Wednesday, February 01, 2017

Our emergency motion on the Trump State visit

New York Trump demonstration Aug 15 (9)

Tomorrow, the Gateshead Lib Dem group will move an emergency motion at full council about the Trump state visit:

This Council notes with concern the decision by the Government to invite US President Donald Trump on a state visit to the UK. This Council notes the extreme, discriminatory actions announced by the US President immediately after the visit of the Prime Minister to Washington DC. This Council notes that many residents of Gateshead are now barred from visiting the USA by these divisive measures.
This Council agrees to:
1)take no formal part in any state visit to the UK by the US President and to withhold any Council resources from being used to support any such state visit;
2)write to the LGA to encourage all councils to take a similar stand.

As this is an issue that came about after the deadline passed for submission of motions, standing orders will need to be suspended. I've discussed this with the Cllr Martin Gannon, leader of Gateshead Council. Labour are willing to support our motion which means we will be able to suspend standing orders to allow the debate to go ahead.

The thinking behind the motion is that the state visit will go ahead (Prime Minister Appeaser May has made this clear) but Gateshead, as a public body, will play no part in it and will call on all other councils to play no part as well.

Council meets at 2.30pm on Thursday. The debate will be at the end of the agenda.

1 comment:

Julie T said...

Fantastic decision made by Gateshead council which has made national press and is being shared all over social media. Hopefully other councils will follow Gatesheads' lead and stand up against this horrendous man. Well done.