Let Donald Trump come to the UK, the British people will only reject his outrageous bigotry

It would be piling absurdity upon absurdity for the Home Secretary to ban Mr Trump because of his opinions

Tuesday 08 December 2015 22:20 GMT
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Donald Trump, pictured at the 2015 Women’s British Open at Turnberry, says London police fear for their lives
Donald Trump, pictured at the 2015 Women’s British Open at Turnberry, says London police fear for their lives (AP)

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Louise Thomas

Louise Thomas

Editor

Anyone who refers to themselves in the third person must be counted a little strange, and possibly dangerously so. Anyone who refers to themselves in the third person with their middle initial is odder still. “Donald J Trump” did precisely that in his now globally infamous “ban Muslims from America” remarks, and he has conclusively proved – if further proof were required – that he is a figure unsuited to the presidency of the United States.

Where Abraham Lincoln gave the world the Gettysburg address, where Franklin D Roosevelt told Americans that the only thing they had to fear was fear itself, and where John F Kennedy asked them to ask themselves what they could do for their country, Donald J Trump tells the American people to close their borders and their eyes to suffering, and to ban visitors, on the grounds of their faith, from entering America – a land to which so many have fled to escape religious persecution.

Presumably, his ban would take in, say, the King of Saudi Arabia, the President of Indonesia or the Labour MP for Tooting, Sadiq Khan – but that has not yet been acknowledged by Trump headquarters.

In that spirit, it would be piling absurdity upon absurdity for the Home Secretary to ban Mr Trump from Britain because of his opinions, if not his religious faith (which mostly comprises a devout belief in the infallibility of Donald J Trump). He is a buffoon on a global scale, yes, but no danger to British national security and no threat to our way of life.

It is true that Mr Trump’s comments will be seized upon by the likes of Isis, and so take the West a step backward in the propaganda war long under way. It is also incumbent upon the Republican Party to turn on Mr Trump, as many other presidential candidates have lately done. But Britain could handle hosting him, and subjecting him to the mockery and protests that would surely follow all of Donald J Trump’s moves.

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