Jeremy Corbyn, not Boris Johnson, is ‘Britain’s Trump’

Jez he did! Jeremy Corbyn has just surprised absolutely nobody by calling Prime Minister Boris Johnson ‘Britain’s Trump.’ He labelled Boris a ‘fake populist’ and a ‘phoney outsider.’ No doubt Labour speechwriters think this is a great attack line ahead of a general election. 

But it might backfire – for two reasons. First, Trump is not nearly as toxic in Britain as everybody in political circles believes. Secondly, for Labour voters, the uncomfortable truth is that the British equivalent of Trump is not Boris, as everyone says. It’s Jeremy Corbyn. 

Corbyn, 70, and Trump, 73, have far more in common than Boris and Trump. Jeremy and Donald are both anti-establishment insurgents who have been married three times. They both like dictators and dislike Nato. They both have embarrassing pasts which should disqualify them from high office. When they were elected to lead their parties, Trump and Corbyn were both dismissed as jokes but they turned their joke-status to their advantage.

The success of both men was seen as a sign that their respective parties had gone mad — but it turned out the electorate was just as mad, and the laughing stopped.