One of the architects of Brexit has been told he cannot enter the US to attend his own inauguration party, it has been reported.
Arron Banks, the British businessman who put millions of pounds behind a campaign for the UK to leave the European Union, was due to travel to Washington DC this week for the party before his entry was blocked.
He has branded the rejection of his electronic entry permit, or ESTA, a “political decision” made by President Joe Biden’s administration.
The party, said to have cost £150,000 to organise, was due to go ahead without him in the US capital on Friday night as a celebration of Donald Trump’s inauguration, set to take place the following Monday.
Three hundred guests have been invited, including president-elect Donald Trump, X boss Elon Musk and former prime minister Liz Truss.
The Hay-Adams hotel near the Whiter House – Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Members of the Trump family were also invited to the lavish event, booked for the roof of the Hay-Adams hotel near the White House.
The event was organised with Gerry Gunster, the president of Washington-based lobbying firm Gunster Strategies Worldwide.
Mr Banks, who has met Mr Trump and is close with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, in an interview with The Sunday Times, said: “I am shocked that the US embassy have blocked our visa to the US. This is a political decision and revenge for the failed Russia Hoax [attempt to help elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election] perpetrated on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Mr Banks’ business partner and fellow Brexit backer Andy Wigmore is also understood to have been denied entry to the country. They were due to fly out on Thursday.
Mr Banks said: “With my visa blocked, I guess Andy and myself will have to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico into the US, along with the hundreds of thousands of gang members and bad hombres on the border, and claim our free hotel room and mobile phone in DC when we arrive.”
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who was due to attend the party, has accused the Biden administration of “blocking internationally known leaders of the Populist Nationalist Movement from gathering in the imperial capital”.
A spokesperson for the US Embassy in London said: “Visa records are confidential under US law. Therefore we cannot discuss the details of specific visa cases.”
Mr Farage is due to attend the inauguration of president-elect Trump. Sir Keir Starmer was not invited to the event, but the UK will be represented by current ambassador Dame Karen Pierce.
