Britons have responded to US Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s remarks on Muslims with a petition calling for the businessman to be barred from entry into the United Kingdom.

I joined Godfrey Bloom, a former Member of the European Parliament for the UK Independence Party, on BBC 3 Counties Radio on Thursday morning in a heated discussion of the development.

Bloom and I agreed that Trump not be banned — in my case, because I believe in confronting his arguments calmly and decisively — but then we parted ways. In particular, I sought a clear and unconditional condemnation of Trump’s call for keeping all Muslims out of the US.

Listen from 9:15

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I believe in engaging everyone but I also believe in respecting everyone and in not making sweeping statements, in supposedly the name of free speech, that says hundreds, millions, billions of people are beyond acceptability because you know nothing more that they might be Muslims.

I don’t believe in that and it needs to be challenged now.