Jan 25, 2016 4 min read

“Donald Trump is a fool. He is free to be a fool. He is not free to be a dangerous fool on our shores.”Jack Dromey, Member of Britain’s Parliament, on Jan. 18.

Cheerio, Donald Trump

It appears that some powerful people in England aren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for The Donald.

He doesn’t care.

But he should know that the British are America’s most devoted allies.

Since that flare-up between the two countries back in the 1770s, the UK and the USA have, pretty much, been as thick as thieves.

Now comes Donald Trump.

Last Monday, the British Parliament took three hours out of its busy schedule to decide if Trump can be permitted to walk the streets of England.

“I think this man is crazy,” said one member of Parliament.

Another said, “You don’t need a crystal ball to realize that the person you’re dealing with may be a successful businessman; is also a buffoon.”

“Buffoon?” “Crazy?”

Those are some of the nicer things they said about Trump.

You can add, “Demagogue,” “offensive” and “repugnant,” to the mix.

Of course, Parliament doesn’t really have the authority to ban foreigners from the country.

That responsibility rests with the British Home Office.

The “debate” that day was merely a show of disgust for Trump and his “divisive, stupid and wrong” rhetoric. (Not my words. They came from British Prime Minister David Cameron.)

So Trump escaped being barred that day.

That’s quite a contrast from the treatment Sen. Barack Obama got when he as a presidential candidate back in July of 2008, stood in downtown Berlin, and was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of 200,000 Germans chanting “Obama, Obama, Obama.”

Come to think of it, Trump just loves to brag about the sizes of his crowds on the campaign trail.

I don’t think he’ll get any as large as 200,000.

And while the head of state of England has called Trump “stupid and wrong,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel referred to candidate Obama as being “well-equipped physically, mentally and politically.”

The members of Parliament didn’t awaken last Monday morning and say, “Hey, let’s badmouth Donald Trump.”

After Trump’s declaration that he’d prohibit Muslims from entering the United States, until “we find out what the heck is going on,” a petition in England was drawn up and sent to the Parliament’s Petition Committee.

Only 100,000 signatures were required to have such petitions sent to the full Parliament.

That barrier was easily cleared when the signatures of 577,071 angry Brits were collected.

That petition reads, in part, “If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behavior’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.”

Trump’s response to the hub-bub was typical Donald Trump.

He vowed to withdraw $1 billion dollars he planned to invest in his Scottish golf courses if the British government went ahead and excluded him.

Although the irony wasn’t lost one of Parliament’s Scottish National Party members during the debate.

Anne McLaughlin noted that Trump’s mother was born in Scotland.

She said that Trump is “the son of a Scottish immigrant. And I apologize for that.”

It’s worth noting that the debate took place on the same day that the United States was observing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

In fact, there were at least a dozen mentions of Dr. King and his legacy during that Donald Trump debate.

That’s not surprising, considering the admiration people have for the Civil Rights leader around the world.

But when Dr. King’s ideals are used to contrast him with the Republican’s current frontrunner – without conservative or liberal filters – freed of America’s domestic politics – it’s a bit sobering.

“I will quote Martin Luther King,” said Scotland’s Anne McLaughlin.

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people. We will not be silent.”

Trump, though, won’t hear those words, nor would he pay heed to them if he would.

Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net