to meet the Labour bigwig Credit: AP:Associated Press

Mr Trump’s administration is the second presidency in a row to snub Labour, who - apart from Tony Blair’s friendship with George Bush - have had a troubled relationship with the White House.

Gordon Brown was humiliated by Barack Obama, who rebuffed five requests from his team to set up a meeting in 2009 - despite the pair attending two global summits that year.

And after finally meeting him later that year the pair exchanged gifts - but Mr Obama gave Mr Brown 25 DVDs that only work in the US.

In 1987 the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock flew to Washington to build his international reputation ahead of the General Election - but was given just half an hour before Ronald Reagan finished the meeting.

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And last year Mr Obama dismissed Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership as not “grounded in fact and reality”.

A spokesman for Ms Thornberry said: “Emily Thornberry's planned visits to New York and Washington have been postponed due to the current US government shutdown. She will be re-arranging them in due course.”

The American government was shut down for three days earlier this week, but has now reopened.