British People Have a Pretty Low Opinion of Donald Trump, but Why Is That?

For a few days in mid-September, the United Kingdom was welcoming President Donald Trump for his second state visit to the country. While Trump received a warm welcome from the royal family, he was less warmly received by the British public as a whole.

Given the volume of protests that broke out after Trump's arrival in the country, many naturally wanted to know why the country seems to be so opposed to Trump. Here's what we know.

According to polling from YouGov, just 16 percent of the British public have a favorable opinion of Donald Trump, which is much lower than his admittedly not very good approval rating in the United States.

Given that this polling is of so many different people, it's difficult to distill a single reason why the British public seems to be so united in its hatred of the American president.

CNN reported from the protests against Trump that were taking place across the country, and it seems clear they were there for different reasons.

“We’re here for broad reasons, because the politics that Donald Trump represents, politics of racism, the politics of division and hatred, politics that puts profit before the planet … are the absolute antithesis of the politics that we represent and that we’re campaigning for,” Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan wrote an op-ed for The Guardian in which he offered some of his own rationale for opposing Trump's visit. He wrote that Trump was “fanning the flames of divisive, far-right politics around the world" and called on Londoners to reject his politics.

It's noteworthy, though, that the U.K. is not exactly a bastion of liberalism more generally. Trump seems to be more unpopular than figures like Nigel Farage, who share his worldview.

It's possible that Britons have such a unique dislike for the American president because of his views on foreign policy more generally, and his belief in dominance over even countries like the U.K., which America has traditionally been a close ally of.

Ultimately, though, as is the case in the United States, people come to their political opinions for a wide array of different reasons.

Certainly, many of the people who attended protests against Trump in the U.K. are people who aren't aligned with his policies, worldview, or autocratic instincts. There are also some, though, who might not like Trump because he appeared to disrespect the queen during his first state visit, or because he had such a close relationship with former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

What's clear, though, is that British people as a whole are not huge fans of the president, and they made their displeasure with his latest trip known. Of course, there are also plenty of people in the United States with similar feelings about the president, although his approval rating in the United States is still quite a bit higher than 16 percent.