Almost 150 Bedford people back campaign to cancel Donald Trump's state visit

In February, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer handed President Trump an invitation letter from King Charles during his visit to Washington.

But over 50 separate petitions have now been started on change.org, calling for the UK government to cancel the US president's second state visit.

As of last Friday, they had collectively amassed over 50,000 signatures.

Analysis of the data shows there were at least 147 signatories who gave their address details in Bedford, with 2,828 across the East of England.

Everyone signing the petition is asked to provide their postcode, although there is no way of verifying how accurate these are.

A spokesperson for the online petition site said: "It’s rare for hundreds of petitions to be launched on the same issue in the space of a week (the last time this happened was the Post Office scandal), so it shows how the strength of feeling on the subject among the British public.

"By contrast, there was only one petition in favour of the state visit still going ahead."

Bedford was ranked sixth out of 40 areas in the East of England with available data for total signatories.

Meanwhile, Norwich had the most in the region, with 309.

The online petitions come after several MPs and peers have called for Donald Trump to be blocked from addressing Parliament when he visits the UK.

The US president has suggested Buckingham Palace is "setting a date for September" for him to stay in Britain.

But some parliamentarians have voiced concerns it would be "inappropriate" for him to speak in the Palace of Westminster as his predecessors Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton did.

Efforts to prevent Mr Trump addressing parliamentarians are being co-ordinated by Lord Foulkes, a minister in Sir Tony Blair’s former government.

Lord Foulkes said: "While the Government is obliged to deal with governments of all kinds, Parliament should not welcome a leader who is anti-democratic and flouts the courts and the rule of law.

"He also fails to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which all parties in the UK Parliament have done."

Meanwhile, Labour MP Kate Osborne is said to have asked Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to follow his predecessor John Bercow in opposing an address from the president.

In a letter to Sir Lindsay she reportedly said: "I am asking you as the Speaker to agree it would be inappropriate and mirror the previous Speaker’s recommendation."

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