Britain’s main opposition Conservatives are the Republicans’ sister party, with figures including former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss out in force at Trump’s inauguration. New leader Kemi Badenoch has spoken warmly about Trump appointee Elon Musk’s government efficiency drive, and rails against many of the same “woke” targets.
Despite a thumping election defeat last year, the Tories could also realistically reenter government before Trump’s second term ends — and so must keep America on side.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s small but significant band of Reform UK MPs backs the president more openly, with Farage pitching himself as a key Trump whisperer on this side of the Atlantic.
On the center left, Britain’s Labour government — not natural bedfellows with Trump — will find it excruciating to attack the U.S. president publicly. Even the ruling SNP in Scotland, a country Trump is personally and financially connected to, has accepted it may have to work with the president.
But the Lib Dems are unburdened by the need for such diplomatic niceties — and so can forcefully attack him while trying to appeal to that broad pool of Brits who find him distasteful.
“There are folk who will have supported Liberal Democrats over many years, but also people from other parties who are uncomfortable with the specter of a Trump presidency,” argued Miller — who insisted the party’s stance isn’t for electoral reasons.
