A leading opposition figure in the United Kingdom has warned that an election win for Prime Minister Boris Johnson would signal a victory for populist nationalists globally,
Chuka Umunna, 41, who speaks for the Liberal Democrats on foreign affairs, criticized Johnson, 55, for aping President Trump’s “authoritarian playbook.”
Johnson’s opponents have stepped up their attacks on Trump ahead of the president’s visit to the U.K. for a NATO meeting in London on Dec. 4.
Conservatives fear that a misplaced word or two by the president could upend their carefully crafted election messaging operation just a week before the Dec. 12 polls, as Johnson seeks to extend his time in the office he’s held since July 24.
Umunna compared Johnson with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“It is Trump perhaps more than any other who has taken this politics mainstream in the western world,” he said. “In his words and deeds, he has been unafraid to engage in bigoted, racist, sexist, and Islamophobic behavior, to lie and to break the law,” Umunna said in a speech in Watford, where NATO leaders gather next week.
“All the same criticisms apply to the U.K.’s prime minister, who is following the Trump playbook and has become part of this global network of right-wing, authoritarian nationalists.”
Umunna was a Labour member of Parliament before defecting in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Johnson has made delivering Brexit the central plank of his election manifesto.
However, opposition leaders have warned that the U.K.’s National Health Service could be at risk if a Conservative prime minister strikes a free trade deal with the United States after leaving the European Union.
They claim health and safety standards, environmental regulations, and labor laws developed with the EU are viewed as barriers to trade by Washington.
