British Parliament Raises Point Of Order After Trump Re-tweets Anti-Muslim Videos

Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom on Wednesday raised the issue of President Donald Trump retweeting three anti-muslim videos posted by a British far-right group, asking the government to condemn him.

The videos were posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, a far-right group which was formed in 2011.

While one video claimed to show "Muslim migrants beating up a Dutch boy on crutches," another was captioned "Muslim destroys statue of Virgin Mary;" the third read "Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death."

In response to the retweets, Labour Party MP Stephen Doughty raised the issue as a point of order in the House of Commons, slamming Trump for sharing “inflammatory” videos intended to stoke ethnic hatred among his 43.5 million Twitter followers.

A point of order is an appeal to the chair or speaker for clarification or for a ruling on a matter of procedure in the House of Commons.

Doughty said, "It appears that the President of the United States has, in recent moments, been retweeting comments from far-right organization Britain First — highly inflammatory videos, including some posted by an individual who I believe, has recently been arrested and charged relating to certain serious offenses."

His statements were well received by the others members, as several shouts of “Hear, hear!” and one MP shouting out “disgraceful” could be heard in a video posted by C-Span Media Company.

Check out the video here.

Another Labour MP, Yvette Cooper, raised a note saying that Jansen had “already been convicted of hate crime in this country."

She also called on U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to formally express disapproval of the U.S. president for promoting bigotry.

Responding to the point of order, House Speaker John Bercow said that it would be "wrong to expect a government minister to respond immediately."

Earlier, Trump berated British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday night after May’s spokesman criticized the president for his retweets.

In a statement, as per a report in the Guardian, the spokesman said: “Britain First seeks to divide communities by their use of hateful narratives that peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people. British people overwhelmingly reject the prejudiced rhetoric of the far right which is the antithesis of the values this country represents, decency, tolerance, and respect.”

He also said that it was "wrong for the president to have done this," the BBC reported.

However, White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders clarified the president’s stand and said, “Whether it’s a real video, the threat is real. [Trump’s] goal is to promote strong border security and strong national security. The threat is real, the threat needs to be addressed and the threat has to be talked about and that’s what the president is doing in bringing that up.”

Nonetheless, Trump was condemned on Twitter for the retweets, with users accusing him of spreading hate and trying to legitimize the far-right in Britain.

A Twitter user named Brendan Cox wrote, “Trump has legitimized the far right in his own country, now he’s trying to do it in ours. Spreading hatred has consequences & the President should be ashamed of himself.”

On the other hand, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby tweeted, “I join the urgent call for President @realDonaldTrump to remove his Britain First retweets and make clear his opposition to racism and hatred.”