‘This US election matters more than any in 80 years – the stakes could not be higher’

In barely 24 hours, the most closely fought and consequential US election of modern times will be over. No one knows what its outcome will be. But the stakes for America, for Britain and for the world could not be higher.

It has been an extraordinary campaign. Donald Trump steamrollered his through the Republican primaries, survived two summer assassination attempts and following his conviction in a New York courtroom at the end of May now presents American voters with the opportunity to elect the first ever convicted criminal as their next commander-in-chief.

With predictable unpredictably, Trump has spent the last three months badmouthing immigrants, his political opponents and the “fake news” media while seeking to tie Harris to President Joe Biden’s electoral vulnerabilities, particularly on the cost of living and the border.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris, who has only been the Democrat candidate for less than 100 days after the sitting 81-year-old Biden dropped out of the race in July, has managed to maintain the strong poll ratings that accompanied her surprise accession.

She wiped the floor with a typically unprepared and over-confident Trump in their one TV debate, in September, and has run a disciplined campaign which has told us next to nothing about how, if she is elected, her policies would differ from Biden’s.

So, after dozens of campaign rallies, media interviews, podcast appearances and about $16 billion spent by both parties, the two candidates go into Tuesday’s election neck-and-neck, according to most opinion polls.

‘Harris presidency would offer opportunity to renew UK-US special relationship’

Who wins the White House looks likely to be decided by a relatively small number of voters in the seven swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Their choices will have profound implications for us all.

A Harris victory will be greeted with a huge sigh of relief across half of America and most of the western world. It will represent continuity not just with the Biden administration but with the norms of American democracy for much of the post-war period.

For the Labour Government in London, it would offer the opportunity to renew the “special relationship” around a shared commitment to multilateral international action, progress on climate change, and support for NATO and Ukraine’s war against Putin’s Russia.

With a potential political big-hitter appointed as the UK’s ambassador in Washington – suggested names have included Peter Mandelson and David Miliband, as well as Cathy Ashton and Val Amos – a Harris Presidency could signal a new era of transatlantic collaboration on progressive policy and politics not seen since the 1990s.

‘Trump would overturn democratic norms if he returns to the White House’

A Trump victory on Tuesday, on the other hand, would signal fundamental change for America and the world.

It is no exaggeration, not least because it has been said many times by the man himself and is laid out in intricate detail in a political manifesto entitled Project 2025 led by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, that a second Trump Presidency would herald a concerted effort to overturn many of the basic norms by which American democracy has functioned since World War II.

With an administration better organised than during his chaotic first term, and the support of a conservative Supreme Court and likely Republican majority in the Senate, Trump appears set to use the executive branch of the US government as a weapon to pursue political opponents, upend federal agencies and long-standing welfare and education programmes, and revoke “woke” support and rights for minority communities, women and institutions out of favour.

Thousands of US troops stationed overseas will be deployed to the southern border and law enforcement agencies will be ordered to round up hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants for what Trump has called “the largest deportation program in American history.”

Taxes on the super-rich will be cut, and Elon Musk and other high-profile corporate supporters will expect a new and close relationship with a Trump administration –a “Broligarchy”, according to commentators – that removes regulation while providing their business with lucrative government contracts.

‘A Trump return would be a severe blow to Labour government’

Trump’s foreign policy approach will put considerable strain on the US’s relationship with long-time international allies too, including the UK. Ukraine will be told to make peace with Putin’s Russia or lose American support regardless of its impact on European security, and tensions are likely to rise as curbing Chinese economic and military power becomes the US’s top foreign policy priority.

Giving unqualified backing to his political friend and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reorder the Middle East threatens a wider conflagration in the region involving the US itself, although Trump has made much in this campaign of his record of keeping American troops out of conflicts overseas.

Trump’s promise to impose 20% tariffs on all imports and to ramp up protection against Chinese goods bodes ill for the American and the global economies, and US commitment to the UN, its agencies and the wider multilateral system looks set to be significantly weakened.

A Trump Presidency would certainly represent a severe blow to Keir Starmer and his hopes for greater collaboration with the US on clean energy and climate change (Trump has promised to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement, as he did in his first Presidential term), and on Ukraine too.

Yet the British Prime Minister will look to seize opportunities where he can from developing a close personal relationship with Trump. Their introductory dinner at Trump Tower in New York in September was a success and Starmer will hope that this will help to secure a free trade deal of some description with the US.

Whether or not he is able to do so, not least given all the noise and controversy that will accompany Trump and his habit of seeking to promote Labour’s political foes in the UK itself, will remain, for now, an open question.

‘This election matters more than any in 80 years’

What appears more probable is that, if Harris is declared the winner of the election this week, it will be hotly disputed by not just by Trump himself but by a significant minority of the American population. Disinformation is rife and there is good evidence to show that some may even seek to use violence to overturn the result.

The lessons of the storming of the Capitol building on 6th January 2021 may have been learned by law enforcement agencies here in the US. But there are well-grounded fears that well-armed and organised right-wing militia could seek to cause significant disruption and harm for months to come.

The task of uniting America and restoring public faith in the way it is governed is perhaps the biggest task that awaits the new President. Doing so is not only essential to protect American democracy at home but also to preserve the US’s international role in what is the most dangerous and unpredictable global environment witnessed since the Second World War.

Only one candidate in the US election has even acknowledged this imperative while the other actively seeks to encourage political polarisation and erode democratic norms of behaviour. This election matters more than any in 80 years. We will all be affected by its result.

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