Let’s get one thing straight: in Britain, Donald Trump is not popular. You can argue the toss about his popularity in the United States, where his personal ratings are bad but he did, unavoidably, win the recent election. In Britain, though, there is no such debate, and no self-flagellating argument that we must take his supporters seriously.
YouGov polling conducted shortly before last November’s presidential election found that nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of Britons were hoping for a Kamala Harris victory, compared to less than a fifth (18 per cent) for a second Trump term. Trump’s net approval among Britons, meanwhile, stood at an incredible minus 59 per cent (18 per cent positive, 77 per cent negative). Other pollsters have posted similar figures since. And just this week, YouGov found that even Conservative voters think it more important that the UK supports Ukraine than maintains good relations with the US leader, by a factor of two to one. (The only voter group to disagree were – this’ll shock you – Reform.)
Which raises a question: why on Earth do British Conservatives, who presumably still harbour hopes of returning to government one day, keep going out of their way to align themselves with a man who is unpopular with their own voters?
Take celebrity salad impersonator Liz Truss, who this week told the Conservative Political Action Committee gathering of the American right that a “Trump revolution” was needed to save the “failing” country she briefly misgoverned. Her predecessor Boris Johnson, meanwhile, asked: “When are we Europeans going to stop being scandalised about Donald Trump and start helping him to end this war?” – as though the most shocking development in international relations this week was not the US choosing Russia over Nato, but Europe’s lack of gratitude for it.
These guys are the past, of course, but those in the present are little better. Kemi Badenoch did finally locate her spine and acknowledge that Volodymyr Zelensky was “not a dictator”, but only after weeks enthusing about the Trump administration’s trashing of government institutions. Her recent rival Robert Jenrick has consistently been fulsome enough in his praise of Trump that he makes Badenoch look lukewarm.
There are those who have spoken out. Former future leaders Ben Wallace and Tom Tugendhat have both been vocal in their criticism of the president, while Rory Stewart, though no longer either a Tory or a politician, has gone so far as to get into an online flame war with the actual vice-president. (Those Goalhanger Podcasts do get everywhere, don’t they?) But these are the exceptions, not the rule, and it feels significant that all three have some kind of background in defence policy: Conservatives who spend less time thinking about national security are cheerfully riding the Maga wave.
I can think of three possible explanations for why British politicians should be so keen to align themselves with a movement that is essentially vote repellent in their own land. One is genuine ideological alignment: they simply think that he’s right. Why anyone would support barriers to trade – let alone a movement that has an unnerving enthusiasm for stiff-armed waves – I have no idea. But it’s poor hygiene in politics to assume your opponents are only pretending to think something.
The one thing Johnson did in office which even his opponents could admire was his steadfast defence of Ukraine, and he’s just thrown Zelensky under the bus, so perhaps it’s a less considered and more primal tribalism. Trump is of the right, and to the Tories, of the right is good; his critics are the left, and therefore must be bad. Perhaps that’s sufficient. The actual views of actual voters need never enter into it.
But the most interesting possibility, I think, is that it results from incentives that lie outside politics altogether. For Conservatives on the downward slopes of their careers, the most lucrative opportunities are to be found in the talking shops of the US right. (Non-exec board appointments lack the limelight and may anyhow be closed to those who have uttered the phrase “f**k business”, or indeed f**ked an entire economy.) For those still in the game, meanwhile, plaudits from publications less concerned about policy than clicks may also push them towards the noisiest bit of the right – which means, by sheer force of numbers, the American right.
But success is not measured in attention alone. At some point, the voters do come into it.
[See more: Germany’s warning signal for Britain]
Content from our partners
Related
