The left and the right should march together against Trump

A coalition against Trump could include voices not just of the liberal left but from across politics. It would include most Christians and other people of faith; most people who would get behind Comic Relief or Children in Need and most Tory voters

Trump’s in town so it’s party time for liberal protesters – but couldn’t we invite a few others too?

Tonight, as you sit down to watch the football, spare a thought for the placard-makers. With all leave cancelled, they’ll be working away in the heat, desperately trying to keep up with a massive backlog of orders. Because on Friday it’s the biggest event of the protest calendar – Donald Trump’s in town.

There will be a lot of anger directed at the 45th US president, and rightly so. But is expressing anger what this is all about? Or are these protests hoping to achieve something more? One would rather hope so.

So an important question for campaigners and protesters is whether venting spleen, shouting loudest and flying “giant baby” balloons (funny though that is) is really the most effective way to protest against Trump. Or would a different approach have more impact?

Trump won’t be able to avoid seeing the public protests, though he’s going out of his way to try. Mainly by avoiding London – which he’s described as a “warzone” with “no-go areas” as part of an ongoing spat with mayor Sadiq Khan – because the capital will be the centre of most of the major protests, including a Women’s March at noon and the main “Stop Trump” demo at 2pm on Friday. Anti-Trump events are happening all over the country – there are even two in my hometown of Royal Leamington Spa (couldn’t you have joined up, guys?).

We know that The Donald is a big TV watcher – so even if he skips the protests themselves, he’s going to see them on Fox that evening. And what will he see? My worry is that he’ll just write it all off as a collection of Britain’s most liberal voices, about whom he cares not one bit. The efforts would be much more effective if he got some sense of the sheer extent of opposition to his policies in the UK – which stretches much further across political divides.

The list of groups with cause to protest was already a long one. Trump has attacked and undermined refugee protection, singled out Muslims with an attempted “ban” from the US, described far-right racists as “decent people”, demonised migrants, undermined human rights and LGBT+ rights, used openly misogynistic language about women and pulled the US out of the biggest global attempts to protect the environment. (Apologies to other causes I’ve missed out – there are just too many to list).

And all that was before his administration started locking children up in cages.

On issues like immigration and asylum, the UK public tends to be pretty divided – a strongly “pro” liberal minority, a strongly “anti” rejectionist minority, and the bulk of the public somewhere in between. On Donald Trump’s policies, however, that’s not the case. With the exception of his small fan club, most people in Britain agree on Trump – and we don’t like what he’s been doing. While Trump divides America, he actually unites Britain – against him.

A quarter of the British public agreed with Trump the candidate when he proposed banning Muslims from the US – but two-thirds of us didn’t. Six times as many Brits think Donald Trump as president makes the world a more dangerous place than think he makes it safer; and 58 per cent say his victory sets a dangerous precedent for future elections.

So the Trump visit, and his presidency as a whole, offers an opportunity for the majority of the British public, not just campaigners. Most people in the UK don’t like Trump’s hostile approach to immigration and refugee protection. And while we all know that there is public disagreement on the details of Britain’s own immigration policy, on the broad principles we can agree.

New data released this week from the British Social Attitudes Survey showed that there is growing positivity towards migrants in the UK. The Windrush scandal showed that Britons expect people to be treated fairly and with decency – and we could safely say that putting children in cages would overstep that line.

There is the potential to mobilise two-thirds of Britain around a message that defends existing refugee protections, which acknowledges the benefits that migration can bring to our country and which insists that new arrivals should be treated with decency and fairness.

Protests that seek to defend such principles will find support across a broad cross-section of society. And yet, given the chance to mobilise more broadly than ever before, we risk only taking the usual crowd with us if our message is instead one of “no borders, no nations, no deportations,” as protesters have previously chanted.

Some people will say that is selling out. I would argue that it’s ambitious. When a US president seems to so frequently attack so many basic values that we hold dear, why be so cautious in only trying to mobilise the usual suspects?

A coalition against Trump could include voices not just of the liberal left but from across politics. It would include most Christians and other people of faith; most people who would get behind Comic Relief or Children in Need and most Conservative voters. It would also include people on both sides of the referendum divide too – but a message of “F**k Brexit, F**k Trump” places an immediate ceiling of 48 per cent on support – and probably much lower still.

We should seize this opportunity to build a far bigger and broader coalition to oppose racism and prejudice and defend a fair and humane approach to immigration and refugee protection. Values that have been derided and undermined by this US presidency are widely shared and cherished by the people of Britain. That would be a very powerful message to confront Donald Trump with when he visits our country.

Steve Ballinger is Director of Communications for British Future, an independent thinktank on immigration and integration, and has previously worked in communications for Amnesty International, Shelter and VSO