Police brace for huge protests ahead of Donald Trump's visit to his golf resorts in Scotland - as 1,500 officers are redeployed

Daily Mail​

24-07-2025

Donald Trump is expected to face major protests in Scotland from tomorrow for a five-day private visit to his golf resorts, as 1,500 officers were redeployed.
Police are concerned about the impact of the trip by the US President, who also plans to see Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and First Minister John Swinney.
Mr Trump is expected at Turnberry in Ayrshire tomorrow afternoon, before flying to RAF Lossiemouth in Moray on Monday evening then heading to his Menie golf course in Aberdeenshire. His return journey will begin on Tuesday via Lossiemouth.
Chief Superintendent Rob Hay, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, said the trip would require a 'significant operation across the country over many days' and will 'undoubtedly stretch' Police Scotland resources.
The senior officer's comments came after similar concerns raised by the Scottish Police Federation - the body which represents rank and file officers. But Mr Swinney has insisted policing will not be put in a 'detrimental position' as a result of the visit.
A major policing operation is being put in place both the visit and any protests, with Police Scotland seeking officers from other areas of the UK to bolster its numbers.
Concerns have also been raised about the cost of the policing operation with officers likely to cancel rest days to ensure adequate staffing amid the demonstrations, including from the Stop Trump Coalition which is organising a 'festival of resistance'.
Mr Trump's last visit as a serving President in July 2018 saw thousands of people protest in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The trip cost Police Scotland more than £3million and required mutual aid as officers were sent in from other UK forces.
The latest visit is expected to require a security operation as big as the arrangements for the late Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in September 2022 - involving up to 6,000 officers - with taxpayers again facing a bill of more than £3million for policing his stay.
Around 5,000 Police Scotland officers will be needed for the 'large-scale, complex' Operation Roll 2 – the codename for policing the visit - with a further 1,000 drafted in from the rest of the UK.
How Donald Trump's mother Mary was a daughter of Scotland
Mary Anne MacLeod
Donald Trump's trip to Scotland this week will be a homecoming of sorts, but he's likely to get a mixed reception.
The President has had a long and at times rocky relationship with the country where his mother grew up in a humble house on a windswept isle.
Mr Trump's mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod in 1912 near the town of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, one of the Outer Hebrides off Scotland's northwest coast.
'My mother was born in Scotland - Stornoway, which is serious Scotland,' the President said in 2017.
She was raised in a large Scots Gaelic-speaking family and left for New York in 1930, one of thousands of people from the islands to emigrate in the years after the First World War.
Ms MacLeod married the President's father, Fred C Trump, the son of German immigrants, in New York in 1936. She died in August 2000 at the age of 88.
Mr Trump still has relatives on Lewis, and visited in 2008, spending a few minutes in the plain grey house where his mother grew up.
A 'ring of steel' has been established at Turnberry, with 10ft perimeter fencing erected as security measures are ramped up by officers with road closures in place.
Several 'road closed' signs were put on the road, as well as checkpoints for 'authorised access'. Chinook helicopters were at Glasgow Prestwick Airport, while US military planes and helicopters gathered on Monday ahead of his arrival.
A convoy of vehicles and staff are being flown in to keep him safe during his visit.
Ordinarily his bullet-proof motorcade could include up to 50 vehicles, some carrying anti-aircraft guns and hi-tech radio equipment, while others are designated for family, close aides and members of the Press.
Several black SUVs were unloaded from two US Air Force C-17 cargo planes at Prestwick yesterday, with another three of the aircraft arriving in the afternoon.
Some of the vehicles in the presidential motorcade were immediately driven to the nearest petrol station, in Monkton, for refuelling accompanied by several security personnel. It is believed the motorcade then continued to Turnberry.
Despite stringent security measures, including a number of no-fly zones, plane-spotters were still able to gather near the Ayrshire airport and zoom in on the action on the runway.
The Police Federation of England and Wales highlighted how 1,500 officers have been redeployed to support the visit.
Tiff Lynch, its national chair, said: 'Let's be clear: this is a private visit by a head of state to play golf. And we are pulling 1,500 officers - roughly a third of the size of an average police force in England and Wale - away from their normal duties to support it.
'That should stop anyone in their tracks. These are officers who would otherwise be responding to emergencies, safeguarding the vulnerable, and reassuring communities. Instead, they're being asked to give up rest days and work excessive hours to police a leisure visit.'
Mr Trump will likely be hoping the trip can put some distance between himself and an ongoing controversy involving his ties with Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased financier and sex offender, and anger over failures to release case files.
In a sign of how sensitive the issue is, the White House excluded the Wall Street Journal from press pool traveling with Trump this weekend, following an article in the newspaper about a 'bawdy' letter he allegedly sent to Mr Epstein in 2003.
The Stop Trump Coalition is organising events in Aberdeen and outside the US embassy in Edinburgh on Saturday, with protests also expected around Turnberry and Menie.
Connor Dylan, who is organising the protests in the cities, told The Guardian: 'The vast majority of people in Scotland were already opposed to everything Trump stood for when he first visited as president. As we've learned more and more about him and the way he governs, that attitude has only hardened.
'His politics - and those of the people around him - have only become more extreme since then, with once fringe ideas like mass deportations now part of mainstream American politics and being effectively exported to the UK and other European countries by far-right allies.'
Trump's ongoing Scots golf course battles
Mr Trump's ties and troubles in Scotland are intertwined with golf, after he first proposed building a course on a stretch of the North Sea coast north of Aberdeen in 2006.
The Trump International Scotland development was backed by the Scottish government, but it was fiercely opposed by some local residents and conservationists.
They claimed the stretch of coastal sand dunes was home to some of the country's rarest wildlife, including skylarks, kittiwakes, badgers and otters.
Local fisherman Michael Forbes hit the headlines after he refused the Trump Organization's offer of £350,000 to sell his family's rundown farm in the centre of the estate.
Mr Forbes still lives on his property, which Mr Trump once called 'a slum and a pigsty.'
'If it weren't for my mother, would I have walked away from this site? I think probably I would have, yes,' Mr Trump said in 2008 amid the planning battle over the course. 'Possibly, had my mother not been born in Scotland, I probably wouldn't have started it.'
The golf course was eventually approved and opened in 2012. Some of the grander aspects of the planned development, including 500 houses and a 450-room hotel, have not been realised, and the course has never made a profit.
A second 18-hole course at the resort is scheduled to open this summer. It's named the MacLeod Course in honour of the President's mother.
There has been less controversy about Mr Trump's other Scottish golf site, the long-established Turnberry resort, which he bought in 2014. He has pushed for the British Open to be held at the course for the first time since 2009.
Turnberry is one of ten courses on the rotation to host the Open, but organisers say there are logistical issues about 'road, rail and accommodation infrastructure' that must be resolved before it can return.
Back in March, Turnberry was vandalised, with the message 'GAZA IS NOT 4 SALE' sprayed across the grass, a reaction to the President's suggestion of relocating Palestinians and turning the Gaza Strip into luxury real estate.
Meanwhile police officers are raising concerns about the impact of the trip, with Mr Hay stating: 'The private visit of President Donald Trump to Scotland at the end of July will require the Police Service of Scotland to plan for and deliver a significant operation across the country over many days.
'This will undoubtedly stretch all our resources from local policing divisions to specialist and support functions such as contact, command and control.'
Police superintendents and chief superintendents will have 'key leadership roles' for the visit, he added, saying they would be taking responsibility for areas such as planning and resourcing, intelligence gathering, command and control communications, armed operations, public order, and other specialist functions.
Mr Hay urged the public to be aware of the 'significant demands that will be placed on policing services during this period' - adding these result from not only the Presidential visit but the 'many popular events that Scotland hosts in the summer months, which bring thousands of tourists to our country and rely upon partnerships with policing to support their safe delivery'.
His comments came as Scottish Police Federation general secretary David Kennedy warned the police response to the visit could impact on the service it provides to the public in Scotland.
Asked about the visit, Mr Kennedy told BBC Radio Scotland: 'Anyone who says it won't affect it (policing in Scotland), I can't believe that's the case. It will affect it.
'You may be waiting in the past for so many hours for a police officer to arrive, that could double now, you may be waiting for more time for them to arrive.
'Obviously, emergency calls will take priority, but it will affect communities in Scotland.
'We've been asking long and weary to have more police officers in our communities in Scotland and all this does is take them away from that at this time.'
Asked if the quality of policing will be impacted by the visit, Mr Kennedy added: 'It will be seriously affected, it has to be. There's not enough police officers for it not to be affected.'
Mr Swinney told the PA news agency on Tuesday that talks are ongoing between Police Scotland and the Scottish and UK governments on funding, asserting that policing in Scotland will not be put in a 'detrimental position' as a result.
Mr Kennedy also reiterated calls from Assistant Chief Constable Emma Bond for those seeking to protest to do so peacefully.
Ms Bond has already said a 'policing plan will be in place to maintain public safety, balance rights to peaceful protest and minimise disruption'.
She added: 'The visit will require a significant police operation using local, national and specialist resources from across Police Scotland, supported by colleagues from other UK police forces as part of mutual aid arrangements.
A general view of the Trump Turnberry golf course yesterday ahead of the President's arrival
'Officers make sacrifices every day to keep people safe, and their dedication and professionalism is the reason we manage to deliver significant operations.'
Mr Swinney meanwhile said it was important that Mr Trump's visit is 'handled with care'.
While the First Minister accepted the need for 'security around the President' has also said there 'has to be the legitimate right for individuals in our country to make their voices heard, to protest'.
Mr Swinney stated: 'We are a democratic society and people must be able to protest within the law and the policing operation will be designed to ensure that is the case.'
With the President's visit expected to include the opening of a second golf course at Menie, Mr Swinney said: 'I obviously spend a lot of my time as First Minister encouraging investment in our country, so I welcome investment in the facilities that are being taken forward.'
But Scottish Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: 'This is just the latest siren warning to SNP ministers about the impact of their brutal cuts on Police Scotland's ability to cover the Presidential visit.
'We've already had threats of legal action from the SPF over the demands on rank-and-file officers, as well as a plea from bosses for reinforcements from Northern Ireland – and now we have the representative of senior officers sounding the alarm bell too.
'The buck stops with SNP ministers, who have squeezed police funding to the point where those at the sharp end feel compelled to speak out about the dangerous lack of resources.'