Donald Trump Jr. slammed Britain for lack of progress with Brexit, and said it has fallen prey to the same 'deep-state' forces opposing his father
- Donald Trump Jr. criticized the UK's Brexit negotiations and suggested that the country had fallen prey to "deep-state operatives" working to "subvert the will of the people."
- British Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to get her deal to leave the EU passed through parliament.
- In an op-ed in The Daily Telegraph, Trump Jr. referred to this as an effort "to overturn legitimate election results."
- He added that May should have listened to his father President Donald Trump's advice on how to handle the negotiations.
Donald Trump Jr. slammed the UK over its lack of progress on Brexit, suggesting that the country had fallen prey to "deep-state operatives" working to "subvert the will of the people."
In a op-ed published Wednesday in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper - titled "Theresa May should have taken my father's advice on Brexit" - Trump Jr. likened the UK's June 2016 vote to leave the EU to the presidential election that ushered his father to power later that year.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to get her deal with the EU passed through the British parliament, and is trying to delay the country's departure by around three months. Britain was originally supposed to leave the EU on March 29, 2019.
Read more: Theresa May asks the EU to delay Brexit until June 30
US President Donald Trump said last week that he was "surprised at how badly" Brexit negotiations had gone, and said it was because May ignored his "ideas on how to negotiate it."
Trump didn't specify what advice he gave, but in an interview with the Telegraph last year, his former strategist Steve Bannon said Trump had told May to be "brutal" and "tough" with the EU.
Trump Jr. on Wednesday echoed his father's remarks, adding that "the clock has virtually run out and almost all is lost - exactly as the European elites were hoping."
He did not specify who those "European elites" are.
"It appears that democracy in the UK is all but dead," he added, referring to his claim that the British government was failing to honor the 2016 vote to leave the EU.
Trump Jr. also linked the floundering Brexit negotiations to criticism of his father in the US.
He wrote in The Telegraph:
"Here in the United States, we've seen similar efforts to overturn legitimate election results. When my father beat the Washington establishment in a historic outcome in 2016, just a few months after the Brexit vote, we mistakenly presumed there would be a peaceful and respectful transition of power from the Democrats to the Republicans, just as there has always been in this country.
"Instead, the Democrats and deep-state operatives in our justice system have been colluding to subvert the will of the American people, with high-level officials even discussing a scheme to try to remove him from office using the 25th Amendment of our constitution."
It's not entirely clear who the "deep-state operatives" Trump Jr. is referring to are.
Some of Trump senior's top advisers have reportedly discussed using the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution to remove him from office. It paves the way for the removal of the president from office if he's unable to "discharge the powers and duties of his office." In such an instance, the vice president then becomes president.
"In a way, you could say that Brexit and my father's election are one and the same," Trump Jr. added. "The people of both the UK and the US voted to uproot the establishment for the sake of individual freedom and independence, only to see the establishment try to silence their voices and overturn their mandates."