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A giant “Trump Baby” balloon is set to be flown near the UK Parliament during President Trump’s visit to London next week, according to BBC. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, approved the balloon, giving protesters the go-ahead on Thursday, July 5.
According to Vox, massive demonstrations are planned for Trump’s July 13 visit. A group of activists and trade unions started a petition to allow the balloon to be flown during the visit, that drew over 10,000 signatures. The creators of Trump Baby also raised about 18,000 pounds — more than $23,000 — through a crowdfunding campaign, according to Vox.
The plans allow the inflatable balloon to fly for two hours on the morning of Friday, 13 July, BBC reports.
Leo Murray, who came up with the idea to fly the balloon, told BBC: “[Mr Trump] really seems to hate it when people make fun of him. So when he visits the UK on Friday, we want to make sure he knows that all of Britain is looking down on him and laughing at him.
“That’s why a group of us have chipped in and raised enough money to have a six-metre high blimp made by a professional inflatables company, to be flown in the skies over Parliament Square during Trump’s visit.”
Murry told the BBC that the mayor’s office was initially very skeptical of the balloon, and didn’t consider it a legitimate form of protest, but hat they eventually “rediscovered [their] sense of humor” and allowed the baby Trump balloon to fly.
Khan’s office released a statement, claiming that the mayor “supports the right to peaceful protest an understands that this can take many different forms.” Khan’s team met with protest organizers and gave them permission to “use Parliament Square Garden as a grounding point for the blimp,” BBC reports.
President Trump has been rescheduling his visit to meet with Prime Minister Theresa May since January, when a new United States Embassy opened in London, but abruptly cancelled the meeting. Trump tweeted that he did not want to inaugurate the building since he believed that the Obama Administration paid too much for it.
“Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for ‘peanuts,’ only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!” President Trump tweeted.
Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for “peanuts,” only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!
However, British and American officials speculated that the real reason the president actually pulled out of the trip was because of the risk of large-scale protests, according to the New York Times.
May later extended a second invitation to the president during a meeting at the World Economic Forum in January, although the invitation was met with opposition from the British public, the New York Times reports. Murray was among those who opposed the Prime Minister’s invitation.
“It’s on everyone who knows the difference between right and wrong to resist this grotesque excuse for a president when he comes here,” Mr. Murray wrote in a column for the newspaper Metro. “He needs to be run out of town, figuratively at least. But how? This is a man who lacks the capacity for moral shame. Liberal outrage just makes him smirk harder.”
During his visit to London, Trump will not get a full state visit, nor will he address Parliament, which is typically an honor for a visiting world leader, Vox reports.