Donald Trump and his Democrat rival, US vice president Kamala Harris, are neck and neck in the polls ahead of the presidential election, meaning the outcome seems like anyone’s guess right now.
But the Republican nominee has tongues wagging in the UK after his team filed a legal complaint against Keir Starmer’s Labour Party this week.
The campaign accused activists of “blatant foreign interference” – a claim Labour rejects – because some volunteers had flown to the States to go door-knocking for Harris.
The spat has raised eyebrows about just how well a potential second Trump presidency could work with the newly-elected Labour government, considering he only worked with prime ministers from the Conservative Party.
But what do British voters in general think about Trump?
How have British attitudes towards Trump changed since 2016?
There’s no denying that Brits, by a large majority, want Harris to win November’s election.
But support for Trump seems to have gradually increased over the last eight years, according to surveys.
An Opinium and Observer poll from November 2016 found 12% of UK adults would back the Republican candidate, and 49% would back Hillary Clinton.
Four years later, and another Opinium poll for the Observer (conducted in November 2020) found a slightly larger proportion of Brits, 16%, would have backed Trump this time around, compared to 57% who would have support Joe Biden.
Similarly, a poll from Hanbury Strategy found 23.8% of Brits would back Trump over Biden in 2020, with 76.2% saying they would vote Democrat.
And then a YouGov survey, conducted on behalf of bookmakers Betfair between 16-19 Sept, found support for Trump has almost doubled in four years, with one in five Brits (22%) saying they would vote for him if they could.
This still means 60% would back Harris, of course.
It’s also worth noting support for Trump is not entirely consistent.
Another YouGov poll, conducted between October 15-16, found support for Trump had dropped to 18%, with voters swinging to Harris, 64%.
And Statistica found the percentage of people in Britain who like him peaked in the first quarter of 2024 at 26%, but has now dropped to 20% by the third quarter of the year.
Even so, that’s almost twice the number of people who said they would vote for him back in 2016.
Just who is supporting Trump now?
YouGov survey claimed 32% of 18-24 year olds would vote for the Republican nominee if he was in the UK.
Support in London has almost tripled from 12% to 31% in the past four years – a stark change from the anti-Trump blimp protests over Parliament Square in June 2019.
And, apparently, around 60% of Brits who voted Reform in the 2024 General Election would vote for Trump, along with 26% of those affiliated to the Conservative party.
Just 12% of Labour voters would back him, compared to 5% of the Lib Dems’ supporters and 3% of the Greens’.
But, when it comes to the great Brexit divide, more than a third of people who voted to leave in the UK’s referendum eight years ago said they would support him, compared to fewer than 10% of the Remainers.
Who else seems to have changed their tune towards Trump?
There seems to have a flurry of enthusiasm for Trump among high-profile right-wingers in recent months – despite previously slamming the controversial politician.
Boris Johnson, the ousted Tory PM, was one of the first senior British politicians to say Trump was not fit for office in 2015.
Only this year, he defended the former president over the January 6 riots in the Capitol, saying Trump did “not intend to overthrow the constitution” and claimed a second presidency could be a “big win for the world”.
Liz Truss refused to say whether the former president was a friend or a foe in August 2022 when running to be the next Tory leader (and subsequently the PM).
She also dodged a question on whether she would rather go to cocktails with Trump or Facebook executive and former deputy PM Nick Clegg.
But in July this year, she declared Trump offered the “leadership the West needs”.
Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick did attend Trump’s inauguration in 2017 when he was Truss’s ministerial aide but claimed at the time it was not an “endorsement”.
However, in August this year, he said: “If I were an American citizen, I would be voting for Donald Trump.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has been a longtime advocate for Trump and was there in the early days of 2016, speaking to the Republican’s rallies about not voting for his then rival Hillary Clinton.
His backing of the ex-president has continued, and he even considered putting his own long-term bid of being an MP on hold to support Trump’s attempts to get back into the White House.
But the difference is that Farage has gone from the fringe of politics to an elected MP and party leader since Trump first ran for president and he campaigned for Brexit – which could mean Farage has more sway with UK audiences.
His party went from having just one defected Tory MP in the last parliament to securing just four seats, but coming third by vote share with four million votes.
Elon Musk, now the richest man in the world and CEO of social media platform X, said Trump was not the “right” person to lead the US in 2016.
Now he has donated more than $75 million (£58m) to a political action committee in an attempt to get Trump re-elected.
Labour figures, who previously voiced their strong opposition to him, have also watered down their remarks recently, potentially anticipated a second Trump presidency.
Foreign secretary David Lammy called Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” in 2018, but has since brushed off those comments and instead insisted he “gets on” with his running mate, JD Vance.
Meanwhile, PM Keir Starmer has so far only managed to meet Trump, not Kamala Harris – but the “usual diary challenges” got in the way.
Even as the Republican nominee’s campaign has accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference,” Starmer was careful not to insult Trump.
While he denied any wrongdoing from his party, he said the complaint would not jeopardise his relationship with Trump saying they have a “good relationship”.
What would it mean for the UK if Trump returned to the White House?
The impact of a second term would be significant, according to a range of political pundits, particularly when it comes to diplomacy around Ukraine and trade issues.
CEO of the pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain, Naomi Smith, told HuffPost UK: “The possibility of another Trump presidency poses a real risk not just to the UK’s national security but to Europe’s as a whole, particularly Ukraine, and his protectionist promises would add more pain to our economy from the ensuing tariff hikes.
“While hoping for a Harris win, the UK must prepare for the worst through closer, formal cooperation with our European allies on both trade and defence.”
Former Tory justice minister David Gauke, who stood as an independent in the 2019 general election, also warned in Conservative Home this week that conservatives should not back Trump because he represents the “worst form of conservatism”.
He warned that Trump favours tariffs on everyone in a “truly stupid policy” which risks a trade war, and that he wants to end support to Ukraine.
US-based think tank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has expressed concerns over the Republican nominee’s economic plans, too.
Its chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said: “There is definitely a direction of travel here that we are very concerned about, because a lot of these trade-distorting measures could reflect decisions by countries that are self-centred and could be ultimately harmful not only to the global economy … but also hurtful for the countries who implement them as well.”
And the former boss of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, told Sky News in January this year that Trump could be “problematic” if he acts “hastily” over the US’s NATO membership.
He warned: “Because if Trump, as it were, acts hastily and damages the Atlantic alliance, that is a big deal for the UK.
“We’ve put all our eggs in defence terms in the NATO basket. If Trump really is serious about, as it were, changing the balance, I mean the American nuclear umbrella for Europe is, in my view, essential to Europe’s security and defence.”
