London – The British government defended its decision to invite US President Donald Trump for a state visit, as support for a petition to stop the trip soared to more than 1.5 million signatures by late Monday.
Thousands of people joined anti-Trump protests in London and several other cities on Monday evening, many of them carrying banners and placards bearing messages including “No to racism, no to Trump” and “Refugees welcome here.”
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Trump’s entry ban on citizens of seven Muslim nations was a “highly controversial” policy that his government opposed, but he said it still believed Trump “should be accorded the honour of a state visit.”
“I’ve made clear our anxiety about measures that discriminate on grounds of nationality in ways that are divisive and wrong,” Johnson told parliament.
He said Britain’s alliance with the United States was of “vital importance,” but the government was not afraid to air its differences with Washington.
File Picture – British Prime Minister Theresa May – The British government defended its decision to invite US President Donald Trump for a state visit, as support for a petition to stop the trip soared to more than 1.4 million signatures on Monday. Photo: Soeren Stache Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa
Iraqi-born Conservative lawmaker Nadhim Zahawi and Ed Miliband, a former leader of the opposition Labour Party, tabled a joint motion calling for an emergency debate “on the divisive ban by the United States on nationals from predominantly Muslim countries.”
“We think it essential the House of Commons [parliament’s lower house] has a proper chance immediately to debate and send out a united message against this abhorrent policy,” Miliband said on Twitter ahead of the debate, which was held on Monday evening.
Caroline Lucas, Britain’s sole Green Party lawmaker, told parliament earlier that the government was “complicit with tyranny” by failing to condemn Trump’s entry ban.
Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May had earlier insisted that Trump should visit Britain as planned, despite growing support from the public and politicians for the petition.
“An invitation has been extended and accepted,” May’s office said in a statement, without specifying a date for the visit.
The petition said 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.”
The Muslim Council of Britain urged May’s government to “speak out much more forcefully and stand up for the British values it supposedly seeks from others.”
“This ban on Muslims is not only an inconvenience, it is downright dangerous to our values of equality and non-discrimination,” said Harun Khan, secretary-general of the Muslim Council.
Trump has been widely criticized in Britain for his order on Friday to ban citizens of Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya and Sudan for 90 days and to ban admission of Syrian nationals indefinitely.
The petition to parliament said a state visit would “cause embarrassment” to Queen Elizabeth II, who would be required to meet Trump, because of his “well-documented misogyny and vulgarity.”
Petitions that garner more than 100,000 signatures must be considered for debate in parliament.
During May’s meeting with Trump in Washington on Friday, in the first visit by a foreign leader, the US president accepted an invitation conveyed from the queen for a state visit to Britain later this year.
-dpa
