Almost 100 Chesterfield people back campaign to cancel Donald Trump's state visit
Almost 100 people in Chesterfield have added their support to a campaign to cancel Donald Trump's upcoming state visit to the UK.
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 which have collectively amassed over 50,000 signatures.
Analysis of the data shows there were at least 96 signatories who gave their address details in Chesterfield, with 2,011 across the East Midlands.
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."
Chesterfield was ranked fifth out of 36 areas in the East Midlands with available data for total signatories. Meanwhile, Nottingham had the most in the region, with 467.
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."