Director lists Tony Blair, top-up fees and ‘bonkers’ Brexit campaign as black marks against the UK, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn the only ray of light

The UK is a “toxic place”, according to the Oscar-winning documentary film-maker Michael Moore, who has cited university fees, a lean towards privatised healthcare and Tony Blair’s support for the Iraq war as reasons why, for him, Britain feels poisonous.

The director of Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 was speaking at a London press conference for his new film, Where to Invade Next. In the film Moore visits various European countries and “claims” their best features for America, from Italy’s holiday entitlement to Norway’s prison system to France’s school lunches. The UK is not featured.

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“It was a conscious and purposeful decision to not come to the UK,” said Moore. “I mean this with respect, we didn’t feel like there was anything left to learn here. And that you had given up on yourselves.”

Moore, who made a point of thanking the British for supporting his films and appreciating his humour, said that Blair’s decision to follow George W Bush into the Iraq war had seriously damaged the UK’s international reputation.

“You may be over Tony Blair. We’re not,” he said. “We expected George W Bush to start that war. That wasn’t a surprise. But he was able to do it because you – the Brits, under Tony Blair – gave him back-up. You made it possible for him to say: ‘Hey, it’s not just me!’

“Honestly, if Blair hadn’t supported that war, I don’t know that [Bush] could have pulled it off. We’re not quite over the damage that this country has done to us and to the world by so-called liberals here voting and revoting for an individual who was anything but a liberal. This is a toxic place.”

Moore did mention one thing the British had done to make up for their mistakes: elect Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

“Talk about atonement for Blair,” he said. “That’s getting back to what Labour stood for, its roots. I wish Tony Benn were still around to see this.”

Asked if he believed Britain should leave the EU, Moore said to an outsider it seemed “bonkers” that the UK was even contemplating the question.

“Why would you do this? You saved Europe. Europe today is, in large fact, because of you,” he said. “You sacrificed and suffered in the 30s and 40s to save Europe. Why would you want to leave? It costs too much money? Immigrants? Really?! That’s not who you are, come on.”

Moore compared the EU referendum to the forthcoming US presidential election, saying it was likely that those who support leaving the EU were, like Trump supporters, more aggressive in their support for their cause and therefore more likely to vote.

“I’m guessing the majority of Brits don’t want to leave the European Union,” he said. “But on election day who’s going to be out there? The haters.”

A long-term supporter of Bernie Sanders, Moore said that the media had pandered to Trump’s brand of sensationalism, and that many people had underestimated the likelihood that the presumptive Republican nominee could make it to the White House.

“He’s not as stupid as he looks,” he said. “You should take him very seriously. The manipulation, the propaganda and the way he’s doing it is just brilliant, in the sense that he has succeeded. Seventeen other candidates couldn’t find a way to bring him down. And now Hillary Clinton is trying to do the same thing using logic and brains. It’s going to require something else. Personally I hope satire brings Donald Trump down.”

Trump is presiding over “a 21st-century version of fascism”, he said, before predicting that Trump’s popularity was the last gasp of the “angry white guy”.

“Last September was the first time in the history of the US that the majority of children entering school were not white – that’s the new America,” he said. “That’s why Trump sounds the way he sounds and his supporters and rallies are strangely familiar. They have a hard time realising that the end is near.”