Keir Starmer was quick to congratulate Donald Trump on his ‘historic victory’ in the US presidential election this week. His aim was to remind the President-elect of the close and ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the USA, and perhaps also to gloss over some of the comments he and others on his front bench have previously made about Trump.
The British public on the other hand, have always been somewhat more sceptical than their political leaders about the so-called ‘special relationship’ with the United States. UK opinion polls indicated widespread public concern about Trump during his previous term of office which crystallised around Trump’s state visit to the UK in 2019. Recent polls suggest that public opposition to the incoming President has become even more entrenched.
Does the public care about the outcome of the US election?
In a year in which there have been national elections in more than 100 countries across the globe, the US presidential election certainly seemed to loom larger in the UK public consciousness than any other, even perhaps than the UK general election. It is notable that in a YouGov poll in January, more than 10 months before the presidential election, 64% of the public indicated that they were very interested in the outcome of the US presidential election with 19% somewhat interested, whereas turnout in the UK general election in July was only 59.8%, the second lowest turnout since 1918. A poll by Ipsos earlier this month indicated that more people in the UK cared about who won the US presidential election (49%), than about the outcome of the Conservative leadership contest (31%). Moreover, the public are not just interested in the outcome of the US election, there is also a widespread view that the results will have significant consequences for the UK. In a YouGov poll in early October 76% said they thought the outcome of the US election mattered a fair amount or a lot to the UK, with 49% saying they thought it would matter to them personally.
What did the public think about President Trump during his previous term of office?
Perhaps one reason why the UK public were so interested in the outcome of this presidential election was that they had such firm views on one of the candidates based on his previous term of office.
Following the 2016 presidential election, Theresa May, not unlike Keir Starmer this week, was quick to congratulate Trump on his election, but also somewhat unusually, promptly invited him for a state visit to the UK. Trump’s state visit caused considerable controversy. A petition calling for Trump not to be allowed to undertake a state visit was the third most popular petition ever posted on Parliament’s petition site, with more than 1.8 million signatures. A YouGov poll indicated that 55% of the public thought the visit should be cancelled, while only 31% thought it should go ahead. Trump’s visit did go ahead in 2019, but prompted widespread demonstrations in the UK and the President was kept at some distance from the public for most of his visit.
The British public were fairly unequivocal in their disappointment at Trump’s first presidency. In a ComRes poll in 2016, 66% of respondents agreed with the statement, ‘Donald Trump as President makes the world a more dangerous place’. In the same poll 53% said they thought Trump would be a bad President, while only 15% thought he would make a good President. Moreover, there is little evidence that the UK public changed their views in the course of his presidency. In a YouGov poll from 2018, 18% of respondents said they though Trump had been a poor president, while 49% thought he had been terrible. In contrast only 9% thought he had been a good president and only 2% thought he had been great. Moreover, these views largely confirmed what the public thought when Trump was elected with 59% agreeing with the statement, ‘I thought Trump would do badly and he has.’
Has the British public changed their views about Donald Trump?
The response to this week’s presidential election indicates there has been little change in UK public attitudes towards President Trump, and if anything, public opposition to a Trump presidency has intensified.
In the UK at least, Kamala Harris was more popular than previous Democratic opponents of Trump. In 2017, 56% of UK citizens polled by YouGov said that if they were able to vote in the US election they would have voted for Hillary Clinton while only 12% said they would have voted Trump. In 2020, 54% said they wanted Joe Biden to win, and only 15% hoped Trump would be re-elected. Harris was more popular than both of her predecessors. In a YouGov poll in the UK earlier this month, 64% said they wanted Kamala Harris to win the presidency, with only 18% supporting Trump.
Moreover, support for Harris and opposition to Trump, was almost universal across all demographics and, with one notable exception, across the political spectrum in the UK. More than 80% of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters said they hoped Harris would win. While Conservative voters are more divided, 57% said they hoped for a Harris victory, while 25% supported Trump. Only amongst Reform UK voters did a majority (54%) support Trump while 26% hoped for a Harris win. Across all age groups, all social classes and all parts of the UK, more than 60% of the public were hoping for a Harris win. As in the US, men were more likely than women to support Trump, but in much smaller numbers, with 24% of men hoping for a Trump victory compared to 12% of women.
Perhaps not surprisingly then the British public are unhappy and also concerned about the prospect of another Trump presidency. In an Ipsos poll conducted in the UK before the election, more than 60% of respondents were fairly or very concerned about the impact of a Trump presidency on international security and on global economic stability. 61% were concerned about the impact a Trump victory might have on political stability in other states, while 59% thought a Trump victory might negatively impact the UK economy. In a series of YouGov polls conducted since the election, 57% of UK respondents said they were unhappy with the results of the US election, while only 20% were happy. 55% think Trump’s election will be fairly or very bad for Britain, compared to 18% who think Trump’s election will be beneficial to the UK.
There is, of course, little the British public can do about the results of an election in another state. Keir Starmer may well have to navigate some choppy waters, but the UK government will need to work with the incoming Trump administration. Moreover, there is another lesson from Trump’s previous term which may serve to reassure the government. Whatever the public may think about Trump they are generally pragmatic about the UK’s need to stay close to the US. According to one YouGov analysis from 2018, while they may not like him, a significant proportion of the British public are ‘Trump pragmatists’, who believe the British government should try to work with, rather than distance themselves from President Trump, as long as he isn’t invited for a state visit.