Brexit, Trump and the special relationship
| Author | Graham K Wilson |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117713719 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles - Part One |
research-article2017
Special Issue Article
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
Brexit, Trump and the
2017, Vol. 19(3) 543 –557
© The Author(s) 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117713719
DOI: 10.1177/1369148117713719
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Graham K Wilson
Abstract
The unexpected victories of Donald Trump in the United States 2016 Presidential campaign and
of the Leave campaign in the British referendum on membership in the European Union have
important similarities in terms of campaign strategy, rhetoric and social bases of support. They
are exemplars of a wave of right-wing populism that has swept across advanced democracies. The
triumph of Brexit also raises questions about the future relationship between the United Kingdom
and United States. While it is too early to be certain about either the impact of Brexit or the
future direction of the Trump Administration, and despite ties between the Trump Administration
and British politicians who campaigned for or subsequently supported Brexit, the United Kingdom
could become much less useful as a diplomatic and economic partner to the United States after
leaving the European Union.
Keywords
Brexit, populism, Trump, 2016 US election
British and American politics have often seemed to change in mood in similar ways and
at roughly the same time. The Eisenhower years had parallels in the Conservative-
dominated decade of the 1950s. The reform mood of the United States in the 1960s had
its parallels in the Wilson government between 1964 and 1970. Reagan and Thatcher
shared similar beliefs and mutual admiration in the 1980s.
Few parallels between British and American politics have seemed as close, however,
as the 2016 referendum vote in Britain resulting in its withdrawal from the European
Union (EU) (Brexit) and the election of President Donald Trump. If the similarities
between Brexit and Trump’s triumph are intrinsically interesting, they are also contribut-
ing to our understanding of the wave of populism that has swept across the developed
democracies in the past 10 years. Examples include the rise of Marine Le Pen in France,
Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and right-wing parties in Germany, Austria and
Scandinavia (Judis, 2016). While it is always possible to argue that every country is dif-
ferent and each case is sui generis, it is also possible that these events—in important
respects—constitute a single phenomenon with shared causes. Brexit and Trump’s
Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Corresponding author:
Graham K Wilson, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Email: gkwilson@bu.edu
544
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 19(3)
election may be the UK and US manifestations of a general howl of populist rage against
social and economic changes that have benefited some massively, but have also left sig-
nificant sectors of the population feeling aggrieved, left behind and ignored.
It is of general significance to explore the parallels between the Brexit and Trump
campaigns and victories before considering the implications of the outcomes for US–UK
relations. Drawing on a range of academic contributions and commentary, this article
offers an interpretation of events and developments around which much is still uncertain
and subject to ongoing debate. Still, the parallels between the Brexit and Trump victories
can be examined under the headings of rhetoric and strategy and explanations for support
before considering their impact on future US–UK relations.
Parallels in rhetoric and strategy
The closeness of parallels between the Brexit and Trump victories is suggested by the
personal linkages between the Brexit and Trump campaigns. Nigel Farage, the leader of
the UK Independence Party and of one of two organisations that campaigned for the
United Kingdom to leave the EU, also campaigned for Trump. (The body recognised as
the ‘official’ Leave organisation and recipient of public funding from the Electoral
Commission was Vote Leave; Farage led another organisation: Leave.eu.) Robert Mercer,
a billionaire supporter of far-right-wing causes in the United States, made contributions
to the Leave.eu campaign that paid for Cambridge Analytica to conduct work on electoral
strategy. The legality of his donation has been questioned: it was not reported to the
Electoral Commission.1 The personal linkages were not limited to the right, however.
Farage’s venture into American campaigning followed President Obama promoting the
Remain cause during a visit to the United Kingdom:
The UK is at its best when it’s helping to lead a strong European Union. It leverages UK
power to be part of the EU. I don’t think the EU moderates British influence in the world, it
magnifies it.2
These personal linkages reflected deeper commonalities in rhetoric and strategy, and
social origins of support.
There was considerable overlap between themes in the Leave campaign and that of
Trump. In Jackson, Mississippi, on 24 August 2016, Farage told the crowd that ‘the paral-
lels are there’ between Brexit and the Presidential election.3 As an understandably smiling
Trump looked on, Farage enumerated the parallels that he saw.
First, American voters, like British voters, would prove the pollsters and elite opin-
ion wrong. Trump, like the Brexit campaign, would triumph in the face of criticisms
from the ‘commentariat’. A victory for Trump like the victory of Leave would repre-
sent the triumph of ‘ordinary, decent people’, ‘the real people’ or even ‘the little peo-
ple’, over the forces of globalisation, global corporations and ‘global corporatism’
(Teague, 2016).
The Trump and Leave campaigns conformed to Kazin’s (1995) description of pop-
ulism: ‘a language whose speakers conceive of ordinary people as a noble assemblage not
bounded narrowly by class; view their elite opponents as self-serving and undemocratic;
and seek to mobilize the former against the latter’. Michael Gove MP, a leader of the
official Leave campaign, famously said, ‘I think people in this country have had enough
of experts’.4 Trump could easily have said exactly the same; his rejection of the opinion
Wilson
545
of the overwhelming majority of scientists that human activity is causing climate change
displayed a similar disregard for expert opinion.
Second, both the Trump and Leave campaigns promised to reduce immigration. By
electing Trump, American citizens would take back control of their borders, that is, end
or severely curtail immigration just as leaving the EU would stem the flow of foreigners
to the United Kingdom. The Brexit campaigns realised through focus groups that antipa-
thy to immigration could be their most powerful weapon (Shipman, 2016). On this issue,
the Trump and Leave campaigns conformed to Judis’ description of right-wing populism
as the mobilisation of the people against an elite that allegedly coddles ‘an out group’, or
an unpopular minority (Judis, 2016).
Third, just as the Leave campaigns would take the United Kingdom out of the EU,
Trump promised to take the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA). This comprehensive free trade agreement between Canada, the United States
and Mexico had been negotiated under the Republican President George H.W. Bush and
steered through Congress by Democratic President Bill Clinton relying on Republican
votes. In short, it was a policy created by key elements of both parties. Trump argued that
NAFTA was a terrible deal that had cost the United States millions of jobs. He would
leave or renegotiate NAFTA and abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Fourth, Americans could restore pride in their country making it ‘great again’.
Similarly, Brexit would mark the return of the United Kingdom to global power and influ-
ence. Britons would venture forth across the globe in the spirit of the buccaneers of the
time of Elizabeth I.
Beyond those parallels drawn by Farage, there were other obvious similarities between
the Brexit and Trump campaigns. The most startling was the willingness of both to disre-
gard facts. It was the official Vote Leave campaign, not Farage’s, that drove a bus around
the United Kingdom emblazoned with the claim that EU membership cost the United
Kingdom £350 million a week, which would be diverted to paying to improve the National
Health Service (NHS). Farage suggested that millions of Syrian refugees were lined up
waiting to enter the United Kingdom if it remained in the EU. His campaign’s poster of a
picture of male refugees from Syria being transported across the Slovenia/Croatia border
went too far for even the official Vote Leave campaign.
Examples of Trump’s disregard of the truth included claims that the US corporate tax
rate was the highest in the world, that one in four Americans in their prime working years
were not employed and that thousands of Americans had been killed by illegal immi-
grants. These and other inaccurate statements are set out by PolitiFact (2015), a US fact-
checking website, which honoured Trump with its Lie of the Year Award in 2015.
PolitiFact (2015) cited in addition his ‘many campaign misstatements’, including that
Islamic Americans in New Jersey had cheered as the Twin Towers came down on 11
September 2001; that most murdered whites were killed by...
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