Britons launch campaign to ban Donald Trump from the UK over hate speech violations

The British Parliament could soon review a petition calling for U.S. presidential candidate and former reality TV star Donald Trump to be barred from entering the country on grounds that he has violated the U.K.'s laws against hateful and defamatory speech.

The Independent reported that a petition begun by Suzanne Kelly from Aberdeen, Scotland must gather 100,000 signatures before it can be taken up for debate by the House of Commons.

This is not Kelly's first run-in with the real estate tycoon. She led a 2013 effort to block Trump's proposed construction on "the greatest golf course in the world" at Scotland's historic Menie Estate. Kelly raised serious concerns about the development project's environmental impact.

Plans for Menie Estate are still tied up in court, with Trump angrily opposing a planned wind turbine farm off the Aberdeen coast. The 11 green energy wind turbines, says the mogul, will "spoil the view."

Kelly's current petition against Trump, who has roiled racist tensions in the U.S. with his remarks about Latino immigrants and people of color. Some in Britain believe that the newly minted politician's remarks are dangerously racist.

The petition to block him from entering the country reads, in part:

The signatories believe Donald J Trump should be banned from UK entry for his continued, unrepentant hate speech and unacceptable behaviour. His unacceptable behaviour is well documented, and we feel it foments racial, religious and nationalistic intolerance which should not be welcome in the UK.

The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech. This same principle should apply to Donald J Trump. We cannot see how the United Kingdom can condone his entry to the country when many people have been barred for less.

Furthermore, some British politicians like Scottish National Party defense head Brendan O'Hara are attempting to have Trump's access to nuclear weapons preemptively curtailed should he win the Republican nomination for 2016.

O'Hara is spearheading an effort to end the U.K.'s nuclear missile program on the grounds that it will inevitably be an American president and not a British official who gives the order to fire the weapons.

"The UK's independent nuclear deterrent isn't, I believe, all that independent," O'Hara said in Parliament last week. "In reality, it will be an American commander-in-chief who will ultimately decide, and in 18 months time that commander-in-chief could be President Donald Trump."