Sarah Elliott:

He is still an incredibly divisive figure, but look at his actions rather than the hysteria around his words

If you told me two years ago that, today, I would be planning to vote for Donald J Trump at the next presidential election, my reaction would have been: “Are you kidding?”

I am a life-long Reagan Republican and supported Marco Rubio, the articulate free-marketeer from Florida, in the primaries. But when the general election came around, Trump had not convinced me he would govern as a small-government conservative. It was just unimaginable that a man with his temperament – the vulgarity and immature name-calling – and lack of political experience could hold the highest office in the land.

So what changed? Trump may still be the tough guy everyone loves to hate, but he is getting results. And on his visit to the UK, perhaps the British people will realise the same.

Why did I change my mind? Trump has been effective on the world stage. He appointed Nikki Haley, the very capable former governor of South Carolina, as US Ambassador to the UN. She has stripped away from this bloated institution $285 million in US taxpayer funding, and has taken the US out of the hypocritical UN Human Rights Council – full of the worst offenders such as China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba.

With Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis as Secretary of Defence, the Trump administration punished Bashar alassad for crossing chemical weapons red lines in Syria. Barack Obama, so popular in the UK, did no such thing. Neither did he act when Isil spread like wildfire across Syria and Iraq in the summer of 2014. He acted only after thousands had been murdered, raped and sold into slavery. Today, Isil has lost 98 per cent of its territory.

Let’s not forget North Korea. Trump is the first president to have met a North Korean leader, and despite all the criticism, procured an agreement for the Communist state to denuclearise while keeping economic sanctions in place. We expected nuclear war, but got productive conversations instead.

Then there is Nato. President Trump has not undermined this cornerstone of the West’s defence. Instead, he has reiterated his commitment to the alliance and pushed underspending members to meet the 2 per cent target. As the UK is one of the few other countries that does so, this should be welcomed by British taxpayers.

Domestically, Trump’s pro-business agenda has reignited the US economy. For the first time in more than 30 years, Congress passed comprehensive tax reform that lowered the highest corporate tax rate in the Western world from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, stopped taxing foreign-earned corporate income and ended the penalty for not buying health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).

Take these massive changes, couple them with cutting 22 regulations for every new one imposed (Obama added a record 600 new regulations), and you have a newly liberated business environment that has pushed up economic growth, has seen the stock market climb to new heights and has driven down unemployment, including among African Americans and Hispanics. Isn’t this the type of economy an independent Britain wants to do business with?

Finally, there is how he is dealing with the Left’s abuse of the court system to pass laws they can’t persuade the people to vote for. For Americans who want government to leave them alone, the fight for the nine seats on the Supreme Court is crucial. On pivotal cultural issues, the Supreme Court often breaks down their decisions 5-4. President Trump has won praise for his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Court, and now for Brett Kavanaugh. With the Kavanaugh appointment, he will have placed twice as many conservatives on the court as Reagan, or either of the Bush presidents. This ticks a key box for Republican voters.

What is truly amazing is just how conservatively this liberal New Yorker is governing, more so indeed than his recent Republican predecessors. The Mueller investigation has not produced any evidence of Russian collusion and Trump is accomplishing a great deal – and winning over people like me. If I can take a second look at the president and see beyond the hysteria, I am sure the British people can, too. He wants to do business with the UK and agree a free trade deal, and as you leave the EU, don’t you want to do so as well? It’s up to you Great Britain.