SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The U.K. put on a show for President Trump this week - a lavish state banquet with the king and queen, military flyover and a horse-drawn carriage ride. President Trump appeared delighted.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I hope that together our nations can lead a movement to defend the glorious traditions of freedom on both sides of the Atlantic. There could be no greater tribute to the immortal bonds of affection and loyalty that unite the British and the American people for all of time.
SIMON: But his trip came at a time of deepening political tensions in both countries. Tim Stanley joins us now, a columnist and podcaster at The Telegraph. Thanks so much for being with us.
TIM STANLEY: It's a pleasure.
SIMON: What's the range of views that Britons seem to hold about President Trump and his brand of politics?
STANLEY: They range from complete contempt and refusing to meet him, so the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, a small but substantial party, decided to boycott the dinner, towards, at the other end, right-wing MPs admire him and would like to emulate his politics. Perhaps the most famous example of that is Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform party. The Reform party has very few MPs right now, but it's currently leading the polls, and there's a very good chance it'll win the next election.
The current sitting government, headed by Keir Starmer, which is a center-left Labour government, is sort of caught in the middle. It instinctively doesn't like President Trump and doesn't like his policies on things like immigration, and especially on energy, because the government is very environmentally friendly. But equally, it knows it needs America on side, and it's very keen to keep Trump involved in the Ukraine war. So for that reason, the Labour government has really rolled out the red carpet, so to speak, and done its best to make Trump feel at home.
SIMON: Just a week ago, there was a huge protest in London where demonstrators called for freedom of speech and a crackdown on immigration, issues that are very familiar here in the United States. Are we seeing a merging of a kind of those politics?
STANLEY: I guess it's a case of America sneezing and us catching a cold, or it could just be that we are facing the same sort of issues. As you know, there is a great migration going on globally. More people are trying to enter Europe. Some of them are making their way to Britain across the channel, partly because of the way in which those migrants have been housed in hotels in particularly working-class communities. There's been a real backlash against that. We've not had this kind of polarized cultural politics for a very long time. It's always been there, but not for a while have we seen these debates over things like national identity or even the role of Christianity in public life. And I suppose that if you're looking for global leadership, who can you take inspiration from? It's Trump and the Trump administration. So there's a strange and unexpected synergy between the American and British right.
SIMON: Prime Minister Starmer's not very popular at the moment, is he?
STANLEY: No. He is very, very unpopular, yes.
SIMON: He was absolutely a gentleman about President Trump's visit. I wonder if that helps him out politically.
STANLEY: Donald Trump seems to really like him. And I think that's because, although the Brits aren't very keen, one has to give Starmer credit for his temperament. He doesn't panic, he's unflappable and he's famously a lawyer. He was head of prosecutions in this country, and there's a sense that he understands the right procedure. This is a man you can rely upon in a crisis. And so I think Trump has appreciated those qualities when it's come to international relations. Plus, Keir Starmer very cleverly worked out early on that the way to Trump's heart was just to flatter him.
SIMON: What do you make of the special relationship, as a lot of people still call it, between the U.S. and U.K.?
STANLEY: I suspect the special relationship is more important to Britain than it is to America. It's something which is strongest when you have leaders who are philosophically in simpatico. The most famous example - Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, but also Churchill and Roosevelt. And in recent years, partly because of the polarization of politics, you haven't seen that so much. But we're keen to push it because Britain has divested itself of its power. It's not as rich as it was. Is military isn't as powerful. And so it fantasizes that it can play this role of Greece to America's Rome - that we can be the ideas in the relationship and the philosophy and the courage and the argument, and we can persuade our friend, our big muscly friend, to do all the fighting globally. Well, Donald Trump has pushed back on that somewhat, and I don't entirely blame him. But through, as I say, a mixture of Starmer's personality and flattery, he seems to have kept the special relationship on life support.
SIMON: Tim Stanley of The Telegraph. Thanks so much for being with us.
STANLEY: It was a delight. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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