Donald Trump's state visit to the UK to be debated by MPs after huge online petition

Hatty Collier31 January 2017

A petition set up in protest at Donald Trump’s planned state visit to the UK will be debated in Parliament after it was signed by 1.6 million people.

The Commons Petitions Committee confirmed on Tuesday that the petition would be put forward for debate by MPs.

It will be discussed alongside a second rival petition demanding that the US president is allowed to make the state visit to the UK, which was signed by 100,000 people.

The debate will take place in Westminster Hall on February 20.

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PA

It will be opened by veteran Labour MP Paul Flynn who sits on the committee.

Mr Trump has faced an intensifying backlash in the UK after he imposed a travel ban on refugees and people from Muslim-majority countries.

The Government petition protesting against the state visit was launched by Graham Guest, from Leeds, on Saturday and had been signed by more than a million people by Monday morning.

Support for the petition calling for Mr Trump's visit to be downgraded from a grand state visit, likely to include the pomp and pageantry of a ceremonial welcome and an opulent state banquet, soared after the president announced his travel ban.

The petition states: "Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.

"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."

The rival petition in support of Mr Trump's visit says: "Donald Trump should be invited to make an official State Visit because he is the leader of a free world and U.K. is a country that supports free speech and does not believe that people that appose (sic) our point of view should be gagged."

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