Former Scottish Minister Defends Potential Trump Ban In UK
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Alex Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland, defended the United Kingdom's formal consideration to ban Donald Trump, explaining it is what their citizens wanted.
Salmond, talking with Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said the practice of banning individuals in not uncommon there.
"The UK has banned hundreds of people, not just on the basis of being part of organized crime, which Donald clearly isn't, or not of the basis of being part of a terrorist organization, which Donald clearly isn't, but have banned people just on the basis of what's called hate speech, if people's speech is likely to promote division in society. Now that is UK system, rightly or wrongly, and those who are arguing for the ban are merely saying you should apply the same rules to Donald as have previously been applied to American shock jocks or Dutch MP's. That was all they were saying."
He stated the demand to ban Trump had overwhelming public support.
"The debate was forced by the UK public and the biggest ever online petition of all-time demanding that MPs debate that. We have a system whereby if enough people sign up to petition to get a debate, in this case it was almost 600,000, the biggest petition in history, wanted to debate and wanted the Donald banned."
Salmond did point out that the ban would not apply should Trump actually be elected President.
"You can't ban heads of state or people who are elected and if Donald even does manage to get himself elected, and I think there is a pretty unanimous opinion on this side of the pond and, certainly in Scotland, that he doesn't, but if he did, then of course, he'd be a head of state and would have to be received because he'd be representing a country, whether that was a bad representation or a good representation is up to you all. But he's not that now. He's a private citizen."
