Should Donald Trump Be Given A State Visit To Britain?

MPs will debate two e-petitions relating to a state visit by US President Donald Trump later on Monday.

Led by the redoubtable 82-year-old Labour MP Paul Flynn, it will be dominated by cries for Trump to be denied the honour of a state visit.

It is a mark of how much the world has changed that a year ago Flynn led a similar debate to completely ban Donald Trump from even entering the UK.

Just over 13 months later the fight is reduced to an ultimately futile move to stop a wholesale state visit, complete with dinner at Buckingham Palace and tea with the Prime Minister.

But other than showing the rapid shift in western democracy, Flynn's two debates mark a more fundamental question on how to deal with rulers, even allies, who strongly disagree with the our principles.

Flynn's position is one of protest. Make a stand. Stand up for what you believe in. And don't allow Trump anyway near the UK, let alone a full state visit, in retaliation for his views on refugees, Muslims, women and disabled people.

But there is a more mature and ultimately more productive response, which for all Flynn's years of experience he has failed to learn.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was questioned recently whether he would accept his invitation to a state banquet for Trump at Buckingham Palace should the visit go ahead.

His response, born out of years of leading conflict resolution in Nigeria, deserves praise.

In an interview on LBC Welby said he would be 'very glad' to meet Trump and try and 'persuade him to change' his views.

'You engage with people in order to persuade them of different views and change their views,' he said.

'If I had the opportunity to engage with him and to debate with him I would consider it a great privilege to try and persuade him to change his views.'

Despite nearly 30 years as an MP Flynn has failed to grasp the diplomatic maturity shown by Welby – 21 years his junior.

Meeting someone offers you the change to engage. It brings conversation and hopefully relationship. But it does not mean you endorse or subscribe to their views.

Theresa May quite rightly faced heavy criticism for failing to immediately condemn Trump's suspension of the entire US refugee programme. She misunderstood that relationship does not mean uniformity.

Welby is in no doubt what he thinks of Trump. In the same radio interview he lambasted the executive order that bans anyone from seven Muslim majority countries from entering the US.

'Policies based in fear rather than confidence and courage and the Christian values of hospitality, of love, of grace, of embrace rather than exclusion, are policies that will lead to terrible results,' he said.

'We have to say when you start dissing whole communities, when you start excluding them, when you start mixing up genuine threats to security with a dismissal of a whole range of communities out of fear, that is not good.'

But he unequivocal stance, similar to that of Flynn's, is worked out very differently. Welby sees a state visit as an opportunity, not an embarrassment.

He sees the chance to engage. To flatter and subsequently to persuade.

Ultimately it comes down to whether you want to actually achieve some good or just talk about achieving good. Flynn's principled stance will earn him headlines and praise for standing up to a bully. But Welby's approach is the only one that will actually make a difference to the bully's mind.

Whispering in somebody's ear will always be more effective than throwing stones at their windows.

Flynn and all the other MPs calling for the state visit to be abandoned should take heed.