British Parliament is expected to debate a planned state visit by President Donald Trump, after more than 750,000 UK citizens signed a petition calling for its cancellation.
The petition says that while Trump should be allowed into the country in his official capacity as U.S. president,”he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.” The UK government responds to all petitions that receive more than 10,000 signatures, and all petitions with 100,000 signatures must be considered for debate in Parliament.
More than 1,000 people a minute were signing the petition at one point on Sunday afternoon.
The petition states, “Donald Trump’s well documented misogyny and vulgarity disqualifies him from being received by Her Majesty the Queen or the Prince of Wales. Therefore during the term of his presidency Donald Trump should not be invited to the United Kingdom for an official state visit.” Donald Trump has accepted an invitation from the queen to visit the UK later this year, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced Friday during her visit to Washington. That announcement came the same day as Trump’s controversial executive orderdiscontinuing the Syrian refugee program and imposing an immigration ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. May condemned Trump’s immigration plan after considerable public pressure this weekend, but did not rescind the invitation,the Telegraph reported. RELATED:How Trump’s abrupt immigration ban sowed confusion at airports, agencies UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and other conservatives have called for the visit to be suspendedwhile the immigration ban is in place.
“Is it really right to endorse somebody who has used this awful misogynistic language throughout the election campaign, awful attacks on Muslims, and then of course this absurd idea of building a wall between themselves and their nearest neighbour?” he said to the Telegraph. He added: “I think we should make it very clear we are extremely upset about it, and I think it would be totally wrong for him to be coming here while that situation is going on. I think he has to be challenged on this.”
.@realDonaldTrump should not be welcomed to Britain while he abuses our shared values with shameful #MuslimBan & attacks on refugees & women
— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) January 29, 2017
Parliament is expected to announce the date when they will debate the visit within the next day.
This will be the second time Trump has been debated in UK Parliament.
After he first floated the idea of banning Muslims from America a year ago,a similar petitionsigned by half a million peopleasked he be barred from entry to the UK. He was described as a “buffoon, demagogue and wazzock” — a foolish person — in that debate.
