Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on 26 October 2024. It was republished on 5 January following Elon Musk’s comments about Britain’s grooming gangs and the Labour government.
One of the most extraordinary aspects of the Trump campaign’s denunciation of Labour activists flying over to campaign for Kamala Harris was the language it used about Britain and the British left. In a statement headlined, “The British are coming!” it condemned this “blatant election interference” by the “far left Labour Party”, declaring that “Americans will once again reject the oppression of big government that we rejected in 1776.” Far from being a one-off, this sort of talk fits into an established narrative on the American right which variously sees Britain as a dangerous, dystopian and communistic.
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