A former British ambassador to Washington has urged that the planned state visit by King Charles and Queen Camilla to America next month should be postponed or scrapped entirely while the US remains engaged in its conflict with Iran.
Sir Peter Westmacott, who represented Britain in the American capital from 2012 to 2016, described the scheduled April trip as “problematic” given current circumstances.
The 75-year-old diplomat, who previously served as the King’s deputy private secretary, argued that ministers have “a duty to protect the monarchy in a situation like this” and must “reflect public opinion in this country.”
The British Government initially deemed America’s military campaign illegal, he noted.
Sir Peter Westmacott has called for the State Visit to the US to be postponed or cancelled
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Speaking on The Royals podcast, Sir Peter went further by characterising certain American military operations as constituting war crimes.
“The sinking of that ship [Iris Dena] unarmed off the coast of Sri Lanka, the bombing of the girls’ school because the United States government hadn’t done proper targeting – this is pretty horrific. This is war crime stuff,” he said.
The veteran diplomat, who also held ambassadorial posts in France and Turkey during his career, suggested both Downing Street and Buckingham Palace would be weighing whether a royal visit at this juncture might appear to signal endorsement of President Trump’s actions.
“While this goes on, that must be a matter for discussion,” he added.
A YouGov survey of more than 12,000 respondents published last week revealed that 46 per cent believe the royal visit should be cancelled, while 36 per cent think it should proceed and 18 per cent remain undecided.
Sir Ed Davey has called for the trip to be abandoned in parliament
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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has spearheaded parliamentary calls to abandon the trip, arguing it would hand Trump a “huge diplomatic coup” at a time of strained relations between Sir Keir Starmer and Washington over the US and Israeli conflict with Iran.
Downing Street has refused to comment, citing that the visit remains unannounced. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “All state visits are on the advice of Government.”
Sir Peter advocated for postponement rather than outright cancellation should the conflict persist, arguing this approach would avoid antagonising the American president while safeguarding the transatlantic alliance.
“A postponement is something quite different from a cancellation as a political gesture – that’s a statesmanlike way of managing the issue. It is too important a relationship for us to mess with and to risk antagonising a somewhat thin-skinned president,” he explained.
Sir Peter Westmacott served as British Ambassador from 2012 to 2016
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The former diplomat also questioned what tangible benefits Britain derived from Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK last year.
“We didn’t get more helpful public statements about the United Kingdom. We didn’t get an end to tariff wars. We didn’t get anything more helpful from him on Ukraine,” he observed.