UK party leaders walk tightrope on Trump while voters want stricter stance | Foreign policy

Keir Starmer is striking a delicate balancing act on the world stage by trying to maintain a good relationship with Donald Trump while giving his full-throated support to Ukraine and pursuing closer ties with the EU.

But the prime minister faces increased domestic pressures when it comes to Trump, whom he will meet in Washington DC next week. Polling consistently shows the US president is deeply unpopular with British voters, a majority of whom think ministers should now prioritise building bridges with the EU over the US.

A YouGov poll this week suggested half of voters thought it was in the UK’s interest to stand up to Trump and criticise his actions, compared with 30% who thought it better to build a positive relationship and refrain from criticism.

Voters’ desire to see Starmer channel Hugh Grant rebuking the fictional president in Love Actually reflects how unpopular Trump is in the UK. A More in Common poll last month found that 59% had a negative view of Trump and just 24% had a positive one, giving him a lower approval rating than any UK politician.

Meanwhile, a study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London concluded there had been a reversal of public attitudes towards the EU and US compared with 60 years ago. The study, based on a poll by Focaldata, found that 53% of voters today think Britain should prioritise Europe over the US if needed, compared with 31% who chose the US. In 1967, the public favoured America over Europe by 53% to 33%.

When voters were asked by YouGov in December why they were unhappy that Trump had won the presidential election, respondents most commonly cited his criminal record and misogynistic attitudes, but also used a range of unflattering adjectives including racist, crazy, authoritarian and dangerous.

Given all this, getting tough with Trump could win Starmer – whose own approval rating has plummeted since the general election – some fans in Britain. But the prime minister is keen not to rock the boat with the world’s most powerful country and its notoriously thin-skinned president.

Part of the reason has to do with potential repercussions for the British economy, given the damage that would be caused by the tariffs Trump has threatened to impose.

Equally important is British security. When Starmer travels to Washington, he will want to gently persuade Trump not to agree a hasty ceasefire in Ukraine that favours Russia, and to provide US air cover to any eventual western peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

Starmer is not the only politician walking something of a tightrope when it comes to the US. Kemi Badenoch has sought to align herself with Trump since he won office, likening her leadership of the Conservative party to his second term at a conference last week, even though attitudes towards the US president among Tory voters are divided.

Trump’s adoption of the Russian narrative on Ukraine, including calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator, put Badenoch in a difficult position and elicited a carefully worded statement in which she contradicted Trump on Zelenskyy but said he was right that European countries needed to increase defence spending.

As for Nigel Farage, his close links to Trump and full-throated support for his agenda play well with his voter base – Reform UK voters are the only political group who were by and large happy to see Trump re-elected as president.

However, by tying himself so closely to Trump, Farage risks putting a ceiling on his support, and he has also faced difficult questions after Trump’s rapprochement with Vladimir Putin.

For Ed Davey, things are pretty simple: he has been able to position himself as the major party leader most willing to attack Trump, an approach Liberal Democrat voters are strongly in favour of. This helps Davey appeal to the large numbers of Labour and Tory voters who want to see those parties take a tougher stance.