More than 1 million people have signed a British petition demanding that President Donald Trump be denied a state dinner with the queen because of his “well-documented misogyny and vulgarity” that will “embarrass Her Majesty.”
The petition, fueled in part by Trump’s new executive order blocking incoming travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S., reads:
Donald 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 because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.
Donald Trump’s well documented misogyny and vulgarity disqualifies him from being received by Her Majesty the Queen or the Prince of Wales. Therefore during the term of his presidency Donald Trump should not be invited to the United Kingdom for an official State Visit.
For a time Sunday afternoon, as many as 1,000 people each minute were signing the petition, the Independent reported. The number of signatures was expected hit 1 million on Monday morning in England. Parliament considers any petition with more than 100,000 signatures, so it will discuss the document at an upcoming session.
Several travelers holding British passports have been turned away at the U.S. border, according to reports in the British media. But following pressure from British officials, Trump aides have now said that British dual citizens from the targeted countries will be allowed into the U.S., according to controversial Brexit champion and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
Johnson said that he’d been reassured by Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Travelers with dual citizenship will continue to be barred, however, if they fly directly from one of the targeted Muslim-majority nations, the Telegraph reported.
Leeds attorney Graham Guest originally launched the petition two months ago, after he anticipated that Trump would be invited to a state dinner. The number of signatures grew when Prime Minister Theresa May announced during her meeting with Trump in Washington last week that the president had accepted an invitation to a state dinner with the queen some time later this year. Petition signatures exploded after Trump’s executive order.
“The ‘Muslim ban’ got people quite angry,” Guest told the International Business Times UK. “People are looking at a way of getting at Trump. People think, ‘Well, if you’re going to ban people on some pretty spurious grounds’ … then they were trying to make him know what it feels like to be banned from coming to the U.K.”
Many Brits denounced May after she refused to say anything negative about Trump’s controversial anti-immigrant policies last week while meeting with the president. But late Saturday, she issued a statement saying “we do not agree with this kind of approach and it is not one we will be taking.” She added that officials would be studying the order and determining, in particular, its “consequences for U.K. nationals.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also called for a state visit for Trump to be stalled as long as the immigration ban is in place. Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said that the visit “could not possibly occur while a cruel and divisive policy which discriminates against citizens of the host nation is in place,” the Telegraph reported.
Nadhim Zahawi, a member of Parliament from May’s Conservative Party, said that under Trump’s policy, he would not be allowed to enter the U.S. to visit his children who are studying in America. “For the first time in my life last night I felt discriminated against,” he told BBC’s “The Andrew Marr Show.”
UPDATE: This story has been updated to show that the 1 million signature mark was reached on Monday morning.