One million people sign petition calling for Trump's state visit to be axed

An online petition calling for Donald Trump to be prevented from making an official state visit to the UK has reached 1m signatures. The petition, on the government’s official petitions site, which at one point was being signed by more than a thousand people a minute, quickly reached the 100,000 signatures needed to be considered for a debate in parliament

The petition, which falls short of calling for Trump to be banned from the UK, argues that he should not receive a full state visit, including audiences with the royal family, “because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen”. The petition’s creators said: “Donald Trump’s well-documented misogyny and vulgarity disqualifies him from being received by 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.” As global condemnation of the ban spread, British Conservative politicians joined the Labour party and Liberal Democrats in questioning May’s decision to go ahead with a state visit during which Trump would be courted by the government and royalty.