The Trump factor in the UK December 12 general election

Having Donald Trump on his side is not necessarily going to help Boris Johnson stay in Downing Street as prime minister! All the talk about huge and beautiful trade deals between the UK and US after Brexit sounded fne until the president himself today cast serious doubt on anything like that happening. Either he has actually read the Boris Brexit deal in full or someone, probably on Fox News, has told him the deal means the UK can't do any trade deals with the US. This is effectively what Trump said on the UK's LBC radio station today (what a scoop for LBC by the way). The Brexit deal negotiated by Boris will "preclude" any trade bonanza with the US, Trump said. Well, thanks Trump, Boris will be muttering to himself. Bang goes one of the juicy morsels he was hoping to promulgate during the election campaign. But don't worry, Boris, Trump still thinks you are terrific and he loves you, especially because people are saying Boris and Trump are like-minded chaps, twins if you like. In a UK election, the name Trump is not going to win votes. It may do in the Nigel Farage Brexit party - he also took part in the LBC programme - but traditional Conservatives are probably as wary of Trump as anyone else. Trump described Jeremy Corbyn as probably a pleasant sort of guy but said he was bad for the country, not his sort of bloke at all. But that may play well for Corbyn because he can tell the voters that he, Corbyn, is his own man and is certainly no poodle to that fellow with the funny hair in the White House. Yes I reckon Corbyn is probably delighted by the LBC programme. Trump dismissed Boris's Brexit deal! Oh dear, poor Boris. Mind you, were Corbyn to win the election, he has promised to spend six months renegotiating Boris's Brexit deal and his version would no doubt make it even harder for the UK and US to enjoy big fat trade deals. But Corbyn won't care two hoots about that if he is sitting in Number 10 Downing Street. He will be so excited and astonished that he has made it that he will refuse to take Trump's congratulatory phone call. I fear that on day one of the election campaign, Boris has suffered a huge setback, thanks to Trump. The trouble is, Trump is probably right. Any Brexit deal is going to make it hard to negotiate with the US as an independent nation because the UK will still be tied to complex legal trade regulations for years while talks go on and on about a new trade relationship with the EU. It's going to be five years of uncertainty and economic misery. Unless Boris can lift the country out of this gloom over the next six weeks, he could well be replaced by Corbyn who looks vibrant and refreshed, and promising a new world. A world without Trump breathing down the UK's neck.