More than 130,000 people had signed Wednesday a petition to ban US presidential hopeful Donald Trump from Britain following his call to bar Muslims from entering the United States. Having topped 100,000 signatures, the petition now has to be considered for debate by parliament and will require a written government response.

“The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech. The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK,” said the petition. The petition was part of a social media storm after Trump said that radicalisation meant there parts of London where the police feared for their lives.

Tweeting under the ironic hashtag #trumpfacts, web users mocked the blustering tycoon. One tweet had a picture of London’s telecom tower with the comment: “The world’s tallest minaret calls the whole nation to prayer in the UK”. Another carried an image of Queen Elizabeth II wearing a headscarf with the inscription: “Even the British monarch is now forced to wear a hijab”.

The anti-Trump petition was posted late Tuesday by Scottish resident Suzanne Kelly, a long-time critic of the 69-year-old. Six MPs have also signed a House of Commons motion calling on the government “to refuse a visa allowing Donald Trump to visit the UK until Mr Trump withdraws his comments”, saying they were “extremely divisive and will incite discrimination and hatred”.

Finance minister George Osborne told parliament that Trump’s comments “fly in the face of the founding principle of the United States”. He said democratic debate was “the best way to deal with Donald Trump and his views rather than trying to ban presidential candidates”. Another MP, Tulip Siddiq, said Trump’s remarks were “dangerous”.

“I would say to him you are not welcome in our country in the same way that you want to ban people like me going into your country,” she told BBC radio. “I don’t think we need someone poisonous like Donald Trump in our capital city,” the niece of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said.

Credit: Vanguard