The leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party doesn’t agree with a petition to ban Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from his home country.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says he’d welcome a visit by the billionaire candidate and has the itinerary planned.
“I wouldn’t ban him from coming to the U.K.,” Corbyn told the Huffington Post. “If Donald Trump wants to come to Britain, absolutely fine, he can come and join me in Finsbury Park mosque.”
“And then he can come to the synagogue afterwards,” Corbyn continued, adding, “We can have a chat there. We’d go around. We manage to have a coherent, multifaith, multicultural society in London, in Birmingham, in Leicester, all parts of this country. He’s welcome to come and see. He might learn something.”
Prime Minister David Cameron, while condemning Trump’s comments as “divisive, stupid and wrong,” has opposed the proposed ban. Cameron said Trump could serve a role in Britain.
“If he came to visit our country I think he would unite us all against him,” Cameron said.
Trump has become a controversial figure on the campaign trail due to divisive comments. He called Mexican migrants coming to the U.S. “rapists” and drug traffickers and proposed a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.
In November, a Scottish woman petitioned Parliament to ban the real estate developer-turned-candidate from entering the U.K. due to “his continued, unrepentant hate speech.” The petition has more than half a million signatures. The House of Commons is set to debate it.
Corbyn would not condone Trump’s plan to keep out anyone practicing Islam. The British politican said Trump’s proposal would violate the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of religion and speech.
“The idea that somehow or other you can deal with all the problems in the world by banning a particular religious group from entering the U.S.A. is offensive and absurd,” Corbyn said.
