Growing number of Britons support Trump's second term

Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, US Vice President Kamala Harris, are neck and neck in the polls ahead of the presidential election, meaning the outcome appears uncertain at the moment.

But the Republican candidate has set tongues wagging in the UK after his team filed a complaint against Keir Starmers' Labor Party this week.

The campaign accused the campaigners of blatant foreign interference, a claim Labor rejects because some volunteers had flown to the United States to canvass in support of Harris.

The row raised eyebrows about how effectively a possible second Trump presidency could work with the newly elected Labor government, given that he has only worked with Conservative Party prime ministers.

But what do British voters in general think of Trump?

It is undeniable that the British overwhelmingly want Harris to win the November election.

But support for Trump appears to have gradually increased over the past eight years, surveys show.

An opinion and an observer survey as of November 2016, 12% of British adults would support the Republican candidate and 49% would support Hillary Clinton.

Four years later, and another Opinium poll for the Observer (conducted in November 2020) found that a slightly higher proportion of Britons, 16%, would have supported Trump this time around, compared to 57% who would have supported Joe Biden.

Likewise, a survey by Hanbury Strategy found that 23.8% of Britons would support Trump over Biden in 2020, with 76.2% saying they would vote Democrat.

And then a YouGov survey, carried out on behalf of Betfair bookmakers between September 16 and 19, support for Trump almost doubled in four years, with one in five Britons (22%) saying they would vote for him if they could.

That still means 60% would support Harris, of course.

It's also worth noting that support for Trump is not entirely consistent.

Another YouGov survey, carried out between October 15 and 16found that support for Trump had fallen to 18%, with voters turning to Harris, 64%.

And Statistical found that the percentage of people in Britain who like it peaked in the first quarter of 2024 at 26%, but has now fallen to 20% in the third quarter of the year.

Still, that's nearly twice the number of people who said they would vote for him in 2016.

YouGov survey claimed that 32% of 18-24 year olds would vote for the Republican candidate if he were in the UK.

Support in London has almost tripled from 12% to 31% over the past four years, a dramatic change from the anti-Trump protests in Parliament Square in June 2019.

And apparently around 60% of Britons who voted Reform in the 2024 general election would vote for Trump, along with 26% of those affiliated with the Conservative party.

Only 12% of Labor voters would support it, compared to 5% of Liberal Democrats and 3% of Greens.

But when it comes to the great divide over Brexit, more than a third of people who voted for Brexit in the UK referendum eight years ago said they would support it, compared to less than 10% of supporters of Brexit.

There appears to have been a surge of enthusiasm for Trump among the most prominent right-wing figures in recent months, despite previous criticism of the controversial politician.

Boris Johnson, the ousted Conservative prime minister, was one of the first senior British politicians to say Trump was not fit to perform his duties in 2015.

Just this year, he defended the former president during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, saying Trump did not intend to overthrow the government. constitution and asserted that a second presidency could be a great victory for the world.

Liz Truss denied to say whether the former president was friend or foe in August 2022 when he was running to become the next Conservative leader (and subsequently Prime Minister).

She also dodged a question about whether she would prefer to go to a cocktail party with Trump or with Nick Clegg, Facebook executive and former deputy prime minister.

But in July this year, she said Trump was providing the leadership the West needed.

Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick attended Trump inauguration in 2017, when he was a ministerial aide to Truss, but claimed at the time that it was not an endorsement.

However, in August this year he said: If I were an American citizen, I would vote for Donald Trump.

British reform leader Nigel Farage is a longtime Trump defender and was present in early 2016, speaking at Republican rallies about not voting for his then-rival Hillary Clinton.

His support for the ex-president continued, and he even considered suspending his own long-term congressional bid to support Trump's attempts to return to the White House.

But the difference is that Farage has moved from the fringes of politics to become an elected MP and party leader since Trump first ran for president and campaigned for Brexit, which which could mean Farage has more influence with the British public.

His party went from a single Conservative MP defecting in the last parliament to just four seats, but came third in vote share with four million votes.

Elon Musk, now the world's richest man and CEO of social media platform X, said Trump was not right. no one to lead the United States in 2016.

Now he has donate more than $75 million (58 million) to a political action committee to try to get Trump re-elected.

Labor figures, who had previously expressed strong opposition to him, have also recently toned down their comments, potentially anticipating a second Trump presidency.

Foreign Minister David Lammy called Trump became a sociopath sympathizing with neo-Nazis in 2018, but has since dismissed those comments and instead insisted he got along well with his running mate, JD Vance.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has so far only managed to meet Trump, not Kamala Harris, but the newspaper's usual challenges have hampered him.

Although the Republican candidates' campaign accused Labor of blatant foreign interference, Starmer was careful not to insult Trump.

While denying any wrongdoing on the part of his party, he said the complaint would not jeopardize his relationship with Trump, saying they had a good relationship.

The impact of a second term would be significant, according to various political experts, particularly with regard to diplomacy around Ukraine and trade issues.

CEO of pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain, Naomi Smith, told HuffPost UK: The possibility of another Trump presidency poses a real risk not only to the UK's national security but also to Europe as a whole, particularly Ukraine, and its protectionist promises. it would add even more pain to our economy due to the resulting tariff hikes.

While hoping for a Harris victory, the UK must prepare for the worst through closer formal cooperation with our European allies on trade and defence.

Former Conservative Justice Minister David Gauke, who ran as an independent in the 2019 general election, also warned in the House of Conservatives this week, conservatives should not support Trump because he represents the worst form of conservatism.

He warned that Trump was favoring tariffs on everyone in a truly stupid policy that risks a trade war, and that he wanted to end his support for Ukraine.

The US-based think tank the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also expressed concerns about the Republican candidates' economic plans.

Its chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said: There is certainly a direction here that concerns us greatly, as many of these trade-distorting measures could reflect decisions by self-serving countries and could ultimately be detrimental not only to the global economy, but also to the global economy. the countries that implement them as well.

And former MI6 boss Sir Richard Dearlove told Sky News in January of this year, Trump could pose a problem if he acted hastily regarding US membership in NATO.

He warned: “Because if Trump, so to speak, acts hastily and damages the Atlantic alliance, that is a big problem for the UK.

We have put all our defense eggs in the NATO basket. If Trump really wants to, so to speak, shift the balance, I want to say that the American nuclear umbrella for Europe is, in my opinion, essential to the security and defense of Europe.