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How Donald Trump responds to British petition to ban him

Donald Trump's company weighs in on a petition signed by 570,000 people seeking to ban the Republican frontrunner from the UK. In two weeks, a parliamentary debate is scheduled.

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REUTERS/David Moir
U.S. property mogul Donald Trump (R) stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland May 27, 2010.

The Trump Organization, an umbrella company for Donald Trump’s businesses, responded with threats and lessons in morality on Tuesday, after the British parliament announced it will debate whether to ban the US Republican presidential hopeful from entering their country over his remarks about Muslims.

In a statement to Fox News, his organization said that if banned from the country, Mr. Trump would stop investing not only in his luxury golf resort in Scotland, but in any other future UK ventures, reports Foxnews.com.

His spokesman also pointed out that banning Trump for what the petitioners consider hateful speech would make Britain look intolerant and alienate his many supporters.

“Westminster would create a dangerous precedent and send a terrible message to the world that the United Kingdom opposes free speech,” George Sorial, executive vice president and counsel for the Trump Organization, told Fox in a statement.

Provoked by Trump’s calls to ban Muslims from the United States, and his long fight with the Scottish government over the installation of 11 offshore wind turbines, which he said would blight the view from his golf course, a Scottish woman filed a petition with the UK government and parliament on Nov. 28, asking lawmakers to ban the businessman politician for hate speech that threatens the public good.

Since then, more than 570,000 people have signed on, nearly six times the 100,000 signatures needed to make a topic eligible for a parliamentary debate.

The House of Commons petitions committee confirmed on Tuesday that it will hold parliamentary hearing on the Trump ban on Jan. 18. Also to be discussed, reports The Guardian, is a separate petition opposing the ban and asking Britons to “mind our own business,” even though it only has about 40,000 signatures of the 100,000 necessary for a debate.

Hate-speech laws are much more strict in the UK than in the United States, particularly in the face of terrorism. Its more limited tolerance for extremist ideology in recent years has led the government agency responsible for security and immigration in the country, the Home Office, to ban at least 150 foreigners since 2010 for “unacceptable behaviour.”

While the pro-ban petitioners hope Trump will be placed on the banned list, those who want to block the ban warn against punishing people for opinions that have nothing to do with the UK.

And they offer another warning:

“...if he does actually win the nomination, and then goes on to win the presidency,” as the anti-banning petition points out, “We then have to work with a man who we banned from our country in the first place.”

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