Nigel Farage’s Trump-Vance delusion – New Statesman

JD Vance is on holiday, but it looks more like a diplomatic mission to spread Maga cheer deep into the British right. Images of him spending an evening in the Cotswolds with former Apprentice contestant and rumoured Reform candidate for Mayor of London, Thomas Skinner, have struck many as odd.

But Vance has form here, adding to his Amazon Wishlist all the Brits he would like at his political picnic: Robert Jenrick, Nigel Farage, Danny Kruger, Chris Philp. I wonder if they appreciate just how unpopular Vance and Trump are to their British audiences.

Vance is touring a Britain that, were it a US state, would have voted for Kamala Harris by more than California, 68 to 32 per cent. Current British feeling towards the US president is weak. Vance is less well known. But he still has a net favourability score of -44 among Brits.

A more recent YouGov poll puts Trump’s favourables at just 16 per cent. On paper, Farage shouldn’t be anywhere near to someone so unpopular as Trump. You wouldn’t think it wise to peg your movement to one so roundly disliked.

But I return to the important distinction between voter instincts; the electorate can be broadly split into those of a “shake things up” mentality and those who are better described under the phrase “steady as she goes”. Reform voters unsurprisingly fit into the former distinction. It explains why so few of them (1 per cent) look upon Starmer in a positive light. This also explains why a majority of them like Trump too, even if 41 per cent of them don’t.

Meanwhile, the current Labour government could be making a much bigger deal of this close association. It would deal dividends among their anti-Trump base.

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Trump is a reason many voters are reluctant to come out for Reform. And this, it appears, is something the likes of Farage and Skinner are blind to.

[See also: Rachel Reeves’ road to recovery]