Britain's House of Commons on Jan. 18 considered declaring Donald Trump a persona non grata because of his recent comments about Islam in a debate that was the result of an online petition that sought to qualify the GOP front-runner's remarks as "hate speech."

Conservative lawmaker Kwazi Kwarteng noted that the British Parliament might put itself in an awkward position if it voted to ban the New York real-estate tycoon from the United Kingdom because Trump might well end up winning the White House in November.

"And then we would be in the absurd situation of having banned the president of the United States," the politician and historian warned on Jan. 18, according to the Washington Post.

'Buffoon' or politician with 'real guts?'

Trump has proposed to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States - an idea that triggered widespread condemnation in Britain, where an estimated 2.7 million individual adhere to the religion.

Lawmakers, who seldom weigh in on internal U.S. affairs in the House of Commons, did not hold back and called Trump, among other things, a "buffoon," "demagogue," "joke" and "idiot." Conservative member Philip Davies, on the other hand, said that while he did not agree with many of the the former "Apprentice" star's points of view, he did support Trump's right to speak out.

It is easy to back "motherhood and apple pie," Davies noted, but it takes "real guts" to say things that are controversial, he explained.

Debate, decision merely symbolic

While Parliament's Petitions Committee was forced to consider the online petition because it received more than 100,000 signatures, it is unlikely to move the effort to the floor, CNN noted. Even then, any action British lawmakers might take on a Trump ban would be symbolic in nature because the decision on who gets to visit the United Kingdom is actually made by Britain's home secretary, not Parliament.

Labour lawmaker Jamie Reed, thus, told Newsweek the whole debate was a waste of time.

"The absurdity of Trump's candidacy is matched only by the fact that he is set to be the subject of a debate in the House of Commons," he said. "In the midst of so many domestic crises, this is a huge waste of U.K. taxpayers' money," Reed concluded.

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