Windsor Castle was the backdrop to a clash between Donald Trump supporters and detractors as the president arrived for his second state visit this lunchtime.
Marine One, the helicopter carrying the United States president, was seen circling the castle at 12.10pm as the presidential convoy touched down on the lawn of Home Park.
A verbal altercation between onlookers spilled onto the street and stopped traffic moments before, with the police ordering people off the road and creating a barricade along the pavement.
While there were many supporters of the president in Windsor, there were also plenty of people there to protest his second state visit.
Nick Dearden, a spokesperson for the Stop Trump Coalition who travelled from East London for the protest, said: “The president is pushing his own country down a very dangerous path. He is militarising cities, kidnapping people off the streets, overriding court decisions – I would call this fascism.
“Internationally, this is a guy who is perpetrating the most awful catastrophe, a genocide in Gaza, but also using tariffs as a form of economic warfare on friend and foe alike.”
The Israel-Gaza war was a common point of contention among those gathered, as Israeli flags were flown alongside American, and “Stop arming Israel” signs were spotted in the crowd following a United Nations commission of inquiry ruling Israel was committing a genocide, which it denies.
Dearden, 50, also spoke about how Trump was bringing American “corporate barons” into the UK economy.
He added: “We are simply turning our country into an aircraft carrier for US corporate interests and US big tech and I don’t think that’s in the benefit of people here.
“My fear is that Keir Starmer is bending over backwards to appease these people.
“What that means is that we will not be able to properly regulate or tax or control any investment that comes in.”
Retiree Tracy Cadas carried a sign stating “Trump go away you vile, sleazy little man” and had never attended a protest before today, saying that she felt mobilised by the threat Trump poses to global stability.
The 60-year-old from Sunderland said: “I think every time he opens his mouth, the safety of the world shifts.
“He’s very dangerous because of that.”
Another retiree attending the protest, Lynne Iliffe, was struck by the polarisation between pro- and anti-Trump supporters today, noting how many of the Trump campaign’s ‘Make America Great Again’ red caps could be seen in the crowds.
The 64-year-old from Slough said: “I can’t understand how you can possibly be a Maga fan. I think time will show us the dreadful things he’s done.”
Protestors also discussed how they felt that the UK was being taken advantage of in the US-UK “special relationship”, as artist Kaya Mar from south east London displayed a painting of Trump holding King Charles like a baby.
Dearden further labelled Trump as a bully, and decried the government’s lack of pushback against him.
“You need to get off your knees, you need to stand up for some basic principles in your international policy,” Dearden said.
“One of those principles must be that we do not give in to this kind of bullying – we’re not going to hand over parts of our sovereignty.”
Additional reporting by Tilly Cooke, Kisakye Busuulwa and Alex Thompson.
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