British Ambassador to the US Sir Peter Westmacott has taken issue with Trump's comments. Photo / Getty Images
British Ambassador to the US Sir Peter Westmacott has taken issue with Trump's comments. Photo / Getty Images
Donald Trump has stepped up his war of words with British officials over what he calls the UK's "massive Muslim problem", claiming more British Muslims join the Islamic State (Isis) than the armed forces.
The Republican presidential front-runner has been engaged in a spat with officials after his claim this week that parts of London were so radicalised that police refused to enter and his call for a ban on Muslims entering the US.
A petition to ban Trump from the UK had gathered more than 530,000 signatures by yesterday and the British ambassador to the US broke with diplomatic protocol to join the chorus speaking out against him.
"There is somebody called Donald Trump running in your presidential campaign and he again spoke this morning about the UK, saying we were busy disguising a massive Muslim problem," Sir Peter Westmacott said. "That's not the way we see it. We are very proud of our Muslim community."
He later told the Daily Telegraph: "It's not my job to intervene in domestic issues but, where he [ Trump] is talking about my country, it's my job to point out where those comments are, in our judgment, wrong or unhelpful to the cause of fighting back against this form of terrorism."
The British Government's belief was that "if we are going to see off the threat and ideology of Isil we have to work with our Muslim communities, not push them aside or make them feel alienated".
Sir Peter joined Prime Minister David Cameron, who earlier called the proposal to ban Muslims "divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong", and the London mayor Boris Johnson, who said "the only reason I wouldn't go to certain parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump".
Each of these statements has sparked a furious reaction from Trump, who suggested top British officials were "trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem".
His claim that more Muslims join Isis than the British Army came in a Twitter post and was accompanied by an article from the National Review, a conservative magazine.
Trump is not the first to make the claim, which arose out of a statement last year by the Muslim Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, Khalid Mahmood, that 1500 British jihadists and 560 Muslims were in the Armed Forces.
The latest government estimates say that 750 British citizens have gone to Syria to fight, and 650 Muslims were last year serving in the armed forces, primarily in the Army.
But experts note that the figure cited for British fighters represents all individuals who have fought in Syria at any time, with any group, rather than just Isis, and includes around 300 who are believed to have returned or died.
Claws are out for the Don
The Don got his feathers ruffled by Uncle Sam during the photo shoot.
It's been a rough week for Donald Trump.
First Time magazine released footage of a patriotic bald eagle named Uncle Sam snapping at the Republican presidential front-runner during a photo shoot. That went viral, for obvious reasons.
Then the website for Trump Towers, the Manhattan skyscraper owned by the real estate mogul was attacked by activist hacking group Anonymous, which disabled it for a time in protest at his anti-Muslim comments.
The website for the 68-storey building, often used for his presidential campaign, was down after a tweet from an account associated with the Anonymous hacking collective.
The group's action came days after Trump proposed to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States in response to last week's shooting spree in San Bernardino by two Muslims who the FBI said had been radicalised.
Anonymous is famous for launching cyber attacks on groups such as Isis following the attacks in Paris last month that killed 129 people.
