NADHIM Zahawi has warned the speaker of the House of Commons could be seen as hypocritical for refusing to allow Donald Trump to speak at Westminster.
The Stratford MP spoke out after the President signed an executive order banning people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from travelling to America in a bid designed to crackdown on Islamic extremists entering the US. Confusion then ensued when a legal block was put on the ban which the President immediately vowed to overturn.
And the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, waged into the argument this week by saying the President should not be allowed to address Parliament on his UK state visit.
But many Conservative MPs, including Mr Zahawi, did not agree with Mr Bercow’s comments.
The Stratford MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the speaker had put his neutrality at risk and should explain why Trump would be barred while he had welcomed visitors like Chinese president Xi Jinping and the Emir of Kuwait.
He said: “I think the speaker was unwise to speak out.
“He prides himself on his neutrality, to speak for the whole of parliament, and I think to become the story is a bad place to be.
“This is our closest ally, a country that we have worked with and should continue to work with, that is currently walking away from democratic values, as opposed to us building alliances with countries across the world who we are trying to move towards democracy and towards human rights.”
