US presidential hopeful Donald Trump has been branded a "buffoon" during a parliamentary debate on whether to ban him from entering Britain. The Republican frontrunner was the subject of a House of Commons debate last evening after a petition against his anti-Muslim remarks received over half a million signatures. Any petition that attracts more than 100,000 signatories is considered by British MPs for a debate.
Most of the 50 MPs present in Parliament attacked Trump for his views on Muslims, women, disabled people, global warming and other issues in the three-hour discussion but the majority of parliamentarians from both left and right dismissed the idea of banning the millionaire. Alex Chalk, a Conservative MP, said: "This is about bufoonery. And buffoonery must not be met with the blunt instrument of a ban. It must be met with the classic British response of ridicule".
Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, joined the calls for him to be banned, saying people had felt "we need to stop a poisonous, corrosive man from entering the country".
"Hate crime is being inflamed and stoked by the words that Donald Trump is using. I draw the line of freedom of speech when it actually invites violent ideology which is what I feel is happening," she said.
Paul Flynn, a Labour MP who opened the debate, said a ban would give Trump the "halo of victimhood". "The best plan was not to give him the accolade of martyrdom and we may already be in error in giving him far too much attention," he said. British Prime Minister David Cameron has already said he does not support a ban, while condemning Trump's comments about Muslims as "divisive, stupid and wrong".
