British politics has its flaws but at least we aren’t America

One is in power and the other out of it, but Boris Johnson and Donald Trump still have a lot in common, beyond three wives each and being members of a mutual admiration society.

Both rose to the top by becoming TV personalities. Both were once seen as liberal, if not licentious, individuals who conjured a winning base of conservative and centre-right supporters out of the populist maelstrom of 2016. 

Both can get away with actions, opinions and venal behaviour, which would have slain average political figures many times over. Both seem to conflate the national interest with their own self-interest. 

This year, and more significantly in recent weeks with development on this side of Atlantic, it has become that the biggest difference between the two men is not their bank balances or whether they are in office, but whether they command their parties and their political supporters. 

The Republican Party has gone full Trump to the point that The Donald can now seriously contemplate a second coming to the White House. From Downing Street to the grassroots, Tories have already shown that they are not inclined to go all out Boris.

Trump’s grip on the Republican party is manifest in the oxygen given to his big lie, that the 2020 Election was somehow stolen from him, apparently believed by around three-quarters of registered Republican supporters and all but a small percentage of elected officeholders.  

There was a brief wobble following the storming of Congress by Trump supporters on 6 January, but within days the Republican party doubled down. Republican US Representatives largely voted against the second impeachment of then still President Trump and tried to purge those such as Liz Cheney who disagreed. Republican Senators then voted Trump not guilty.

Had they convicted him, he would have been destroyed as an incubus hanging over the party because he would have been disqualified from running for public office again. 

Instead, Trump is by far the most popular fundraiser for the party. As revealed in The Washington Post, his importance is such that the Republican National Committee is using party funds to pay off some of Donald Trump’s legal bills. He, meanwhile, has turned campaigning into a personal money-making machine. 

The shift towards authoritarianism, or at any rate anti-democratic majoritarianism, is rife on Capitol Hill. Last week only two Republican representatives joined the vote of censure against Paul Gosar of Arizona for tweeting a cartoon video of himself killing another representative, AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York. 

Gosar and another representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, lost their plum committee assignments. The House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he would promote them if the Republicans have a majority after next November’s mid-term elections.

But that wasn’t enough for another Republican Matt Gaetz, coincidentally facing sex abuse allegations, who suggested McCarthy should magically be replaced by Trump as House Speaker if and when the Republicans are back on top.

Meanwhile, Steve Bannon and other Trump associates are refusing summonses to appear before congressional investigations into January 6 and are receiving support from Republican senators and members of Congress and sympathetic media. 

It is little surprise that the annual report from the Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy accused the US of backsliding in that it “experienced gradual but significant Checks on Government and Civil Liberties, such as Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Association and Assembly, over time”. 

This week’s not guilty verdict on Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old vigilante who shot dead two people at a Black Lives Matter demonstration with an assault rifle, will have sent a chill through any potential future demonstrators. 

Rittenhouse has received invitations to intern for several Republican congressmen in Washington DC, as well as starring in a documentary and a prime-time interview on Fox News Channel.

Efforts continue to take partisan control of the electoral process at state level, complete with voter suppression reforms to exclude where possible Democratic, and most likely minority ethnic, voters. 

If Trump or another Republican candidate does not win the 2024 Presidential election, there is a real possibility that they will win anyway in the long run. 

Disputes over the result in key states, as attempted by Trumpists in 2020, could turn the national result into a toss-up to be decided either in the US Supreme Court or Congress, both likely to be dominated by Republicans. 

The Supreme Court already is, thanks to Trump’s appointments and a combination of gerrymandering and State equity, favours Republicans in the US Congress. America’s system balances state power against the popular will. 

Structurally there are more red states than blue, and if it comes to a stand-off between states, lowly populated Nebraska or North Dakota each have the same voting power as California or New York, each with tens of millions of citizens.

How very different from our own dear politics. Boris Johnson has not been averse to attempting to undermine independent checks on his power. Sir Alex Allan, the civil servant monitoring ministerial behaviour, resigned after his report on Priti Patel was overruled. 

The Prime Minister attempted an extended prorogation of parliament until overruled by the Supreme Court. Likewise, he whipped his MPs to vote against the Committee on Standards and to let the bang-to-rights Owen Paterson off the sleaze hook. 

What is different here is that all these bids for impunity have failed and that Conservative MPs were generally relieved that they went down. The Republican’s embrace of Trump is largely down to the fact that seats in the House are up every two years, and multi-million dollar fundraising is a constant fact of life for every would-be candidate. 

They also face primaries for selection to run as candidates where they are vulnerable, on both sides, to party hardliners winning over activists. 

MPs do not have anything like the same re-selection issues, but they too have to be wary of constituency and activist opinion. 

Perhaps it is down to the legendary British sense of fair play but there does not seem to be an American-style inclination to use a majority to further bend the rules in your party’s favour. 

In contrast to the US, constituency boundaries here are set by an avowedly independent commission. Johnson’s government is attempting to change electoral law and clip the wings of the Electoral Commission – but this has left many of Tory MPs feeling queasy. 

In spite of sterling efforts by the Number 10 cabal, there has been slow progress with partisan appointments and sackings – as epitomised by Paul Dacre’s retreat from the gates of Ofcom to the comfort of the Daily Mail.

Party unrest over everything from Owen Paterson to sewage in rivers, from HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail to Social Care – shows that many MPs on whom Johnson depends for his majority, especially the new 2019 and 2017 intakes, are simply not on the dance card for the Old Etonian Charleston. 

The Conservative election victory in 2019 was built as solidly around Johnson’s personality as Trump’s ever was in 2016. But Johnson has fewer authoritarian tendencies, and following the sacking of Dominic Cummings, there is reason to doubt that his heart or his head was ever genuinely committed to them. 

It is hard for a Prince of Misrule to enforce discipline. Especially one who does not have money in his purse, and Rishi Sunak is quietly seeing to that. 

All in all, reasons to be cheerful British style this Thanksgiving week. We are not rushing down the same path as the Americans.