LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron thinks a proposal by US Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States is divisive and wrong, his spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Trump was responding to last week’s deadly shooting spree in California by two Muslims whom the FBI said had been radicalized. He likened his proposal to World War II policies implemented by US President Franklin Roosevelt against people of Japanese, German and Italian descent.

“The PM (Prime Minister) completely disagrees with the comments made by Donald Trump, which are divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong,” Cameron’s spokeswoman told reporters.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said Trump’s “ill-informed comments are complete and utter nonsense.”

Johnson said he would “welcome the opportunity to show Mr. Trump firsthand some of the excellent work our police officers do every day in local neighborhoods throughout our city.”

Johnson added “the only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”

Former US Veep Dick Cheney condemned Trump’s proposal. “I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion, goes against everything we stand for and believe in,” Cheney said. “I mean, religious freedom has been a very important part of our history and where we came from. A lot of people, my ancestors got here, because they were Puritans.”

He added: “There wasn’t anybody here then when they came,” leaving him open to criticism for dismissing the existence of Native Americans.

Citizens, commentators and politicians slammed Trump’s latest statement, calling it hate speech and a disturbing sign of Islamophobia.

Dar Al-Ifta, Egypt’s official religious body, denounced Trump’s “hate rhetoric” that “will increase tension” in the United States, which is home to millions of Muslims who are “peaceful and loyal American citizens.”

In France, where the ruling Socialists are in a pitched election battle with a far-right anti-immigrant party, Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Tuesday wrote on Twitter that “Trump, like others, stokes hatred and conflations: our ONLY enemy is radical Islam.”

One Saudi woman, Naveen Malek, said in a tweet: “We are facing a Third World War these days. The new leaders of intolerance are people such as Trump and the French far-right.”