UK voters give their verdict on the impact of Donald Trump’s return on Britain – and have some stern advice for Keir Starmer
BRITS think Donald Trump’s second presidency has been bad for the UK – and want Keir Starmer should be tougher on him, a new poll has found.
Just 11% of voters said they thought Trump’s return had been good for Britain – with 58% saying it was bad. And 41% – the largest share – said they thought the PM should be more critical of the US President, with more than half of those saying he should be a lot more critical. Just 16% said he should go easier on Trump, and less than a quarter said Starmer had got the balance about right, according to Deltapoll’s survey for this newspaper.
Last month, the Mirror revealed voters put Mr Starmer’s approach to Trump and the Iran war among his most successful moves since becoming PM. After a year of surprisingly friendly relations between the Labour Prime Minister and the US President, Starmer infuriated Trump by refusing to join his disastrous campaign in the Middle East. Trump branded Starmer “no Winston Churchill”, after the PM refused to let him launch bombing raids from bases on UK soil.
Yet nearly half of those polled (43%) said they had not changed their opinion of Mr Starmer because of his stance on Trump’s war.
Trump has since said Starmer has “plenty of time to recover” from the difficult position he has led Labour to, but only if he re-opens the North Sea for oil drilling. “If he opened the North Sea and if his immigration policies became strong,” Trump said ahead of the King’s visit to Washington DC last month. “Which right now they’re not, he can recover, but if he doesn’t, I don’t think he has a chance.”
Deltapoll interviewed 3,353 British adults online between 26th April and 1st May 2026, including 1,012 respondents in Wales and 1,041 respondents in Scotland. The data have been weighted to be representative of the British adult population as a whole.