Theresa May under growing pressure to reveal when she first found out about Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim travel ban’
PM urged to say whether she was briefed by the President’s aides on the controversial policy during White House visit
THERESA May faces growing pressure to reveal when exactly she found out about Donald Trump's 'Muslim travel ban' after huge protests against it across the UK.
The Prime Minister is being urged to say whether she was briefed by the President’s aides on the controversial policy when she met him at the White House last week.
She has defended her invitation to honour Mr Trump with a state visit despite a growing outcry, with more than 1.6 million people signing a petition calling for it to be scrapped.
However she is facing calls from MPs to say what she was told by American officials about the executive order temporarily banning nationals from seven mainly Muslim countries entering the US, which was signed just hours after she left Washington.
Downing Street refused to be drawn on a report by Channel 4 News alleging she had been told refugees would be barred from travelling to America, although officials were said not to have revealed much detail.
"You will have heard the Prime Minister and the president's comments following their discussions and we are not going to go into details of a private meeting," a No10 spokesman said.
On Monday, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told MPs he was not prepared to comment on "confidential conversations" between the two leaders.
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Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said it was "disgraceful" that Mrs May had appeared to know about the ban in advance but did nothing to prevent it.
He said: "I can only assume the Prime Minister is so desperate for a Brexit deal that she looked the other way and didn't want to rock the boat.
"This is utterly shameful. Parliament needs to know what she knew and when."
Despite growing protests at the planned state visit, Mrs May - in Dublin on Monday for talks with Irish PM Enda Kenny - was adamant it would go ahead.
Former foreign secretary Lord Hague said he would have preferred the first 10 days of Mr Trump's presidency to have been "a bad dream from which we can now wake up".
However, writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said Mrs May had "played a blinder" in offering the state visit to the president in order to secure agreement on trade and Nato.
Retracting the invitation would only damage Britain's credibility, Lord Hague warned.
As for causing any embarrassment to the Queen, he said: "A Queen who has been asked over the decades to host tyrants such as Presidents Mobuto of Zaire and Ceausescu of Romania is going to take a brash billionaire from New York effortlessly in her stride."
In the Commons, Mr Johnson told MPs the Government had been given assurances the ban would not affect British passport holders.
Foreign Office sources suggested the UK had secured a "special carve-out" from Mr Trump's policy after a round of frantic diplomatic activity, with Mr Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd contacting their counterparts.
The US embassy had earlier suggested UK citizens with dual nationality including one of the seven countries covered by the temporary travel ban - Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - should not seek to obtain a visa.
But the guidance was subsequently removed from the embassy website.