THE AMERICANS SWAPPING THE BIG APPLE FOR THE BIG SMOKE

Frustrated by Trump, attracted by London cool and the low cost of living, Americans are snapping up houses here — and applying for British citizenship in record numbers

- BY DAVID ELLIS

It's been dubbed by one Republican — with a Yankish disregard for proper English — as the “MAGA British summer”.

It began last Friday on the west coast of Scotland, with Donald Trump flying in for a round or two of golf and a summit with Sir Keir Starmer at Turnberry. His vice president JD Vance holidays here next month, heading with his family to Charlbury in the Cotswolds (Ellen DeGeneres cannot be thrilled). And in September, Trump returns for an unprecedented second state visit. Neither the President nor his second-in-command can be expecting the warmest welcome from their fellow countrymen, who are here in record numbers.

“What's happening with the administration at the moment is absolutely terrifying, and the consequences are really immediate,” says business strategist Farrin Mann, 38, who moved to London from Dallas late last year. “I bought my ticket on election day, because knowing he was going to win meant prices were going up,” she says. “I got a $700 ticket, but that same ticket a week later doubled.” Because people were wanting to get out? “Uh-huh.” Divorce and the chance to start over — not Trump — were Mann's primary reasons for first coming over. But with things as they are, “I really don’t want to go back.”