January 7, 2021

Scottish Lawmakers Are Trying to Keep Donald Trump Out of Their Country

The soon-to-be-ex-president may not be able to flee to his UK golf resorts.

President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in support of Senate candidates Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and David Perdue in Dalton, Ga., Monday, Jan. 4, 2021. AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

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Following Donald Trump’s role in inciting a mob to sack the US Capitol yesterday, Scottish lawmakers are calling for him to be banned from that country—a potentially awkward problem for a man who has staked much of his business empire on his golf resorts there.

Trump started building his first Scottish property, a new course developed from scratch, in northeastern Scotland in 2006. He then purchased the legendary Turnberry golf resort in 2014—and almost from the start has had a bad relationship with locals. The courses have also lost money by the bucket—including more than $3.1 million at Turnberry last year—and Trump’s feuding with neighbors and Scottish officials had reached epic levels even before he ran for president. In recent months his problems in Scotland have intensified, with some Scottish lawmakers calling for the government to invoke an anti-money-laundering tool against Trump to force him to explain how he has managed to afford his money-losing courses for so long. (Losing money is something Trump has often done, but rarely for so long before he drops the project.)

On Thursday, Scotland’s justice minister, Humza Yousaf, tweeted a suggestion that the United Kingdom ban Trump from entry.

Earlier this week, before the DC mob’s attack on Wednesday, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had already made it clear that Trump would not be welcome to come golf at his resorts immediately after he leaves office. Scotland is currently under severe lockdown restrictions due to COVID-19.

“We are not allowing people to come into Scotland without an essential purpose right now, and that would apply to him just as it applies to anyone else—playing golf is not an essential purpose,” Sturgeon said at a press conference.

Priti Patel, UK’s home secretary, who Yousaf made his appeal to, hasn’t commented on whether she would block Trump, but did have harsh words for him on Thursday morning, saying that “his comments directly led to the violence and so far he has failed to condemn that violence – and that is completely wrong.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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