The UK is seeing a ‘MAGA British summer’ as Donald Trump and JD Vance lead the red-cap brigade in enjoying time in the UK.
While the US President touched down in Scotland this week for the opening of a new 18-hole golf course at his estate in Aberdeenshire, vice president Vance is expected to rent a holiday cottage in the Cotswolds next month.
His upcoming trip comes much to the dismay of talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who abandoned her Californian lifestyle to enjoy a quieter life in the Cotswolds with wife Portia de Rossi in November 2024.
DeGeneres revealed their move to the English countryside was prompted by last year’s US election, specifically the re-election of Trump.
The former talk show host is reportedly planning a two-week break from her adopted home when Vance visits with his family in August.
And with Trump back on British soil again in September for an unprecedented second state visit, one Republican told The Times that the UK is facing’a Maga British summer’.
Ms DeGeneres said last week that Trump’s victory influenced her move to the UK.
‘We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis and I was like, ”He got in”,’ she said. ‘And we’re like, ”We’re staying here then”.’
Last week it was revealed she is selling one of her two Cotswolds properties for a cool £22.5million – £7.5million more than she paid for it.
The Cotswolds is a popular British holiday hotspot, and home to political powers like former Prime Minister David Cameron and celebrities such as the Beckhams.
The Vances were also in London before the 2024 US election, when they were given a personal tour of the British Museum by George Osborne, its chairman.
In 2011 Barack Obama took time out to visit his ancestral home in Moneygall, Ireland.
And in 2023 former US President Joe Biden embarked on a tour of Ireland, with the UK hardly getting a look-in. Rishi Sunak had to treck to Northern Ireland to meet him at the airport.
Trump is not only visiting the UK to play golf, as he also has important trade talks set up with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
As he touched down at Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire on Friday, Trump told Europe to ‘get your act together’ over illegal immigration – branding it a ‘horrible invasion’ that is ‘killing Europe’.
Trump is set to meet Sir Keir and Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney on Monday.
He will also enter trade talks with the EU chief this afternoon after officials from both sides said they were nearing an agreement.
But an EU diplomat claimed ‘everyone is quite tense’ – after Trump threatened ‘you’re not going to have Europe anymore’ if illegal immigration continues.