In his letter in last week’s Newton News, Cllr. Clare challenges your readers to challenge what he thinks Donald Trump represents. I’ll briefly give it my best shot!

• Islamophobia. A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Donald Trump is the Elected President of the USA. His first duty is to keep all Americans safe. Post 9/11, and after the IS terror attacks throughout Europe and elsewhere, he decided to TEMPORARILY suspend travel to the US from certain Islamic states. In his own words, “Until we can find out what the hell is going on” That is, until the actual threat to the American people can be assessed. Clearly, Trump and his electorate have a rational fear that their lax immigration procedures are leaving them open to further terrorist attacks on American soil. He is doing his best to stop these.

• Homophobia/Transphobic. I’m not aware of Trump being either. However, like many members of society I am uncomfortable with, and distrust the motives of, the ‘Gay Pride’ movement. These were the people who, in the past, ‘Outed’ fellow homosexuals to gain further publicity for their cause! If someone organised ‘Hetrosexual Pride’ parades would the ‘so called’ Gay movement feel threatened? I think they would.

• Misogyny. I will leave it to Mrs. Trump to defend her husband on this charge. Perhaps Mrs. Trump is your troll, Cllr. Clare! I can assure you that it is not me.

• Nationalism, trade wars, militarism and environmental carelessness. America elected Trump on his manifesto to put America First. This is what he has done. The Americans knew he had his own view on global warming and that America was bearing the bulk of the burden He immediately put an end to China dumping steel and aluminium. America is prospering under his policies. The world is getting safer. Only today we heard that the North Koreans are demolishing nuclear facilities. Compare Trump’s Presidency to those of Bush Senior and Junior. The former invaded Iraq. The latter also invaded Iraq, but illegally and took Tony Blair along for the ride. How dare a labour Cllr. in Tony Blair’s old constituency accuse Trump of militarism!

In Trump’s democratic America you get what the majority voted for. Here your Leave vote is ignored. Give me Trump any day!

On to Cllr. Clare’s poster “Refugees welcome here”. They are not welcome here if they arrive illegally! Our Government Policy welcomes Asylum Seekers to apply for asylum. However, we, sensibly, provide and finance safe refugee camps adjacent to conflict areas such that, should the conflict be resolved, refugees can go back to their own country and rebuild their lives. This, to discourage poor unfortunates falling into the hands of people traffickers who drown them by the thousand.

Cllr. Clare, you are a retired teacher of history. Why teach history if you don’t learn from the mistakes of the past.

I refer to the mistake of Angela Merkel. She, like you, could not differentiate between genuine refugees and economic migrants and invited all and sundry to Europe, trafficked or otherwise. Like you, she misread the will of the EU people (you are both socialists so assume that everyone else agrees with you on everything). Throughout Europe, the electorate have, at the first opportunity, told the EU in no uncertain terms that refugees are not welcome! Luckily, we don’t have a socialist government so we have practical and humane immigration policies that does not reflect Cllr. Clare’s banner.

If you want to protect our tolerant, welcoming and supportive community I suggest that, instead of wasting time and money travelling to an anti-Trump march, you should talk to members of your local Labour Party (or fellow travellers) who have called me ‘Scum’ and ‘Racist’ because I’m a member of UKIP. Indeed, you may be interested to know that the person who called me ‘Scum’ (you can have his name if you want) told me that the testimony of the Jewish MP’s in Parliament was, “all lies’. I hope you don’t agree with him.

Yours sincerely,

Alastair P G Welsh.