The (British) people vs Donald Trump

If the bequiffed loudmouth known as The Trump had kept his racist anti-Islam demagoguery to his own side of the pond, he might have been spared the ire of the Brits.

The billionaire presidential contender, however, has never been known to put limits upon himself - and foolishly decided to target "the special relationship" with one of his latest outbursts.

"We have places in London and other places that are so radicalised, the police are afraid for their own lives," Trump bizarrely claimed in an MSNBC interview.

But Trump will know by now, if he hadn't realised it already, that the British aren't ones to take such attacks of rhetoric lying down. We may not have much to offer our progressive transatlantic cousins but our blood, toil, sweat and tears. We shall fight upon the beaches. We shall fight upon the landing grounds. We shall fight upon Twitter.

Responding, Mayor of London Boris Johnson told reporters: "The only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump."

The only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump - Boris Johnson

What was Trump thinking? That we wouldn't notice?

This is a country which took pride in one ordinary Londoner's recent condemnation of a suspected "terrorist" who claimed to be acting on behalf of Syria when he stabbed a man at a Tube station.

"You ain't no Muslim, bruv," became a rallying cry to distance ordinary Muslims from those corrupted groups and individuals whose perverse interpretation of Islam is used to justify horrific violence.

It's clear that the 69-year-old populist property magnate does love the taste of controversy. Even his hair(piece?) has its own controversy - and parody Twitter account. But attempting to use British citizens to bolster his fatuous fantasy world was only ever going to backfire spectacularly.

More than 285,000 people have now signed an online petition calling for Trump to be banned from entering Britain after his calls to end the immigration of Muslims to the US were judged by many to constitute "hate speech".

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh MP, the Scottish Nationalist Party's trade and investment spokeswoman, said Trump's comments should be treated in this vein.

"It is within the gift of the UK government to deny access to people who are hate preachers and not conducive to the public good," she said, reported The Herald.

"And so the test is does what Donald Trump said amount to hate preaching? And I would suggest that it does, given that he has denounced an entire religion. And does it do the public good to have him preaching such things on our soil? I would say that on both he meets the test."

Trump has extensive golfing and other business operations in Scotland.

"I hope we can rely on the people of the US, when the time comes, to reject Mr Trump and all he stands for," said Ahmed-Sheikh.

Check out what Britain's Twitterati had to make of Trump's idea of "facts" (the last one's my personal favourite), and tweet us @alaraby_en with your thoughts, using the hashtag #TrumpFacts.