US Elections:

As Trump backers praise Brexit, UK and US are nations united in rage

Patriotic, misogynistic mood among Republicans is more lurid than what’s seen in Britain, but the echo is distinct

Donald Trump’s noisy, shambolic and furious convention in Cleveland broke every rule in the US campaigners’ handbook – including the relatively esoteric one that says British politics never, ever gets a mention. Deemed both obscure and irrelevant, the affairs of the UK have been reliably invisible in the US political argument since 1945.

But not this week. Alongside a speech from a would-be first lady rapidly exposed as plagiarised and a primetime address from a US senator drowned by boos from the convention floor, the Republican gathering in Cleveland also recorded another first. It made room for interest in Britain.

Or rather in last month’s decision to leave the European Union. In fringe meetings and from the podium, the vote for Brexit was regularly cited as a source of inspiration for Republicans. As one pro-Trump T-shirt spotted in Cleveland put it, showing the two nations’ flags alongside each other: “1st the UK. Now, the US. Take back America.”

For some Republicans, the 23 June decision offered heartening proof that a cause once dismissed by pollsters, reviled by elites and written off as a reactionary embarrassment can nevertheless prevail.

Trump may be trailing Hillary Clinton now, they said, but leave once lagged behind remain.

The Trump-backing pollster Kellyanne Conway told a panel that, just as there had been shy leavers in Britain, she believed there were “hidden Trump” supporters – Americans cowed by the “social desirability” of being seen to oppose the reality TV star in polite company.

Others drew ideological comfort from the Brexit precedent. Before he was booed off the stage, Trump’s defeated rival, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, told the convention: “Something powerful is happening ... We’ve seen it in the United Kingdom’s unprecedented Brexit vote to leave the European Union. Voters are overwhelmingly rejecting big government.”

But while the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage enjoyed his trip to Cleveland, milking the applause of admiring US conservatives on the fringes of the convention, the arresting parallel between the current politics of the two countries is one far less comfortable.

- thetelegraph