Tory leadership candidate Sajid Javid has said has said he “doesn’t know why” he was not invited to Donald Trump’s state banquet at Buckingham Palace.
The Home Secretary said he still has not received a proper explanation over his exclusion from the lavish dinner held during the US president's state visit to the UK.
Mr Javid, 49, was the only senior Cabinet minister to be snubbed from the guest list, which featured the likes of foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and environment secretary Michael Gove.
"I don't know. I have asked. I was just told that normally home secretaries aren't invited. So I don't know," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday.
He went on to admit: "I don't like it. It is odd. My office did ask No 10 and they said 'no'. You'd have to ask someone from No 10 why they made that decision."
Mr Javid has previously condemned Mr Trump for sharing Islamphobic tweets from the right-wing extremist group Britain First in 2017.
The Tory leadership hopeful tweeted that the president was endorsing the views of "a vile, hate-filled racist organisation that hates me and people like me".
Asked by BBC presenter Mishal Husain if he thought his Muslim background was the cause of the exclusion, Mr Javid replied: "I am not saying that at all. I really don't know."
Mr Javid did meet and speak briefly with the president during the D-Day commemorations in Portsmouth on the final day of his visit.
During the course of his stay, Mr Trump renewed his long-running feud with London Mayor Sadiq Khan - who also comes from a Muslim background - branding him a "stone cold loser".
