Theresa May performs some VERY awkward dancing with school kids as she touches down in South Africa
The Prime Minister kicked off her three-day Africa trip to boost post-Brexit trade by getting far too involved in a welcome performance for her in Cape Town
THERESA May turned her hand to dancefloor diplomacy today with some very awkward dancing at the opening of her African trade trip.
Once branded the “Maybot” by critics for her wooden style, the Prime Minister is unlikely to be sparking a viral craze like the Mo-Bot any time soon.
Her boogie came as she announced a scholarship programme for 100 African youngsters to study in Britain at the start of three-day trip across the continent.
Mrs May was filmed swaying from side to side and bobbing up and down as she was greeted by a group of pupils dancing energetically in Cape Town.
The PM smiled and laughed throughout and later joined in with a second dance in her visit to the I D Mkize School in the South African capital.
During a packed assembly, she told the pupils: “Can I thank all those young people who were involved in the performances outside who welcomed me.”
She used her visit to the school to announce the Chevening Scholarship scheme would be opened up to 100 more of “Africa’s brightest young people”.
Mrs May said: “What I see before me in this hall today is the future of South Africa.”
She added: “I’d like to think that some of you when you get older if you’re thinking of going to university that you might think of coming to one of our great universities in the UK.”
The PM later met with the South African President Cyril Rampaphosa for talks and to present him with the ship’s bell from the SS Mendi, which sank off the cost of Britain in 1917 – costing 600 South African lives.
This morning she also made a speech pledging to rip up UK aid rules to make it “unashamedly” benefit British firms.
Mrs May wants to spend the UK’s £13.9billion development budget giving companies greater confidence to invest in Africa as an expansion of its global outlook after Brexit.
She vowed to divert taxpayer handouts to the continent and use it instead to roll the pitch for the UK to become the world’s “number one investor in Africa” by 2022 – overtaking the US.
The money would be moved from charities and NGOs to help states tackle corruption and invest in infrastructure and security.
As part of the visit, the first major trip since unveiling her soft-Brexit Chequers deal, the PM will also visit Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in jail.
And she will take two dozen business chiefs with her in a bid to whip up a slew of high investment deals.
Speaking as she touched down this morning, she turned her attention to Brexit, insisting that No Deal would “not be the end of the world”.
Mrs May dismissed Chancellor Philip Hammond’s doomsday warnings as a “work in progress.”
The Mendi Bell explained
THERESA May will present South Africa with the Mendi Bell tomorrow - salvaged from the wreck of the nation’s worse maritime disaster.
More than 640 troops, mostly black South Africans, died when the SS Mendi perished in the English Channel in 1917.
They were on their way to join the Allied forces on the Western Front in World War One when it collided with a Royal Mail boat off the Isle of Wight, but no assistance was given to drowning victims.
The bell has become a symbol of the South Africa’s First World War remembrance, and a protest at racial inequality.
The recovered bell was donated anonymously to the BBC last year after the wreck was discovered in the 1970s.
Mrs May will present it to the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in a ceremony in Cape Town on Tuesday – just over a century after it was lost at sea.
In 1995 the Queen and then South African leader Nelson Mandela unveiled a memorial to the Mendi victims.
And she stressed it was important to let Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab unveil the Government’s contingency plans for crashing out of the EU without a trade deal in place.
Last Wednesday Mr Hammond sparked uproar from fellow ministers and Tory MPs after publishing a doom-laden warning that Britain would face an £80 billion hike in borrowing in a No Deal scenario on the same day Mr Raab set out the first tranche of Whitehall emergency plans.
But speaking for the first time on the row, Mrs May sided with Mr Raab in the latest Cabinet split and echoed claims from the head of the WTO that No Deal “would not be a walk in the park, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
PM dismisses accusations she is ‘late to the party’ when it comes to Africa
THERESA May has dismissed accusations she had abandoned Africa as the first Prime Minister to tour the continent in seven years.
It came as she announced Britain would “rollover” the EU’s current free trade deal with South Africa after Brexit, writes Harry Cole in Cape Town.
After a major speech she tried to bat away suggestions that she was “late to the party” in her ambitious bid to become the continent’s top global investor within five years.
But American and Chinese investors are already leading the charge in world’s poorest but fastest growing continent.
It came as the PM announced plans to carry over a European Union free trade agreement with six South African nations post-Brexit.
Mrs May said: “We will today confirm plans to carry over the European Union’s economic partnership agreement with the South African Customs Union and Mozambique, once the EU’s deal no longer applies to the UK.”
She added that the UK would also invest an additional £4billion in African economies, which it is hoped will pave the way for “another £4billion in private sector finance”.
Mrs May is the first British PM to tour sub-saharan Africa since 2011, but in comparison French President Emmanuel Macron has visited nine times since he was elected last year.
Since 2010, French premiers have visited Africa more than two dozen times, and China’s boss President Xi has visited 79 times since 2007.
Asked by reporters whether the her government had “neglected Africa and you’re desperately trying to catch up”, Mrs May insisted Boris Johnson had visited many times when he was the Foreign Secretary.
She added: “We have been working with African nations and African governments in the past.”
Mrs May vowed also to expand Britain’s 32 diplomatic missions in the continent, and boost numbers of Foreign Office officials.
In her speech she insisted: “While we cannot compete with the economic might of some foreign governments investing in Africa, what we can offer is long-term investment of the very highest quality and breadth, something that will deliver more for Africans for longer and which can only be achieved when the Government and private sector work together.”