A counter petition calling on Donald Trump to have his state visit to Britain has been set up - and the man behind it is Dover businessman Alan Brown.

It had more than 202,000 names by this morning against the 1.7 million calling for the formal visit to be stopped.

Both petitions have now long passed the 100,000-name quota to be considered for discussion in Parliament.

Mr Brown told national media. “The petition had been done to prevent him from coming, disinviting him, and I felt that the opposite point of view should be felt so that it’s known that not all of us decry free speech.”

Mr Brown revealed that he had felt so strongly about the issue that his 13-year-old daughter encouraged him to start his own petition and she technically set it up for him.

He said he was “very proud” that enough names had built up to trigger a possible debate.

The US President has created a worldwide furore by imposing a four-month ban on all refugees coming into America as well as a three-month one for people from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

The suspension is on entry by nationals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen and Mr Trump said all this was an attempt to keep out terrorists.

It led to mass street demonstrations in several cities in Britain and America and the petition against a full red carpet trip to the UK reaching nearly 1.8 million names today.

Its introductory line said: “Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.”

The counter petition is under the name Alan Augustus Brown.

His introductory line says: “Donald Trump should be invited to make an official State Visit because he is the leader of a free world and (the) U.K. is a country that supports free speech and does not believe that people that oppose our point of view should be gagged.”