Whitehall insiders expect Donald Trump to visit Scotland if the controversial tycoon turned President-Elect of the United States comes to the UK later this year.

Sources said that Mr Trump, whose mother came from outside Stornoway, was expected to spend time north of the Border.

Mr Trump has promised to meet Prime Minister Theresa May "as soon as possible" after he is sworn in as president on Friday.

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Sources hope a state visit to the UK could also help build bridges.

When she was still Home Secretary, Mrs May criticised Mr Trump's proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States as "divisive, unhelpful and wrong."

He also faced protesters angry at his attacks on Muslims and others when he visited his golf courses in Scotland last year.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has suggested that she would be prepared to meet him if he came to Scotland, despite voicing her disappointment at his shock victory over Hillary Clinton.

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The SNP leader has said “if the opportunity is there, I’d meet him”.

In an interview ahead of his inauguration on Friday, Mr Trump also said that his mother “loved the Queen”, and joked that “Scottish are known for watching their pennies, so I like to watch my pennies.”

However, he added: “I deal in big pennies, that's the problem."

The interview, carried out by arch-Brexiteer and former Tory minister, Michael Gove for The Times, sparked an international backlash after Mr Trump also branded Nato "obsolete", claimed the EU could collapse and that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made a “catastrophic mistake” with her policy towards hundreds of thousands of refugees.

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He also said that he wanted to make “good deals” with Russia, including over nuclear weapons.

But he was also highly critical of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Syria.

In comments that will have raised blood pressures inside No 10, he also hailed Ukip leader Nigel Farage as a "great guy".

But the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson welcomed Mr Trump’s pledge to work to secure a quick trade deal with the UK after it leaves the EU.

Mr Trump’s attack on Nato centred on his claim that it had not tackled terrorism.

However, he added that the nuclear military alliance was "very important" to him.

German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, said that Mr Trump's comments had caused "surprise and anxiety" among members of the transatlantic alliance.

The President-Elect also asked Mr Gove: "How is our Nigel doing? I like him, I think he's a great guy, I think he's a very good guy and he was very supportive.

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"He'd go around the US - he was saying Trump's gonna win. He was one of the earliest people that said Trump was gonna win. So, he's gotta feel for it. Michael, you should've written that we were gonna win."

He also hit back at Christopher Steele, the British former MI6 agent believed to be behind a dossier on Mr Trump, saying that he “should be looked at”.

And he said that he believed that Brexit was “going to end up being a great thing” because people in the UK wanted to reclaim their identity from the EU.

The EU was in essence a vehicle for Germany, he added, and “that’s why I thought the UK was so smart in getting out”.