Politics

King will have ‘appropriate security’ for US trip, minister says

 

King will have ‘appropriate security’ for US trip, minister says

Maia Davies
Getty Images

King Charles III’s state visit to the US will have “appropriate security in place in relation to the risk”, a minister told the BBC after shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington.

Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones said the government and Buckingham Palace had been in “close co-operation” with US officials before the trip, which begins on Monday.

“Further discussions will be taking place today ahead of next week,” Jones told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.

US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were evacuated from the dinner in Washington DC on Saturday night after a man rushed past a checkpoint and shots were fired.

Speaking later on the same programme as Jones, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said it was “vital” to ensure the King is properly protected and urged US and UK teams to review the monarch’s security overnight.

He said security arrangements on such visits were ordinarily very tight but they should be reviewed afresh “to make sure there are no loopholes at all”.

But Philp said the trip should “absolutely go ahead” as violence should not be allowed to stop diplomatic relations and politics from continuing as normal.

Videos from the event at showed US Vice-President JD Vance and Trump being evacuated off the stage by armed officers.

Trump later told reporters that one Secret Service agent was shot at very close range, but was saved by his bullet-proof vest.

The Secret Service, which protects the president and other key officials, confirmed no one else had been injured and said one person had been taken into custody.

The 31-year-old suspect is from Torrance in the Los Angeles region, California, police said.

Sir Keir Starmer wrote on X that he was shocked by the incident said it was a relief everyone attending the event, including Trump and the first lady Melania, was safe.

“Any attack on democratic institutions or on the freedom of the press must be condemned in the strongest possible terms” the prime minister added.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey likewise condemned the “really shocking scenes”.

He wrote on X: “Political violence is wrong. We must all condemn this attack and be thankful no lives were lost.”

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will be hosted by the president on the four-day trip – the first UK state visit to the US since Elizabeth II’s in 2007.

The King is expected to address both houses of Congress, visit the 9/11 memorial in New York, and attend a wreath laying to honour fallen US and UK soldiers in Virginia.

Broadcaster and historian Jonathan Dimbleby, who is a close friend of the King, told the BBC the trip should be postponed because of the “uncertainty of the president” – whom he said had “systematically mocked” the UK.

“Sound judgement is to deploy that asset, that soft power, at the right time,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. “I think this is not the right time.”

“The problem is the uncertainty of the president… he will be very effusive about the King, the Royal Family, as he always is, one day. Next day, he rubbishes the prime minister, he goes back again into the feebleness, as he sees it, of the British Navy.”

 

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