British MPs have spent three hours in the House of Commons debating whether they should ban US presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

The debate was sparked by a petition, signed by more than 570,000 people, calling to block Mr Trump from entering the UK after his inflammatory comments about Muslims and people from Mexico.

Mr Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of US borders to Muslims in the days after the San Bernardino shooting.

• Match-fixing scourge is ‘impossible to stop’
• Bunnings may mop up some Masters disasters
• ATO phone scam costs some victims over $100k

And he has recently defended his plan to build a wall to stop illegal immigration between the US and Mexico.

Under British law, any petition supported by 100,000 people is considered for parliamentary debate.

UK legislators from all sides criticised Mr Trump during the heated discussion, branding him an “attention seeker’, a “fool”, a “buffoon”, a “demagogue” and a “wazzock”.

But many more lawmakers opposed the ban, saying it would go against free speech.

Ultimately the MPs did not vote on the matter, and the Prime Minister, who has the final say, had already indicated he had no intention of banning Mr Trump.

British MP Tulip Siddiq from the opposition Labour Party was in favour of the ban, telling the Parliament Mr Trump risked inflaming tensions between vulnerable communities.

“People often say that the public are apathetic about politics,” she said.

“This online petition, signed by nearly 600,000 people, shows that when people feel a sense of justice, when people feel that we need to stop a poisonous, corrosive man from entering our country, they will act in good conscience.”

The British home secretary can and does ban people from entering the UK, but the Conservative MP Paul Scully questioned whether it was necessary in this case.

“I know we’ve had some examples of where people have been excluded from this country, I’ve heard of a number of cases where people have been excluded for incitement, for hatred — I’ve never heard of one for stupidity,” he said.

“And I’m not sure that we should be starting now.”

Labour MP Paul Flynn said Donald Trump’s prejudices should be met with British reasonableness.

“Could I put it to the committee that the great danger by attacking this one man is that we can fix on him a halo of victimhood, we give him the role of martyrdom which conceived to be an advantage among those that support him.”

Mr Trump responded to the petition last month by saying Britain was trying to disguise a massive Muslim problem.

He also threatened to cancel more than £700 million of planned investments in his golf courses in Scotland.

– ABC