Anti-Trump petition hits million mark despite UK government rejection

The UK government rejected a petition - which has now reached one million signatures - demanding a planned state visit by Donald Trump be cancelled after the president's Muslim ban.

Narrated

2 min read

The New Arab

29 Jan, 2017

The petition hit the one million early Monday morning [screenshot]

More than a million people in the UK have signed a petition urging the government to cancel US President Donald Trump's planned state visit to Britain later this year.

The petition was launched on Sunday and garnered hundreds of thousands of hits in its first few hours and reached the one million mark early Monday morning.

It came as hundreds of travellers were left stranded inside US airports or locked outside the country after Trump announced a so-called Muslim visit ban on Friday.

The petition states that Trump should "not invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen" after the travel bans came into effect.

However, the UK government has rejected the validity of the petition, describing it as a "populist gesture".

"America is a huge important ally. We have to think long term," a government source told the BBC.

Trump signed an executive order to ban refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries to enter the US on Friday night, sparking outrage across the world.

"Donald Trump's well-documented misogyny and vulgarity disqualifies him from being received by Her Majesty the Queen or the Prince of Wales," the petition said.

"Therefore during the term of his presidency, Donald Trump should not be invited to the United Kingdom for an official state visit."

The petition was launched after opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn called on the government to put off the president's scheduled state visit until the ban was rescinded.

Trump "should not be welcomed to Britian while he abuses our shared values with shameful #MuslimBan & attacks on refugees & women", Corbyn tweeted.

The UK prime minister "would be failing the British people if she does not postpone the state visit & condemn Trump's actions in the clearest terms," Corbyn said.

Meanwhile an MP from Theresa May's Conservative Party on Saturday revealed he would be barred from entering the US under Trump's clampdown.

Iraqi-born MP Nadhim Zahawi tweeted that he had received "confirmation that the order does apply to myself and my wife as we were both born in Iraq", even though the pair have British passports.

"A sad sad day to feel like a second class citizen! Sad day for the USA," he added.

All petitions that receive more than 100,000 signatures are considered for debate in the UK parliament.