Donald Trump called a 'buffoon,' 'bonkers' during British Parliament debate

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

last updated 19 January 2016

Members of the British Parliament seemed to channel their inner Donald Trump as they debated whether or not to ban the Republican presidential candidate from entering the UK.

He was called — among other things — a "buffoon," "bonkers," a "fool," a "ridiculous individual," and a "wazzock" (slang for an annoying person) during Monday's three hour debate, Australia's ABC reports. Under British law, any petition that receives 100,000 signatures must be considered for parliamentary debate, and a petition calling for Trump to be banned from entering the UK was signed by more than 570,000 people. The MPs did not vote on the matter, and ABC says that the decision is now up to Prime Minister David Cameron, who has said he doesn't plan on barring Trump.

During the debate, Labour MP Paul Flynn said he was worried that by "attacking this one man," they will "fix on him a halo of victimhood," thus giving him "the role of martyrdom" among supporters. Conservative MP Paul Scully said that while he's "heard of a number of cases where people have been excluded for incitement, for hatred — I've never heard of one for stupidity. And I'm not sure that we should be starting now." Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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