United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May has put Britain's Queen Elizabeth in a "very difficult position" by extending a "premature" invitation to the United States President Donald Trump, a former head of Britian's Foreign Office, Lord Ricketts, told The Times in a letter.
UK Parliament set to debate Donald Trump's state visit as 1 million sign petition to cancel it
Ricketts, who headed the Foreign Office between 2006 and 2010, said that the invitation extended by May to Trump risked involving the British monarchy in "political controversy".
Traditionally, US Presidents are extended an invitation after a period of time, but the state visit invitation to Trump was extended within two weeks of him assuming his position a the White House.
Lord Ricketts, in his letter, questioned if Trump was indeed "deserving of this exceptional honour" of being invited in his first year of office.
Former US President Barack Obama came to the UK for a state visit after serving 28 months in office, while his predecessor George W. Bush waited 32 months for the state visit.
"It would have been far wiser to wait to see what sort of president he would turn out to be before advising the Queen to invite him," wrote Lord Ricketts.
May, last week, during her official visit to meet the US President had announced that the Queen had extended an invitation for a state visit to Trump and that he has formally accepted it.
However, Trump on Friday signed executive orders imposing a sweeping ban on refugees and people from at least seven Muslim-majority countries, invoking a worldwide uproar.
Trump's orders drew immediate criticism from all over the world and protests broke out at all major airports in America to denounce Trump's orders of refugee ban. People in the UK also reacted to the ban by protesting Trump's scheduled state visit to Britain.
Over 1.6 million people signed a petition asking the government to cancel the US President's state visit until he revokes the controversial ban, compelling parliament to have a discussion on Trump's state visit.
However, the Theresa May government said that the UK Prime Minister cannot take back the invitation sent to him and added that Trump's visit to Britain was in the national interest.
Soon after the government's statement, protesters took to 10 Downing Street -- the British prime minister's London residence — on Monday evening, chanting slogans including, "Shame on May."
Although May had not initially condemned the ban imposed by Trump, she had to later issue a statement saying that she "did not agree" with the ban.
Meanwhile, British MPs passed a motion on Monday condemning the ban on refugees as "discriminatory, divisive and counterproductive."
