london All not in favor of Trump’s palace dinner date

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump finally has a date on the calendar for a state dinner at Buckingham Palace – a visit more than two years in the making.

The mere announcement of his June visit as the guest of Queen Elizabeth II stirred up fresh anti-Trump sentiment Tuesday among Brits who want to deny him a seat at the table.

Trump and his wife, Melania, have accepted the queen’s invitation to visit June 3-5, the White House and the palace announced.

Many American presidents have visited the monarch, but just two – George W. Bush and Barack Obama – were honored with a state visit and its accompanying pomp and pageantry.

Rarer still is the announcement of a state visit just weeks before it takes place. But talk of the visit has been contentious ever since Prime Minister Theresa May invited Trump just days after he took office in January 2017.

The trip has been delayed amid concerns about Trump’s reception in the U.K. and Britain’s extended crisis over Brexit.

Trump made an official trip to the U.K. last July . He met with May and got acquainted with the queen over tea at Windsor Castle, but it was not a state visit.

Demonstrators trailed the U.S. president everywhere, with tens of thousands of people flooding the streets of central London to protest his presence.

More protests are all but certain in June.