PRESUMPTIVE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE Donald Trump will visit Britain a day after it holds a landmark referendum on its EU membership, saying he was coming to open a newly-renovated Scottish golf course.
Trump said in a statement he would visit on 24 June, a day after the crucial vote which has sharply divided Britain’s ruling Conservative party, with the billionaire tycoon previously saying he believed Britain should leave.
A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron’s Downing Street office said there were “no plans” for the two men to meet during Trump’s visit to Britain.
Trump has not stated whether a stop in Ireland to visit his Doonbeg Golf Club in Co. Clare forms part of his trip.
Trump said he would be visiting the Turnberry golf course in Scotland which would be reopening after a €260 million renovation on 24 June.
His visit to the resort and Ailsa golf course, which has hosted The Open Championship four times, will come as Britain learns whether it will stay in or leave the European Union following the 23 June referendum.
Trump has said his personal “feeling” is that Britons should vote to leave, telling Fox News last month:
I would say that they’re better off without it, but I want them to make their own decision.
Last week Cameron, who is pushing for Britain to stay in the bloc, said US presidential candidates “often come through London” but added, “We have no firm dates in the diary.”
Cameron told parliament in December last year that Trump’s comments about banning all Muslims from entering the United States were “divisive, stupid and wrong”.
“I think if he came to visit our country, he would unite us all against him,” he said.
Trump subsequently warned that the pair were “not going to have a very good relationship”, although he later backtracked, saying that if he were elected president in November, “we’re going to have good relationships”.
The tycoon last visited Trump Turnberry, located on the southwest Scottish coast, in July 2015, after adding it to his portfolio of golf courses the previous year.
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