Should Donald Trump be banned from the UK?

Matt Monk says YES

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n a quiet night in your Rootes kitchen, your Muslim flatmate tells you about a guy in T-block 2nd floor. Now, you have heard some nice stuff about T-block. Sure, they have some problems with the floors below them trying to sneak into their kitchen, but whatever, right? This one T-block guy though, your mate describes as a ‘dangerous fool’, a ‘buffoon’. He’s trying to stop him from entering T-block 2nd floor kitchen ‘because he is a Muslim’, despite others in T-block being friends with your mate.

Now, the reasonable action here is not to invite this T-block ‘dangerous fool’ to your flat, to give him a cup of tea and a grilling. That’s not how you treat actively racist bigots. Instead, the next time he wants to join the party in the flat, you shut the door, you tell him he can go and join the many lonely Westwood folks for one of their parties, they’ll be happy to have him. In our flat however, you can’t shut out one of us, without us shutting out you. There is no tolerance for intolerance.

An intolerance for intolerance is problematic, but it makes sense in such a zoomed-in analogy

This idea may be rather paradoxical. An intolerance for intolerance is problematic, but it makes sense in such a zoomed-in analogy, and is very applicable to the big picture of international freedom of movement. We have no responsibility to protect Trump’s freedom of speech.

If anyone campaigns to hinder the rights of our citizens freedom of movement due to some arbitrary factor such as race or religion, we should have no tolerance for it, and swiftly move to ensure this man has no voice to spread his hate in the UK. We should protect the freedom of speech of our citizens, not those of a fool from another country who views some of our people with such hatred for illegitimate reasons.

We don’t allow other hate filled people to enter our country, not Muslim extremists, nor anti-semites, why is Islamophobia not viewed from the same angle?

James Partington says NO

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]onald Trump is an intergalactic twit. His comments about Muslim communities are odious, divisive and irredeemable. Yet our response should not be a reactionary and impulsive ban, but a measured and intelligent approach capable of contending his views adequately. A ban would be an illiberal and regressive stance. It originates from the same strand of logic: the use of state power to silence those with whom you disagree rather than contending with their opinions. The nature of our rebuttal of Trump is a measure for the health of our society.

The Home Office cite those “not conducive to the public good” and who “seek to harm our society” as criteria used to assess these cases. Trump has objectionable views, but I do not believe he has passed beyond this critical threshold, yet. Our policy is specific to our society and would be misused if applied to Trump, who has not made specific threats towards Britain. In recent history, 84 hate preachers have been banned for inciting extremism and fomenting terrorism. Banning someone on the basis of ignorance and stupidity would create a worrying precedent.

Our response should not be a reactionary and impulsive ban, but a measured and intelligent approach

Further, and crucially, Trump has made his remarks whilst outside Britain, and banning his entry would not stop us hearing his views. During the debate, Bradford West MP Naz Shah – “I stand here as a proud British Muslim woman. In my Islam, what it teaches me, is that goodness is better than evil. If someone does bad you do good in return. I will not allow the rhetoric of badness into my heart”. We must respond wisely. A ban is tempting but would undermine our liberal values and achieve nothing: free expression must remain a right for all, and not an arbitrary privilege.

If we banned people for holding misinformed, controversial or inexact views then parliament would soon be emptied. A ban on Trump would be hypocritical, counterproductive and fruitless.