CAIRO – British parliament debates today whether to ban the US presidential hopeful Donald Trump from entering the UK, after more than 570,000 people signed a petition to ban the business mogul over his calls to ban Muslims’ entry to the US.
“The Home Office has previous [cases] in banning hate preachers engaging in rhetoric similar to that of Trump,” Tulip Siddiq, Muslim MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, told the Daily Mail on Monday, January 18.
“To argue there is no precedent for banning him does not stand up to decisions taken by this Home Secretary, or indeed previous Labour home secretaries. The real question is ‘Why should we make an exception for billionaire politicians?’ We should not.”
Siddiq, 33, and other MPs will call on Home Secretary Theresa May to use powers to ban him from Britain in a Westminster Hall debate this afternoon.
“Those that argue his words are a joke or do not amount to inciting violence, need to take a closer look at the increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes in America since his comments,” she added.
The House of Commons debate came after more than 570,000 people signed a petition demanding the tycoon is barred from the UK after he said British police ‘fear for their lives’ in Muslim communities because they are ‘so radicalised’.
The Republican frontrunner was branded “obnoxious, repellent and dangerous” after claims over radicalization in Britain in December.
He also called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” after the San Bernardino shooting in California carried out by married extremists.
During the debate, the Muslim MP said Trumps words are “are not funny, his words are poisonous.”
She accused him of inflaming tension between “vulnerable communities.”
Invitation
Unlike Siddiq, who pledged to tear Trump’s reputations to shreds this evening, Naz Shah, another Muslim MP who won her Bradford West seat at the 2015 general election, said she will invite Donald Trump on a tour of her constituency.
“Do I want to ban him? No I don’t want to ban him,” she said.
“I’m going to give him an open invitation on the record to invite him to Bradford West…if I try to ban him then I am no better than him trying to ban me from entering America. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
A similar opinion was expressed by Labour MP Paul Flynn, who’s leading the debate.
He said he wants to take Trump on a tour of Brixton to show how in Britain different ethnicities and faiths live in harmony, reports our Parliamentary Sketchwriter, Michael Deacon.
He would ask Trump to “show us where these so-called ‘no-go areas’ are”.
Flynn warned MPs against giving Trump the “halo of martyrdom” by banning him from Britain, as he warned there was a danger this debate meant the UK were already granting him “too much attention.”