For the mayor of London, it\u2019s clear that the rush of Americans applying for British citizenship is connected to the return of Donald Trump to the White House. <\/p>\n
Americans applied for British citizenship in record numbers last year, according to Britain\u2019s Home Office, with a big spike in applications logged during the final quarter \u2014 a period coinciding with Trump\u2019s reelection. <\/p>\n
Speaking at the MIPIM real estate conference in Cannes, France, last week, <\/strong>Khan recalled teasing former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during Trump\u2019s 2017-21 <\/strong>presidential term: \u201cI wanted all the Americans who were leaving America. And he was saying, no, he wanted all the Americans leaving America.\u201d <\/p>\n Now that Canada is very much in Trump\u2019s crosshairs \u2014 the US president has repeatedly said the country should become America\u2019s \u201c51st state\u201d \u2014 Khan believes London <\/strong>has the stronger <\/strong>hand: \u201cI suspect those Americans are probably not choosing Canada and choosing London.\u201d <\/p>\n More than 6,000 Americans applied for British citizenship in 2024, the most since the Home Office began tracking applications two decades ago. Around 1,700 of those applied during the last three months of the year, almost 40% more than in the same period in 2023. <\/p>\n There is no love lost between Trump and Khan. In a high-profile spat in 2019, Trump called Khan a \u201cstone-cold loser\u201d after the mayor criticized Britain\u2019s decision to invite Trump for a formal state visit. <\/p>\n Khan, London\u2019s mayor since 2016, wrote in The Observer newspaper ahead of the visit that it was \u201cun-British to be rolling out the red carpet\u201d for a US president who amplified the views of the far-right. And the year before, Khan gave his permission for protesters to fly a 20-foot-tall \u201cTrump baby\u201d balloon near Britain\u2019s Houses of Parliament during Trump\u2019s first presidential visit to the United Kingdom. <\/p>\n During a state visit, foreign leaders are welcomed to Britain by the reigning monarch and are treated to a carriage procession to Buckingham Palace and a grand banquet. Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer \u2014 who, like Khan, belongs to Britain\u2019s center-left Labour Party \u2014 handed Trump an invitation from King Charles III for the second state visit. <\/p>\n \u201cAmerica is a superpower,\u201d he said. \u201cJust like we feel the ripples of hope and optimism from America, we can often feel the ripples of hatred and negativity.\u201d <\/p>\n Still, the mayor\u2019s approach to Trump appears softer this time around. <\/p>\n \u201cI wish President Trump all the best,\u201d he said, stressing that the two countries are \u201cbest mates.\u201d \u201cI hope he\u2019s a successful president. I love America. I love American culture, American people, American politics, American businesses and so, of course, I wish him well.\u201d <\/p>\n But Khan did not rule out allowing another \u201cTrump baby\u201d balloon to fly over London during the president\u2019s next visit, saying he would respond to any applications from protesters \u201cbased on (their) merits.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cSatire and humor and protest are quintessentially British \u2014 and actually American \u2014traits,\u201d he said. \u201cWatch \u2018Curb Your Enthusiasm.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the mayor of London, it\u2019s clear that the rush of Americans applying for British citizenship is connected to the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Americans applied for British citizenship in record…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}