February debate follows protests over president’s US travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries

The British parliament will hold a debate on calls to cancel Donald Trump’s state visit, due to be hosted by the Queen this year, after 1.6 million people signed a petition in support of scrapping or downgrading the invitation.

The debate will be held in Westminster Hall on 20 February and will also consider a rival petition in support of the US president’s visit, which has 114,000 signatures.

The petition committee announced the debate after protests around the country over Trump’s controversial executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from travelling to the US and suspending the nation’s refugee programme.

The petition states: “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.”

The rival petition in support of Trump’s visit says: “Donald Trump should be invited to make an official state visit because he is the leader of a free world and [the] UK is a country that supports free speech and does not believe that people that appose [sic] our point of view should be gagged.”

MPs have previously debated the idea of banning Trump from the UK after he called during the presidential race for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”.

During that session, Trump was variously branded a racist demagogue, a buffoon and a “wazzock” by MPs, although the vast majority did not support the idea of excluding him from the UK.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has led calls for the state visit to be postponed amid outrage over the ban.



But Theresa May has insisted it will go ahead after extending an invitation from the Queen during her visit to the White House last Friday.

As protests took place in cities across the UK on Monday night, she said: “The United States is a close ally of the United Kingdom. We work together across many areas of mutual interest and we have that special relationship between us. I have issued that invitation for a state visit for President Trump to the United Kingdom and that invitation stands.”

She has said the UK takes a different approach on immigration but repeatedly refused to criticise her American counterpart for his decision to bar nationals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days.

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has said the ban is offensive and wrong, but he also warned MPs in a statement on the escalating row not to demonise Trump or compare him to Adolf Hitler.

Speaking to parliament on Monday, he said UK dual nationals will not be covered by Trump’s order and are still able to travel to the US.