Anti-Trump petition to stop UK state visit smashes 1 million mark

As an online campaign demanding that Trump not be allowed to stay at the Buckingham Palace during his state visit gathers support, Downing Street confirms the invitation will not be withdrawn

Over a million people have signed a petition demanding that US President Donald Trump should not be allowed to stay at Buckingham Palace during his state visit to the United Kingdom. The petition, which had earned just 372 signatures since the end of November last year, claims that such a stay 'would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen'. At around 10 am on Monday, the petition had over a million signatories.

The huge support shows the outrage at the President's ban on refugees and citizens from seven Muslim nations entering the US has not gone down well with many.

When he signed the order on Friday night fewer than 10,000 people had backed the petition. It passed a million signatures by British citizens at 9.54 am on Monday.

According to the rules, any petition with 1,00,000 signatures or more automatically qualifies it for consideration to be debated in parliament, though there are no guarantees.

This makes the petition the second-most popular on the British parliament's website - and a committee of MPs will debate on Tuesday whether this merits it having a full debate.

Amid global protests, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted: 'Over 1 million people have signed. We will not back down, cancel state visit and condemn the Muslim ban.'

Downing Street, however, has not indicated that it had any plans to cancel the state visit.

A source told the BBC that cancelling the visit would be a "populist gesture" that would "undo everything".

OneIndia News