Editorial: There are risks to insulting a US president, as Scotland has found

A curious thing happened within Irish nationalism when Donald Trump won the US presidency in a surprise result in 2016.

The then SDLP leader Colum Eastwood delivered a scathing assessment of the outcome. He said he would not to attend any St Patrick’s Day celebration at a Trump White House: "I feel it is important that as an Irish leader I take a stand, even if only small and only symbolic, for the kind of politics which we continue to believe in.”

Eight years later, when Mr Trump has won a not so surprising re-election to the Oval Office, Mr Eastwood’s successor – Claire Hanna – also delivered an damning response. But Sinn Fein, a supposedly more leftist party, did not denounce Mr Trump.

One reported reason for this is that when Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams and other senior republicans were in America in the run-up to the 2016 contest, they were taken aback by the level of Irish American support for the then Republican Party candidate – a constituency that once voted solidly for the Democratic Party.

It is, in a way, admirable that the SDLP says what it thinks. But when a party is likely to be in power, such as the SNP in Scotland, it is perilous to be so blunt. ​Now Mr Trump’s son Eric has said that his father “is not going to lose any sleep over” the Scottish first minister John Swinney’s endorsement of Mr Trump’s election rival Kamala Harris. He also confirmed President-elect Trump will open a new golf course in Aberdeenshire. Eric Trump said the Scottish government had made it “virtually impossible” to do business in the country. Imagine a US president opening a golf course and the first minister feeling barely able to attend.

Mr Trump has a golf course in the Republic of Ireland, but is said not to have yet come north of the border. Gavin Robinson was right to congratulate him on his big win, and to express the hope that he will come here.