Dozens of people on Tuesday protested a visit by US Vice President JD Vance, registering their disapproval of his politics and the turmoil he has brought to their idyllic rural region of southwest England, where he is on vacation with family.
About 60 people gathered for the demonstration in the town of Charlbury in the Cotswolds region, carrying signs including “Go Home,” “Not Welcome Party” and “Sod Off.”
Vance has mixed work with leisure while in the UK, staying first with British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy at the Chevening estate in Kent — where the two held a formal bilateral meeting after a spot of fishing — before moving on to the hamlet of Dean in Oxfordshire.
Photo: Reuters
UK police and US security detail dotted the usually quiet roads leading to the hamlet, blocking some roads and footpaths in the countryside region popular with tourists.
“The people of the Cotswolds are out here today telling JD Vance that he is not welcome here,” Jake Atkinson from the Stop Trump Coalition said at the gathering.
Atkinson cited US President Donald Trump’s policies including on immigration and the war in Gaza for the local anger, saying that the anti-Trump coalition would also turn out against the US president, who is due in the UK for a state visit next month.
Photo: AFP
Earlier in the day, a black van bearing an image of Vance edited to look bald and bloated drove past the quaint cottages and winding streets of the town.
“We wanted to extend the same welcome that he extended to [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy from the White House,” 75-year-old Charlbury resident Lou Johnson said, referring to the cold reception Vance gave the Ukrainian leader during a meeting in Washington in February.
Residents said they were dismayed by the heavy security around Dean, the village where Vance was staying.
“I feel and many others feel we can’t allow someone like that to come into our village and not say something publicly against it,” said Jonathan Mazower, the head of communications for Survival International.
Johnson complained that heightened security had been “invading everywhere.”
“People think it’s just a gentle little village, but every now and then we do stand up for what we believe in,” Johnson said.
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