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Donald Trump

Washington. — To US voters who have witnessed the rise of Donald Trump, the campaign urging Britain to abandon the European Union may appear eerily familiar.

There’s the nationalism, the romanticised nostalgia for an earlier time, the mistrust of political and financial elites, and the fears that migrants are bringing crime and stealing jobs.

Call it Trumpism minus Trump, the New York real estate developer, who has emerged as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in the 2016 US elections. If British citizens vote on Thursday in favour of exiting the European Union, it would allow Britain to negotiate its own trade deals and better control who enters the country, among other things. Both sides in the polarised debate have mounted extensive campaigns and polls show the vote could be close.

Trump, who will travel to Britain this week, supports the “Leave” camp, popularly known as Brexit. “I would personally be more inclined to leave, for a lot of reasons like having a lot less bureaucracy,” he told The Sunday Times.

He has spent much of his presidential campaign warning of the dangers posed by undocumented immigrants from Mexico and refugees from the Middle East and has proposed building a wall along the southern border of the United States. — Reuters.