Trump UK Ban: Queen Elizabeth II Meeting Would Embarrass The Crown, British Lawmakers Complain

President Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom will cause an embarrassment to Queen Elizabeth II, according to British lawmakers who, on Monday, debated Trump’s state visit later this year. The debate came in response to an online petition that has so far garnered over 1.8 million signatures urging Prime Minister Theresa May to cancel her invitation to the American president.

Trump, 70, was called a “petulant child” and “racist and sexist” during the debate. Labour Party legislator Paul Flynn noted that only two U.S. presidents — George W. Bush and Barack Obama — had ever been invited to state visits to the country. He maintained that it was “completely unprecedented” that Trump was given this invitation within a week of his presidency and described the U.S. president having a “ceaseless incontinence of free speech.”

In order to stress his point, the 82-year-old Flynn quoted a British journalist, who spoke about “pimping out the queen” for Trump. The remark triggered an intervention from the Conservative lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg, who said: “I don’t think it’s in order to talk about pimping out our sovereign.”

David Lammy of Labour Party questioned why Britain should “abandon all its principles” and invite Trump, “because this country is so desperate for a trade deal that we would throw all our own history out the window?”

“We didn’t do this for Kennedy. We didn’t do this for Truman. We didn’t do this for Reagan. But for this man, after seven days, we say, ‘Please come and we will lay on everything because we are so desperate for your company?’” He added: “I am ashamed that it has come to this.”

However, Conservative lawmakers maintained that revoking the invitation would do more harm than good, with Member of Parliament Edward Leigh saying the rescinding the state visit would be "catastrophic" to the trans-Atlantic relationship.

"He is the duly elected president of the United States. ... It would be a disaster if this invitation is rescinded," Leigh said.

According to Rees-Mogg, opponents of Trump's visit were being hypocritical.

"What complaint did the honorable member make when Emperor Hirohito came here?" Rees-Mogg reportedly asked Flynn, referring to the highly controversial 1971 state visit of the Japanese emperor.

The three-hour long debate ended without a formal vote.

May invited Trump for the state visit when she met the U.S. president in the White House last month. The invitation prompted people to start the petition calling for the government to revoke the invitation, because of Trump’s “well documented misogyny and vulgarity," which "would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.”

State visits are different from official visits, and leaders of other countries are welcomed with royal and military ceremony. They stay at Buckingham Palace as the monarch’s guests. Both Bush and Obama were invited for state visits several years into their presidency.