Trumpism popular in Britain, but not Trump

The US president's visit to Britain, which British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to promote as a renewal of the "special relationship between the two countries," comes at a time when recent mass protests in London have shown that ideas close to Donald Trump's political movement are finding growing support in that country.

The protest organized by far-right British activist Tommy Robinson on September 13th drew an estimated 150.000 people, writes The Economist, noting that the rally, called “Let’s Unite the Kingdom,” included a diverse group of people, from traditional right-wing supporters to citizens protesting against immigration, government measures to reduce carbon emissions, and what they said was a crackdown on free speech. “While Robinson’s usual gang of brawlers turned up (26 police officers were injured), they were outnumbered by the kind of people you might encounter at a music festival or in a supermarket,” writes the British newspaper.

Caps and T-shirts with the inscriptions MAGA (“Make America Great Again”), MEGA (Make England Great Again) and MBGA (“Make Britain Great Again”) could be seen at the protest, as well as T-shirts with the image of the recently murdered American right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

Billionaire Elon Musk greeted the gathering via video link, saying to thunderous applause that "whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. Either you stand up or you die."

Numerous polls and studies indicate that the ideas that brought Trump to power in the US are gaining wider support in Britain.

The most prominent are demands for mass deportations of migrants - in polls, they are supported by around 45 percent of respondents, while Nigel Farage's Reform UK party cites the goal of expelling 600.000 people within five years.

Trust in institutions is also at an all-time low: almost half of citizens say they “never” trust that the government acts in the country’s best interests, up from just 1986 percent in 12. Issues of free speech have become central to political debate, with 70 percent of Britons believing that people are “too easily offended.”

Skepticism towards climate policy is growing further - the number of those who believe that the state is spending too much on combating climate change has doubled since 2019. In parallel, anti-vaccination narratives have contributed to the largest measles outbreak since 2012.

However, in Britain, polarization and a propensity for conspiracy theories still lag behind America, and electoral success requires maintaining distance from extremes, the Economist points out.

Also, despite his ideas gaining increasing political and social space in Britain, a YouGov survey showed that only 16 percent of Britons have a positive attitude towards Trump.

Trump's visit to Britain is organized as part of a British strategy to bridge the political gap between Trump and the left-wing administration of Keir Starmer, relying on the president's fascination with the British royal family.

Starmer invited Trump for a second state visit in February, using a personal letter from the king. Trump will be welcomed with a ceremonial welcome, including a carriage, a gun salute and a state dinner at Windsor Castle. He is scheduled to meet Starmer on Thursday at the prime minister's residence, Chequers.

The visit is expected to provide Trump with a distraction less than a week after his close ally Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Kirk, who announced during a brief tour of Britain in May that “the Trump revolution is coming to the UK,” said Mr.

Starmer, on the other hand, is seeking to shift his focus to geopolitics and investment after a difficult few weeks that have seen his authority eroded. He was first forced to sack his deputy and then, six days later, the ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Behind the formal gloss and pre-arranged agreements on cooperation in the fields of technology and nuclear energy, Starmer will have to decide how to spend his limited political capital. According to the Guardian, the two most serious foreign policy issues are precisely those on which the UK and the US cannot agree: Israel's future relations with the Arab world and the threat posed to Europe and Ukraine by Vladimir Putin.