Donald Trump and His Complex Relationship With the United Kingdom

Donald Trump has been through this before, but the citizens of the United Kingdom are at it again.  Back in December  2016 when candidate Trump vowed to ban Muslims from entering the United States as shown here:

...a total of 586,930 signatories believed that Donald Trump should be banned from entering the United Kingdom as shown here:

Since the early 2016 petition breached the 100,000 signature threshold, a debate was held in Parliament which responded with this comment:

"For good reasons the Government does not routinely comment on individual immigration and exclusion decisions.

The Home Secretary may exclude a non-European Economic Area national from the UK if she considers their presence in the UK to be non-conducive to the public good.

The Home Secretary has said that coming to the UK is a privilege and not a right and she will continue to use the powers available to prevent from entering the UK those who seek to harm our society and who do not share our basic values.

Exclusion powers are very serious and are not used lightly. The Home Secretary will use these powers when justified and based on all available evidence.

The Prime Minister has made clear that he completely disagrees with Donald Trump’s remarks. The Home Secretary has said that Donald Trump’s remarks in relation to Muslims are divisive, unhelpful and wrong. 

The Government recognises the strength of feeling against the remarks and will continue to speak out against comments which have the potential to divide our communities, regardless of who makes them. We reject any attempts to create division and marginalisation amongst those we endeavour to protect."

Now that Donald Trump is in the Oval Office and has made the Administration's first move toward controlling the movement of citizens of six nations into the United States, this petition has been presented:

As I noted above, once the number of signatories has passed the 100,000 mark, the U.K. Parliament must consider the issue for a debate.  Thus far, the petition has received in excess of 1.833 million signatures, most of which have taken place after Jeremy Corby, Leader of the Opposition and head of the Labour Party tweeted this on January 29th:

The number of signatories is rising so quickly that it's hard to keep up; in roughly five minutes today, over five thousand new signatures were added and in two hours, over 135,000 new signatures were added.

Given that Donald Trump just met with U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May and that he had received and accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth to visit the United Kingdom later this year, this issue could prove to be somewhat complicated for U.K. parliamentarians.  So much for that close United States - United Kingdom relationship.