Rt Hon Theresa May MP

10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA

Cc The Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn MP (Leader of the Opposition)

Rt Hon Tim Farron MP (Leader of the Liberal Democrats)

13 February 2017

Dear Prime Minister

Open Letter from Law School Academic and Professional

Staff regarding your support for President Donald Trump

We would like to express our collective dismay at your decision to

align the British Government with the administration of the new
President of the United States, Donald Trump.

President Trumps recent actions have serious domestic and global

implications. Among the most alarming are his openly discriminatory
decisions to block immigrants and visa holders from seven Muslim-
majority states from entering the US and to suspend the USs Syrian
refugee admissions programme indefinitely; to insist on the
construction of a wall along the US-Mexican border, threatening
Mexican goods with a 20 per cent import duty (notwithstanding US
commitments under NAFTA) if Mexico does not pay for it; to suspend
federal funding to any US global health organisation willing to
discuss issues surrounding abortion with its clients; to freeze federal
support for the US Environmental Protection Agency, threaten a US
exit from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and throw his
weight behind the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipeline projects;
to voice his support for outlawed torture techniques including
waterboarding; and to threaten or dismiss (in the case of the acting
Attorney-General, Sally Yates) any member of the US legal and
judicial establishment who questions the legitimacy of his
governments measures.

While many of these actions were anticipated during his campaign,

much more surprising is your decision as British Prime Minister to
refrain from expressing clear opposition to the Trump government
on behalf of the UK as a whole, even as Trump puts his promises
into action, bringing tens of thousands out onto the streets in
protest in the UK and across the world.
We would like to remind you that seeking to realign the UK with the
US while breaking its ties with Europe will be a disaster not only for
the British economy and the NHS, but also for:

- Britains already-tarnished reputation as an open, multicultural

society capable of supporting vulnerable individuals and
communities and acknowledging its imperial past;
- The safety of UK citizens, residents and civilians worldwide, now
more vulnerable than ever to forms of extremism and nationalism,
including white supremacism;
- The resilience of an international order founded, however
imperfectly, on a commitment to the equality of individuals and
states; and
- The possibilities available for thinking differently about the
challenges of the twenty-first century and, in particular, about the
extent to which those challenges are reproduced by the solutions
on offer in such a profoundly skewed international order.

The alacrity with which Trump has put in place, by Presidential

decree, a swathe of openly racist, xenophobic, misogynistic and
homophobic measures, together with the Presidents total disregard
for existing US commitments under international law, indicate that
the British Governments decision to renew its special relationship
with the United States at this time can only lead, in the short-term,
to further suffering and discrimination. We can only hope that this
self-serving programme will, in the long-term, set in motion a
demand for real change that governments and communities across
the world will be forced to answer.

With this in mind, we call on you not only to cancel Trumps

invitation to visit the UK but also, and more fundamentally, to
withdraw the support of the British Government for the United
States more generally until these indefensible policies have been
reversed and disavowed. If you do not, we fear that the United
Kingdom will find itself, like Trump, on the wrong side of history, with
extremely worrying consequences for us all.

Yours faithfully
Dr Rose Parfitt, Dr Emily Haslam, Dr Sara Kendall, Dr Luis Eslava,
and Dr Emily Grabham (Kent Law School, University of Kent)

And the following signatories:

(please see attached)