The British Parliament is set to debate a petition to ban Donald Trump from entering the U.K., after the candidate's divisive rhetoric during the American presidential campaign caused a stir overseas.

Since Dec. 8, 2015, more than half a million people have signed a petition to ban the 2016 Republican presidential candidate from traveling to the United Kingdom. According to 568,855 people, Trump should not be allowed to visit the U.K. due to his call to temporarily block Muslim migrants from entering the U.S. in the wake of recent Islamic extremist terror attacks in California and Paris.

"The U.K. has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech. The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the U.K.," reads the online petition.

Because the petition has received well over the 100,000 threshold required for a measure to be considered for debate, a House of Commons committee in London announced on Tuesday that the issue will be taken up in Parliament, reports CNN. The debate is scheduled to be held on Jan. 18 in Westminster Hall, and any member of Parliament member will be able to participate.

Following Trump's proposal to halt the immigration of Muslims into America, Prime Minister David Cameron called the billionaire businessman "stupid" and "three times a loser." However, the prime minister said he does not want to ban the former reality TV star from traveling to the country.

"I think if he came to visit our country he'd unite us all against him," Cameron said in December, according to BuzzFeed.

Committee member Steve Double also said more than 40,000 people signed a separate petition declaring that the New York real estate mogul should be allowed to visit the country.

"We had two petitions, one which said ban Trump from the country and another which said let him in," Double said. 

"It's a very interesting point: How do we, as an open democracy, deal with people who say things we perhaps don't agree with? My personal view is that we shouldn't ban people like Donald Trump, but we should have the confidence to stand up for what we believe in, have an open debate and defeat the views in open debate."