This is a reflection of how much Brits obsess over the US and need a convenient bogeyman to divert attention away from their own issues. Politicians in the UK and Europe as a whole say things that are far more "crazy" and "offensive" than what Trump has said and yet British lawmakers will never devote 3 hours of floor time to discussing those people or try to get them banned from the UK.

All it reflects is that internet petitions are bloody stupid and the decision to allow any debate once such a petition got over a certain amount of votes would lead to spectacular wastes of time.

This is not a division from regular issues. The bigger news story yesterday was Cameron announcing punitive measures against immigrants who didn't learn English after a certain amount of time. The day before that is was about the leader of the opposition's position on maintain a nuclear deterrent. Trump is 'soft' news. It's there for the weirdness of it all but it is not the lead story of the day. You can look at the front pages this morning and not one of them covers this waste of time.

The US though does get more attention than Europe. This isn't because of an 'obsession' but because the US is both quite accessible for Britain given the shared language and because the President of the United States is of far more consequence to Britain than the leader of any European nation bar the United Kingdom itself. Trump's current momentum is interesting in the United Kingdom for the same reason as it's interesting in America. It's different and it's consequential.

As for 'double standards'. You'll find the people who designed the petition are different to the people who are Islamophic. Europe is one big monolithic bloc that thinks the same thing about everything.