Yahoo UK’s poll of the week lets you vote and indicate your strength of feeling on one of the week’s hot topics. After the poll closes, we’ll publish and analyse the results each Friday, giving readers the chance to see how polarising a topic has become and if their view chimes with other Yahoo UK readers.
The handover of power to Donald Trump’s after he won the US election has begun, with the president-elect meeting current president Joe Biden this week.
As Trump prepares for his second tenure in the White House, political analysts across the world have been speculating on what his second presidency will mean for the UK.
Many of the policies Trump has promised to introduce when he returns to the White House in January will have profound impacts on this side of the Atlantic.
During the election campaign, Trump vowed to bring in 10% tariffs on all goods imported into the US, in an effort to boost his country’s economy and workforce.
One think tank warned that this could mean UK growth is halved and lead to higher interest rates. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said it could lead to UK inflation rising by up to 4% in the next two years.
There are also fears about how Trump will approach Nato and the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Having promised to end Russia’s war with Ukraine in one day while on the campaign trail, Trump has reportedly spoken by phone to Vladimir Putin, telling him not to escalate the conflict.
His attitude to tackling climate change is also being questioned, with reports suggesting he will once again withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement just as he did in his first stint as president, something Joe Biden undid on his first day in office in January 2021.
Yahoo News UK asked our readers for their views on the impact of Trump’s presidency on the UK, here are the results:
Our poll asked: ‘Do you think Trump’s election will be good or bad for Britain?’
It received a total of 8,351 votes and showed six in ten Yahoo readers think the US election result will be bad for Britain.
Some 62.8% of respondents voted ‘bad’ in response to the question, with 31.8% saying they thought the impact would be ‘good’, while 5.5% said they were undecided.
Some 62.8% of respondents voted ‘bad’
Yahoo News UK readers were also asked: ‘Out of 10, how important are the decisions of the US president to the UK?’
This poll received 4,124 votes with the most common vote being 10, indicating many readers felt strongly on the issue.
The average strength-of-feeling score on all the votes was 7.46.
Many readers felt strongly on the issue
What Yahoo readers said:
‘We in the UK need an ally’: Yes, Trump will look favourably on trading with the UK. We in the UK need an ally in the West in order to bolster our flagging economy. I also believe that trump and Putin will strike a deal with Ukraine, which will bring an end to the conflict, (John H, Northampton)
‘Good for the British people, but not the British Government’: l think that the President will be generally good for the British people, but not the British Government. l want voting reform, term limits and random drug and alcohol testing in Parliament, including the Cabinet and House of Lords. Trump will introduce these in the US, (Paul C)
‘Risk raising inflation’: Trump’s policies risk raising inflation, causing a global recession and increasing insecurity in Europe and the Middle East in particular, with all the knock-ons that entails for the UK. Given his unpredicatbility, though, who really knows?, (Jim C, Minehead)
A YouGov poll conducted last week as the result of the US election found that 31% of 4,800 British adults said his victory would be “very bad” for the UK, with a further 24% saying it would be “fairly bad” – only a combined 18% said it would be “very good” or “fairly good”.
Read more of Yahoo UK’s Poll of the Week articles
