Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome to Voter Nomics,
Speaker 1: where politics and markets collide. This year, voters around the
Speaker 1: world have the ability to affect markets, countries, and economies
Speaker 1: like never before, so we've created this series to help
Speaker 1: me make sense of it all. I'm Aleca Stratton and
Speaker 1: this week we actually don't have the usual Voter Nomics
Speaker 1: crew Stephanie's in Barcelona and Adrian's in New York, but
Speaker 1: instead we've got two of Bloomberg's top UK reporters right
Speaker 1: here in the studio with us to join us for
Speaker 1: this episode, Alex Wickham, Westminster political editor and Alvarey, reporter
Speaker 1: and fellow read Out newsletter writer. We are a month in,
Speaker 1: guys to this election. How are you bearing up?
Speaker 2: Probably better than most of our sources who seem to
Speaker 2: be on the last legs. I'm not sure how we're
Speaker 2: going to do another nine days but not long now?
Speaker 3: Is that from?
Speaker 2: Is that all parties or all parties? I think it's
Speaker 2: just so hard on a campaign, isn't it. It's one
Speaker 2: thing being journalists go on a bus, you know, late nights,
Speaker 2: but you know, if you're if you're an advisor or candidate.
Speaker 2: You're just absolutely constant, has no escape.
Speaker 1: If I think back to the battle buses that I
Speaker 1: was on, I can think of the moment the morning
Speaker 1: after David Cameron TV debate where he was expected to
Speaker 1: wipe the floor with everybody else and he really didn't.
Speaker 1: It was the one where Nick Clegg came out on
Speaker 1: top six years and years ago, and the mood on
Speaker 1: the bus was horrendous, really low, and you could sense
Speaker 1: the team didn't know what they were going to do.
Speaker 1: And then my other favorite was Nick Klegg used to
Speaker 1: have these sneaky cigarettes around the back of the well,
Speaker 1: not round the back of the battle bus. He would
Speaker 1: go kind of one bus away and he didn't think
Speaker 1: that like twenty journos sussed him out on this, what's
Speaker 1: what's been your sort of impression from the buses?
Speaker 4: So sadly, Alegra the buses are much less fun than
Speaker 4: the name of Cameron days. They've changed how much access
Speaker 4: you really get. So even though Labor publicizes its battlebus
Speaker 4: with Kirstarmer and Angela Rayner, the press is on a
Speaker 4: separate bus and he tends to travel around in I
Speaker 4: know I'm ruining the magic, and he tends to travel
Speaker 4: around in his land Rover with his special protection officers,
Speaker 4: and then we are allied on the bus for brief moments.
Speaker 4: So I think I've been on the on the bus
Speaker 4: with Kirstarma for a total of aboute and hor Some
Speaker 4: of that he was behind a little curtain. Some of
Speaker 4: that he came out and chatted to us. But I
Speaker 4: think Alex has had a bit more of an interesting time.
Speaker 3: Have your bus has been better?
Speaker 2: The Conservative Bus is Oxford United football team's former bus,
Speaker 2: so it's very i would say, pretty nice quality. It's
Speaker 2: journalists only and then you sort of get ten or
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes if you're lucky with the Prime Minister. Richie
Speaker 2: Sunek is very tigerish and he's very good at sort
Speaker 2: of geeing himself up for a chat with the media.
Speaker 2: In my highlights from Tory Bus the other day was
Speaker 2: they took us to a farm with David Cameron and
Speaker 2: Richie Sinak, and David Cameron and a farmer were trying
Speaker 2: to feed some sheep and as soon as they offered
Speaker 2: the food, the sheep all ran in the opposite direction
Speaker 2: extremely quickly, and Prime Minister sort of sunk to his
Speaker 2: haunches and just shook his head and and he sort
Speaker 2: of you almost started to feel a bit sorry for
Speaker 2: him at that point.
Speaker 4: We were joking yesterday that we were trying to find
Speaker 4: interesting things that kir Starmer has done on the battle Bus,
Speaker 4: and we were really racking our brains for interesting color.
Speaker 4: And we've observed that whenever he gets to a new
Speaker 4: non league football ground, he just looks around and says, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic.
Speaker 3: This is super disciplined. Basically.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he comes up for a short visit with some supporters.
Speaker 4: They all have their placards. He gives the same stump speech,
Speaker 4: gives one interview to local TV, then he's back, travels
Speaker 4: for another two hours, Rinse, repeat, same message, same message.
Speaker 4: So the bus can get a bit monotonous.
Speaker 3: Right Well.
Speaker 1: In this week's episode, we're looking at Labour's foreign policy plans.
Speaker 1: Given the most likely outcome of the July fourth election
Speaker 1: is that it is a Labor government, it would be good,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it to know what the party has planned for
Speaker 1: the UK's relationship with Europe, the US and the rest.
Speaker 3: Of the word.
Speaker 1: So, in a word, is it clear what Labor's foreign
Speaker 1: policy will be?
Speaker 2: I think continuity is probably the main thing. They don't
Speaker 2: want anything against the grain at the moment in Europe,
Speaker 2: particularly on things like Ukraine.
Speaker 4: They have two words for it, bitgrand signing progressive realism,
Speaker 4: which in practice just sort of means that they will
Speaker 4: pay lip service to their progressive values while being actually
Speaker 4: quite pragmatic about dealing with some very difficult foreign states
Speaker 4: like India.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, well to talk through progressive realism and
Speaker 1: reality of how some of that will work in practice,
Speaker 1: we will shortly be turning to Tom Fletcher. He's a
Speaker 1: former foreign policy advisor to no less than three UK
Speaker 1: prime ministers. He's now principle of Hartford College at Oxford University.
Speaker 1: Also on the show, we have Ellen Milligan, who's a
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reporter hopefully probably familiar to lots of you, and
Speaker 1: she's just published some brilliant analysis on kids damer and
Speaker 1: what she believes is his silence when it comes to Brexit.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to go to our on the
Speaker 1: ground voice for the week, Bloomberg's reporter, Ellen Milligan, who
Speaker 1: you can't see, but she's sitting with her very virtuous What.
Speaker 3: Is it, Ellen, It looks darker than just normal green juice.
Speaker 5: It's a green juice mixed with kafir.
Speaker 3: And is it your election? Is it your election coping strategy?
Speaker 5: It's my it's getting me through the sleep deprivation and
Speaker 5: lack of vitamin d yes.
Speaker 1: Ellen, you published a piece about Brexit and Starmer. Just
Speaker 1: talk us through the things that the sources were telling you.
Speaker 5: Well, Labor has this what it describes as an ambitious
Speaker 5: plan to forge closer ties with the EU. They describe
Speaker 5: it as a new geopolitical partnership that they want to
Speaker 5: build with their closest trading partner. But the truth is
Speaker 5: that it's actually quite unambitious in the sense that it
Speaker 5: sets some very clear redlines. Labor will not rejoin the
Speaker 5: Customs Union, the Single Market will return to freedom of movement,
Speaker 5: which means it's very limited in what it can do.
Speaker 5: And essentially all it can do is kind of tinker
Speaker 5: around the edges of the training Cooperation Agreement that was
Speaker 5: agreed in twenty twenty, rather than fundamentally alter the trading relationship.
Speaker 5: So it's got a few plans. One is a veterinary agreement,
Speaker 5: which will ease that border friction, particularly on fresh food
Speaker 5: and plants. The other is a security pat which actually
Speaker 5: the EU had offered Boris Johnson and he rejected it.
Speaker 5: In the negotiation, which is to cooperate on defence R
Speaker 5: and D, joint procurement of weaponry for example for Ukraine,
Speaker 5: and then also mutual recognitions of professions and visas for musicians,
Speaker 5: all things that from my conversations with UK government officials
Speaker 5: in the Foreign Office, Labor and EU diplomats are durable
Speaker 5: but will involve concessions.
Speaker 1: So it feels to me like there's two points there.
Speaker 1: One is that they'll have to do things that they
Speaker 1: might be criticized for. Do you think they'll be criticized
Speaker 1: for them or do you think that actually with the
Speaker 1: new government and you know many people saying the opinion
Speaker 1: polls are becoming more skeptical about Brexit, do you think
Speaker 1: they will have the kind of political now is to
Speaker 1: get away with them.
Speaker 5: There's I think two reasons why they their ambition on
Speaker 5: the EU is limited. One is the political reason. They
Speaker 5: want to win back those particularly the Red Wall parts
Speaker 5: of the country that voted leave in twenty sixteen and
Speaker 5: they lost in twenty nineteen to the Conservatives, many for
Speaker 5: the first time those constituencies. But also it's a genuine
Speaker 5: desire for their first five year term not to be
Speaker 5: distracted by the same old debates about Brexit and you
Speaker 5: know which distracted the government Conservative government from public services
Speaker 5: and all these things for several years. I think when
Speaker 5: it comes to things like concessions like the ECJ, I
Speaker 5: don't think they'll have a lot of backlash internally in
Speaker 5: their Labor party, especially if they have a big majority.
Speaker 5: In fact, the labor base tends to be more pro
Speaker 5: kind of things like a youth mobility deal that we
Speaker 5: have reported in here that they actually are open to negotiating,
Speaker 5: even though they've dismissed it publicly. But I think whether
Speaker 5: their majority is big or not will defend whether they
Speaker 5: mind so much about that.
Speaker 4: Ellen, there's a really interesting nugget in the piece that
Speaker 4: you used to lead with when you were promoting it,
Speaker 4: which is what labor advisors and senior figures are saying
Speaker 4: privately about the prospect of rejoining the EU or the
Speaker 4: kind of the benefit that would have to the economy.
Speaker 4: Do you want to just spell actually the thing that
Speaker 4: they're admitting, which makes everything else that you've just said
Speaker 4: so extraordinary.
Speaker 5: I think the big overarching question for this whole five
Speaker 5: year term that Labour's likely to get is it's so
Speaker 5: reliant on economic growth being able to fund everything they
Speaker 5: want to do, pretty much on public services in particular,
Speaker 5: on defense spending, all these things. They want to get
Speaker 5: up to that kind of two percent growth that we
Speaker 5: saw under the Tony Blair euro that's stagnant for the
Speaker 5: last few years. And what Labor, some senior Labor advisors
Speaker 5: have conceded to me kind of privately, is that they
Speaker 5: know that one of the most impactful ways that they
Speaker 5: can achieve economic growth is to, for example, rejoin the
Speaker 5: Customs Union or the Single Market, and yet they have
Speaker 5: given insurances privately and publicly that they will not do
Speaker 5: that in a first five year term. Now that opens
Speaker 5: the question as to whether they could come under pressure
Speaker 5: if they don't achieve the highest growth in the G
Speaker 5: seven that they've promised, a very ambitious promise that maybe
Speaker 5: those red lines will change by the time and next
Speaker 5: selection comes along.
Speaker 4: Being in those things would have an almost immediate impact
Speaker 4: on growth where it would come through in the first
Speaker 4: term of a parliament, But just extraordinary for them to
Speaker 4: be conceding it privately and still sticking to their political approach.
Speaker 2: I wonder as well, you know, does the size of
Speaker 2: Labour's majority if it does win, and if it does
Speaker 2: win big, do you think that makes a difference on
Speaker 2: how they would think it. Obviously at the moment in
Speaker 2: the election, Labor doesn't want to say, oh, we could
Speaker 2: re join the tiger mark at the Customs Unit. It
Speaker 2: doesn't want to give any grounds and give any doubt
Speaker 2: to voters who did vote for Brexit, or at least
Speaker 2: Air not in the full sort of remain camp. Do
Speaker 2: you think that a big majority could shift things the
Speaker 2: sort of the window of conversation on EU relations further
Speaker 2: in that direction.
Speaker 5: Kis Dama's shadow cabinet is full of remainers. I mean,
Speaker 5: David Lammy described Brexit as a national tragedy and a
Speaker 5: big speech you did in Parliament after twenty twenty. But
Speaker 5: this is the thing and this this is what actually
Speaker 5: Jonathan Reynolds had a very good line, which was that
Speaker 5: our foreign policy will not be dictated by the internal
Speaker 5: party politics of the Conservative Party. And so when you say,
Speaker 5: you know, it rows over the ECJ quite niche technical
Speaker 5: things that the voting public mostly don't understand has been
Speaker 5: dominating you know, Ehr. We've seen it over immigration policy recently.
Speaker 5: Those things aren't going to be so much a problem
Speaker 5: again if there's a big labor majority, So I think
Speaker 5: that's definitely the case. But I do think there is
Speaker 5: a bit of naivety to think, you know, just because
Speaker 5: we're kind of a pro remain, pro EU party, we
Speaker 5: can kind of get all these you know, deals done.
Speaker 5: The EU is incredibly hard to negotiate with. It's very
Speaker 5: distracted by its own politics and its political shift.
Speaker 3: To the right.
Speaker 1: I suppose the thing listening to you just then, yes,
Speaker 1: they don't want their foreign policy to be set by
Speaker 1: the internal wranglings of the Tory Party. But it's clear
Speaker 1: there'll be internal wranglings of the Labor party in that
Speaker 1: if you've got, as Alex says, two hundred seat majority,
Speaker 1: you will have siren voices whispering in your ear saying
Speaker 1: you can do it, you can do it, go for it.
Speaker 1: You may not have this opportunity again, this is the
Speaker 1: right thing to do, and we all know you can
Speaker 1: do the ming Var's strategy. Ahead of an election, then
Speaker 1: people will start say you don't have to grip onto
Speaker 1: that ming Vas at all tightly or even at all
Speaker 1: you can. You can not drop it, but you know,
Speaker 1: to extend the metaphor you can relax. And I suspect,
Speaker 1: but I don't know, and I don't think anybody knows.
Speaker 1: If you have farage and reform having done right in
Speaker 1: this in this poll, you will have that that will
Speaker 1: be your sort of will be a fairly forceful.
Speaker 3: Check it, Alex.
Speaker 2: I would have thought so by the time of the
Speaker 2: next election, looking looking at five years ahead, would he
Speaker 2: need a political mandate from the public to start making
Speaker 2: these big changes with the EU? I mean, could he
Speaker 2: do them sort of in all but name without that
Speaker 2: political mandate. You know he's going to He's going to
Speaker 2: face big sort of pressure from the from them, from
Speaker 2: the sort of liberal media and from his own party.
Speaker 1: And just wanted to move on. But it's a similar territory,
Speaker 1: which is immigration. Kis Darma's got these these policies on immigration.
Speaker 1: He wants to negotiate with France on take backs, so
Speaker 1: taking back some of the asylums because.
Speaker 3: That come over.
Speaker 1: How do you think that will work? If we have
Speaker 1: on Sunday the beginning of the national rally doing very
Speaker 1: well in France's parliament.
Speaker 5: This is really interesting because while there would be Foreign Secretary,
Speaker 5: David Lammy has done a lot of work with the
Speaker 5: Republicans in the US and has kind of, you know,
Speaker 5: taken this quite pragmatic approach that they could be in
Speaker 5: government in six months time. He hasn't done that, and
Speaker 5: Kiirs Damer hasn't done that with the EUS. So what
Speaker 5: I've been told by labor contacts is that while Kiirs
Speaker 5: Starmer and David Lammy have made really good relations with
Speaker 5: ol Schultz, for example, with Lemon in Germany, France's Emanuel
Speaker 5: mccran Salma has not established a relationship with Georgia Maloney
Speaker 5: a tour or her team. They've not done work with
Speaker 5: Marine le Penz party in France or the AfD in Germany.
Speaker 5: O Left Schultz has an election next year. He looks
Speaker 5: like he's going to lose it. Mccroon's going to stay
Speaker 5: on most likely til twenty twenty seven. But then you
Speaker 5: could see a shift. So you could see this position
Speaker 5: in a Kirs Starmer administration where suddenly you're already seeing
Speaker 5: the political wins shift in the EU, but actually the
Speaker 5: leadership changes are kind of halfway through or before that,
Speaker 5: which I think will really change the way that he
Speaker 5: has relations with.
Speaker 4: I think that they do have big hopes of working
Speaker 4: quite closely with European center right parties on immigration. They
Speaker 4: have sort of plans that they wouldn't be able to
Speaker 4: do on their own basically, and they're already kind of
Speaker 4: they anticipate that illegal migration is going to be a
Speaker 4: massive issue. I mean, it's been a huge headache for
Speaker 4: She's sooner act stopping the votes, but I think they
Speaker 4: think it could get even worse into the first few
Speaker 4: years of a labor government. And they keep talking about
Speaker 4: like desperately hoping for the center right to win in
Speaker 4: various elections because they don't think that they can work
Speaker 4: with far right parties on immigration. They would just be
Speaker 4: closed out of that.
Speaker 3: But that is what's looking like happening. Yeah, what do
Speaker 3: they do.
Speaker 4: My impression is that they're still working. They still have
Speaker 4: plans that they are hoping Macron will be in place
Speaker 4: to help them deliver.
Speaker 1: That's it for now, but I'm sure we will be
Speaker 1: returning to this subject in the next few months.
Speaker 3: Ellen Milligan, thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Now onto our guest Tom Fletcher joins us in our
Speaker 1: London studio. Tom was previously the foreign policy advisor to
Speaker 1: three UK Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron,
Speaker 1: and then he became British Ambassador to Lebanon. He's currently
Speaker 1: head of Hartford College, Oxford. Tom. I remember you being
Speaker 1: certainly in your role as foreign policy advisor to Gordon Brown,
Speaker 1: and that crazy trip was it to Gulf countries and
Speaker 1: then to Auschwitz within a day.
Speaker 6: We did a lot of crazy trips together, I think,
Speaker 6: and normally I would be the person that had to
Speaker 6: come back on the plane and basically brate all the
Speaker 6: press corps for whatever story you'd written about us all.
Speaker 6: But I think that day, yeah, we were coming back
Speaker 6: out of Afghanistan. We had a very grueling trip to Afghanistan,
Speaker 6: see Karzai. Just got out in time, late at night.
Speaker 6: Otherwise the plane, the C one thirty was going to
Speaker 6: be grounded in Carbull and we'd all have stayed in
Speaker 6: carbell overnight. Got out I think by Oman, and then
Speaker 6: on to Auschwitzer the next day and then into big
Speaker 6: talks with Donald Tusk, who's now back of course in Poland.
Speaker 6: So that was just a normal day in Number ten
Speaker 6: in those days, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't think they do trips were crying quite that
Speaker 1: much in now so Gordon.
Speaker 6: You know, Gordon's shuttle diplomacy was lots of shuttle, and
Speaker 6: then I was to do the diplomacy.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: They once mistranslated my job title in China, which was
Speaker 6: the Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs to the Prime Minister,
Speaker 6: and it got mistranslated as the intimate typist, but it
Speaker 6: was them the intimate typist for the Prime Minister's affairs overseas,
Speaker 6: which of course in English means something completely different. But
Speaker 6: in reality I didn't organize any prime minister's affairs overseas.
Speaker 6: It was just but I was a kind of bad carrier,
Speaker 6: policy maker, speech writer and all the rest.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So just so, looking at the kind of strategic comparatives
Speaker 1: for possibly Prime Minister kissed Armer, what do you think
Speaker 1: are the three things he will be wanting to sort.
Speaker 6: I mean, he faces the fullest diary of state craft
Speaker 6: of any prime minister I think for their first month
Speaker 6: in office since Churchill. That's quite a big claim. But
Speaker 6: that NATO summit within days of taking office and then
Speaker 6: that first meeting with Biden, they are enormously consequential for
Speaker 6: so many of these issues NATO, Ukraine, for what happens
Speaker 6: next on the Middle East, And of course in the
Speaker 6: background there you've got the specter of the Orange, specter
Speaker 6: of Donald Trump waiting in the wings as well. So
Speaker 6: I think that set of issues is a massive, massive challenge.
Speaker 6: What next for NATO? You know what next for UK defense?
Speaker 6: How are we going to reimagine the threats that actually
Speaker 6: are coming in our direction and prepare for those. Then
Speaker 6: I think you've got a really, really tough summer on
Speaker 6: the Middle East. We may be coming to the end
Speaker 6: of this phase in Gaza, and it's been a pretty
Speaker 6: sickening eight nine months to work through. I have great
Speaker 6: fears that the wall now move north to my old
Speaker 6: stomping ground of Lebanon, and that we may see a
Speaker 6: similar military action there, which would dominate the summer and
Speaker 6: present some massive challenges to an incoming government. But then,
Speaker 6: I mean, can I have four? I mean, because Europe
Speaker 6: is also massive, and I think this is redefining. Some
Speaker 6: of that will be about body language and tone of
Speaker 6: our relationship with Europe, particularly on the security side. And
Speaker 6: then the danger will be that, look, these first thirty
Speaker 6: days will be so defining but the danger will be
Speaker 6: taking tactical decisions that then influence long term strategy. And
Speaker 6: nowhere is that more the case than on China. If
Speaker 6: you could almost work back from the end of this term,
Speaker 6: maybe the end of two terms as Prime minister, and
Speaker 6: think what is the overall tone of that relationship with
Speaker 6: China and how do we get kind of early decisions
Speaker 6: right to reflect that overall strategy.
Speaker 2: As you say, pretty early decision he's going to have
Speaker 2: to make is defense spending, and the Conservatives who've committed
Speaker 2: to two point five by twenty thirty, and Labor obviously
Speaker 2: hasn't committed to that yet, and he's got the NATO
Speaker 2: summit days after coming in. Do you think Labor's position
Speaker 2: can hold on in terms of two point five whenever
Speaker 2: we can, which is basically their current position, or will
Speaker 2: will they come under pressure from Biden or other allies
Speaker 2: to really firm up their policy on that.
Speaker 6: I think there will be pressure there, but I also
Speaker 6: think they can hold off. A lot of expectations around
Speaker 6: that summit will be that they're talking to a grown
Speaker 6: up who's going to be there for eight years, and
Speaker 6: the body language and the tone will be as important
Speaker 6: as what they announce, it will be this sense that
Speaker 6: you have a prime minister there who is going to
Speaker 6: be engaged. He's going to build the relationships, he's going
Speaker 6: to work on these practical issues. So I think they'll
Speaker 6: give him some time. There won't be an expectation that
Speaker 6: everything happens immediately. You know, I mentioned how difficult the
Speaker 6: calendar is for those thirty days, but that's also an
Speaker 6: opportunity because you can do a lot of that stake craft,
Speaker 6: a lot of that relationship building, and try to hold
Speaker 6: off some of those big long term strategic decisions. That
Speaker 6: would be my advice to them.
Speaker 4: And he'll be hosting, of course, all the European leaders
Speaker 4: at blenh And Palace was in a few weeks of
Speaker 4: becoming Prime minister as well. If you were advising him
Speaker 4: high should he approach that sort of initial speed to
Speaker 4: it with all these quick bilasterals with those European leaders.
Speaker 6: Well, you've made it sound much more fun than it
Speaker 6: will really be. Speed dating is one way of putting it.
Speaker 6: It's pretty crueling. I mean, there's no room for error.
Speaker 6: And of course the media, as you know, we used
Speaker 6: to always talk about on the plane on the way back.
Speaker 6: Normally from these visits immediately waiting for any sign that
Speaker 6: you know of incompetence or failure or gap. The first
Speaker 6: few months when I worked for David Cameron, the media,
Speaker 6: we're just waiting, hanging on his every word for him
Speaker 6: to get something wrong. And these are kind of complex briefs,
Speaker 6: and in the midst of it all you're trying to
Speaker 6: build that relationship with these other leaders, and so much
Speaker 6: of that is it's actually about the theater of it.
Speaker 6: And in the midst of that, many of those European
Speaker 6: leaders are also in a state of flux as well.
Speaker 6: Macronlemal delay and you know the Germans that so all
Speaker 6: of that it's like a sort of multi dimensional game
Speaker 6: of chess. Now he'll have brilliant people around him who
Speaker 6: will have prepared those enormous stacks of briefing, but it
Speaker 6: would be somebody's job to basically say to him before
Speaker 6: every meeting, as I used to have to do with
Speaker 6: with with Gordon and then with David Cameron, well you know,
Speaker 6: here are the three things that you've got to remember
Speaker 6: in this meeting. That's three things to get right, and
Speaker 6: here are the three things that you're going to be
Speaker 6: hit by from the other side.
Speaker 1: You've painted the opportunities for Starmer, but there are problems
Speaker 1: and there are sort of limits to his maneuverability. Let's
Speaker 1: just sort of chunk them up. We've heard from Ellen
Speaker 1: Melogan earlier about restrictions to his ability on Europe and
Speaker 1: what he might do to make Brexit work better for
Speaker 1: the UK. What's your analysis of where that ends up.
Speaker 6: That will take time and shouldn't be rushed. My advice
Speaker 6: to them would be to try and get a sort
Speaker 6: of heavyweight character in there. You know, there are lots
Speaker 6: of these big figures from previous labor. I think they've
Speaker 6: got a great ambassador on the ground already. I'm I'm
Speaker 6: not suggesting, I'm not trying to fire task force. I
Speaker 6: mean having someone who really owns that dossier and is
Speaker 6: working at twenty four to seven to work out where
Speaker 6: the opportunities will be to rebuild that relationship in very practical,
Speaker 6: tangible ways. I think the low hanging fruit in all
Speaker 6: of that is on security and defense, where it's clearly
Speaker 6: in the interests of the Europeans that we're working more
Speaker 6: closely together. And I believe, and more importantly, our defense
Speaker 6: people believe that it's very much in our interests that
Speaker 6: we align more clearly in response to these threats from
Speaker 6: Russia inside Europe, from new weapons from cyber Ai. You know,
Speaker 6: there are lots and lots of reasons why we need
Speaker 6: that alignment, and so it feels like that's an early
Speaker 6: prize for an incoming Labor administration, but also for the
Speaker 6: Europeans as well.
Speaker 4: Tom, do you have someone in mind when you're saying
Speaker 4: you need someone to really own that brief, because.
Speaker 6: Definitely I've got my hands for.
Speaker 4: We were talking about this earlier. David miller Band former
Speaker 4: of course Labor Foreign Secretary now in America leading a
Speaker 4: big NGO. He gave a very interesting speech at the
Speaker 4: Irish Embassy within the past couple of months on the
Speaker 4: UK's relationship with the EU and the US. It looked
Speaker 4: like he was sort of making a pitch for David
Speaker 4: Lammy's job or the US and sit a role, but
Speaker 4: we hit the real focus was on the UK and EU.
Speaker 4: Do you think that's that's something for him.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't know. And we're never very good at using
Speaker 6: our kind of former big figures in the UK. And
Speaker 6: it's a cross party problem and it's a whitehall problem.
Speaker 6: As well. We tend to assume that once someone has
Speaker 6: left office, they're sort of no longer on the bench.
Speaker 6: For us. You've got great people cross party. David Cameron's
Speaker 6: one of them, for example. I don't know whether he'll
Speaker 6: be sat standing by the phone after the election waiting
Speaker 6: for a call, but you know, using that expertise and
Speaker 6: that heft and that those networks that he's built up.
Speaker 6: David Millervan is obviously a massive heavyweight. Knows the UN
Speaker 6: inside out, knows the Americans, particularly the Democrats, very well.
Speaker 1: It's very surprising if you didn't have some kind of role,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it I'm not my observation.
Speaker 6: Would seem a waste. It seem would seem a waste
Speaker 6: not to have. You know, some of your star strikers
Speaker 6: on the pitch. I'd add into the mix. Kathy Ashton,
Speaker 6: former EU High Rep. You know, real pro, amazing behind
Speaker 6: the scenes negotiator, massive credibility in Washington and in Europe,
Speaker 6: and really good networks. Valerie Amos who ran at the
Speaker 6: UN Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs, you know, another massive heavyweight in
Speaker 6: the UN system. So you've got always big names out there.
Speaker 6: I'm now going to get Ino trouble with all the people,
Speaker 6: haven't You haven't mentioned. But we should get better. We
Speaker 6: should be bigger as a government and better at bringing
Speaker 6: those voices into the conversation.
Speaker 1: But one of the problems he will have is whatever
Speaker 1: the shape of the French Parliament is in the next
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, what do you think will be the
Speaker 1: impact of a move to the right in the French
Speaker 1: Parliament on a starmer policy platform.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think it will make his europeanislckats very jumpy,
Speaker 6: very edgy. That you know, they're not talking about the
Speaker 6: UK election. When you go to Paris or Berlin or Brussels,
Speaker 6: the conversation is all about France at the moment, and
Speaker 6: and about that wider right wood shift in Europe. It's
Speaker 6: strange to think after the last you know, let's say
Speaker 6: decade or so, where the UK has often resembled this
Speaker 6: kind of circular firing squad and everyone's been looking in
Speaker 6: at us and saying, can you stop exporting problems and
Speaker 6: start exporting solutions again? It'd be strange to think that
Speaker 6: at the end of this year, depending on what happens
Speaker 6: in the States, the Brits could be one of the
Speaker 6: real grown ups in the room again one of the
Speaker 6: forces of stability and calm in that conversation. But it
Speaker 6: will definitely influence how much attention those Europeans are able
Speaker 6: to spend on the practical things, because they will be
Speaker 6: very jittery.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to Gaza in the Middle East. You
Speaker 1: said at the beginning of the conversation you thought, actually
Speaker 1: the summer could bring things even more to a head,
Speaker 1: and it might bring in your old stomping ground of Lebanon,
Speaker 1: Alverat and alex report a lot on the balance within
Speaker 1: the Labor Party of opinion wanting Starma to be tougher
Speaker 1: on Israel and so on, possible even discussions of an
Speaker 1: arms embargo. How does that play for Starma? Is there
Speaker 1: a clear role for him to lead that in the
Speaker 1: international community or will he have to rein that in.
Speaker 6: I think all these issues look very different the moment
Speaker 6: you're on the other side of the black door as well,
Speaker 6: that moment when you know you assume the role of
Speaker 6: Prime Minister and the phone calls start coming in. You know,
Speaker 6: as David Cameron walked through that door, I pretty much
Speaker 6: handed in the phone and said President at Arma's on
Speaker 6: the line. And here's what you need to say, so
Speaker 6: it will feel and look different to the team when
Speaker 6: they're in there. I think that they clearly have an
Speaker 6: early decision to make on whether to recognize the state
Speaker 6: of Palestine, and that will be one way of showing
Speaker 6: that they can do things slightly different. I think they'll
Speaker 6: have an early decision on whether to resume funding to UNRAH,
Speaker 6: the Refugee and Works Agency for the Palestinians, which will
Speaker 6: certainly be something the Foreign Office and other bits of
Speaker 6: government will be saying, you know, we've got to get
Speaker 6: back in there and start to rebuild, start to support civilians.
Speaker 6: So perhaps those decisions come sooner than decisions on in
Speaker 6: arms embargo, for example. They've got to basically think about
Speaker 6: how do we get the narrative back to the two
Speaker 6: states solution, how do we get it back onto the
Speaker 6: big prize here, which is normalization of relations between Israel
Speaker 6: and the wider region that includes a Palestine and state.
Speaker 6: You know, that's the big conversation if you're looking five
Speaker 6: ten years ahead. And so they've got to be careful
Speaker 6: not to make those sort of tactical misjudgments that might
Speaker 6: undermine that strategic objective and then as I say, you
Speaker 6: know this real fear I have that we could through
Speaker 6: the summer be into a different phase of conflict. You know,
Speaker 6: Israel and Hesbela already at war. More Hebela fighters have
Speaker 6: died since October the seventh than in the whole two
Speaker 6: thousand and six conflict. More rockets have been fired by
Speaker 6: Hisbellah on Israeli towns than in that whole conflict. It's
Speaker 6: not as bad as it can be, and I fear
Speaker 6: it will get much worse. But that will probably be
Speaker 6: the big issue that dominates the first summer of Labor
Speaker 6: foreign policy.
Speaker 2: On the arms in bargo for Israel. Possibly David Lammy's
Speaker 2: scrutiny of David cameron over the last few months has
Speaker 2: left Labor in a position where they are essentially in
Speaker 2: favor of stopping arms to Israel in all but name.
Speaker 2: You know that everything that they say about why has
Speaker 2: the government not published legal advice going back months in
Speaker 2: terms of what Israel's been up to in cars? Is
Speaker 2: it possible for Labor to wrote back from that position.
Speaker 6: When you look at the statements David Lammy has made
Speaker 6: a shadow Foreign secretary, but also look at Kirstarmer's background
Speaker 6: in international human rights law, it's very difficult for them
Speaker 6: not to be in a position where they're backing up
Speaker 6: the rule of law, and so I suspect, and you know,
Speaker 6: my advice to them would be that they should they
Speaker 6: should get in there and see what that legal advice is.
Speaker 6: And I think at that point that the decisions that
Speaker 6: they have to take will become very very clear. I
Speaker 6: don't know them well enough to know how they take decisions,
Speaker 6: but I suspect, having observed them from distance, that they're
Speaker 6: probably quite methodical, quite practical about it, and quite loyally
Speaker 6: in it all. So I imagine they they'll get in there
Speaker 6: with their own legal advisors and take their view, and
Speaker 6: that could lead to a different policy outcome in the end,
Speaker 6: But it depends what's in that advice.
Speaker 4: Tom. It's so interesting from hearing you speak, it's as
Speaker 4: though you expect David Lammie and the Labor administration to
Speaker 4: sort of be a bit more muscular, to take a
Speaker 4: bit more of a lead on those kinds of questions
Speaker 4: and make up their own minds on it. When I've
Speaker 4: been speaking to them privately over the past few months,
Speaker 4: it has felt with a lot of the things on
Speaker 4: Gaza that they've just been very careful to track what
Speaker 4: the Americans are doing. So I'm wondering, how will those
Speaker 4: conversations with the US go about the UK potentially wanting
Speaker 4: to recognize Palestine and those kinds of things, How would
Speaker 4: that affect the US relationship.
Speaker 6: It will be on that list of on that first
Speaker 6: agenda for that first contact with Biden in July, for
Speaker 6: that first phone call. Probably I imagine Biden would put down
Speaker 6: a marker on that call that he looks forward to
Speaker 6: discussing Ukraine, NATO, and the Middle East and probably China.
Speaker 6: Those will be the three things. I think the Americans
Speaker 6: will just want to register that level of interest and
Speaker 6: concern on early on to signal that when they actually
Speaker 6: do then sit down and you know, a few days
Speaker 6: later in Washington, that they'll be there serious pressure from
Speaker 6: the Americans or all three. Ukraine LATO is top of
Speaker 6: that list, actually above above the Middle East. I think
Speaker 6: the American administration at the moment is trying to exert
Speaker 6: a lot of pressure on Israel behind the scenes to
Speaker 6: restrain them from a full scale invasion of Lebanon and
Speaker 6: to try and try and get them to change the
Speaker 6: conduct of the war in Gaza. Now there may be
Speaker 6: a public line therefore with pressure on the UK not
Speaker 6: to be more creative and muscular as you describe then,
Speaker 6: but I wonder whether in private whether there will be
Speaker 6: so tough with the UK. Maybe they'll think it's in
Speaker 6: their interest to have the UK slightly outriding a bit
Speaker 6: to remind Israel that it's not as straightforward as they
Speaker 6: think it is.
Speaker 1: Currently the US administration is when you can see the
Speaker 1: star mutee working very comfortably with If there's a change
Speaker 1: in November to Trump, we've heard of this David Lammy
Speaker 1: idea of progressive realism that's going to see them work
Speaker 1: we think very comfortably with Trump.
Speaker 3: How credible is that?
Speaker 6: I think Trump in his first term did a huge
Speaker 6: amount to prove his critics right. He vandalized the alliances
Speaker 6: on which we rely, He vandalized the institutions like NATO
Speaker 6: and the UN that are such a key part of
Speaker 6: UK strategic interests. And of course he vandalized the values
Speaker 6: that we share with the Americans, with the Europeans and
Speaker 6: with others. And I worry that the Trump two point
Speaker 6: zero would be even more erratic, would crash around even
Speaker 6: more and do even more damage to our interests. Now,
Speaker 6: let's see, maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I think
Speaker 6: most diplomats would share that fear as to what we
Speaker 6: might face after November if somehow the American people elect him. Now,
Speaker 6: what does that mean for Prime Minister Starmer and a
Speaker 6: Foreign Secretary Lammy. It will mean that they do have
Speaker 6: to kind of pull their punchers a bit in the
Speaker 6: next few months, that they do have to hold off
Speaker 6: in case Trump is elected, because if he is, they'll
Speaker 6: need to find a way to build a pragmatic relationship.
Speaker 6: You know, where can we exert influence, How can we
Speaker 6: build a relationship where we can actually limit the damage
Speaker 6: that he will do? And that will mean holding back
Speaker 6: on some of the temptation to go for strong rhetoric
Speaker 6: and to think fairly pessimistically about what the minimum we
Speaker 6: can come out of the next four or five years
Speaker 6: with is Perhaps.
Speaker 2: The most immediate sort of danger for Trump presidency is
Speaker 2: to Ukraine. And you know, if Trump was to change
Speaker 2: America's position on Ukraine towards negotiations towards you know, seeding territory,
Speaker 2: do you think Starmer is he able to counter that?
Speaker 2: Is he able to lobby Trump against moving America's position
Speaker 2: or is that just a no Hoper stance. Can Britain
Speaker 2: have its own position or does it have to follow
Speaker 2: America's position on Ukraine?
Speaker 6: It doesn't have to follow a Trump position on Ukraine.
Speaker 6: Particularly if Trump was basically fold in the cards and
Speaker 6: just saying pego putin, you win, which is what that
Speaker 6: would be. It would be a capitulation to putin. I
Speaker 6: think this is one of those areas where if progress
Speaker 6: is made at the European Political Council in July late
Speaker 6: July in Blenham and building up those relationships, in making
Speaker 6: that a more load bearing conversation with the Europeans on
Speaker 6: our security, then you could see a clearer European position
Speaker 6: in opposition to Trump on that. Now, whether that actually
Speaker 6: can exercise much influence on him, I'm not sure. We
Speaker 6: all overestimated the influence that we could have on Trump
Speaker 6: first time round, you know, sticking him in a gold
Speaker 6: carriage on the mall and so on. We all like
Speaker 6: to think that we are so persuasive, and I've seen
Speaker 6: some Prime ministers feel this way as well, that with
Speaker 6: such brilliant, influential, persuasive characters, that we can bring these
Speaker 6: hard liners around. There's no evidence from Trump in the
Speaker 6: first term that suggests that we can do that, just
Speaker 6: as there hasn't been much evidence that we could do
Speaker 6: it with bib nettin Nia who over the last nine months.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's one hundred more questions, but I think
Speaker 1: in terms of time, we probably want to run a
Speaker 1: lot of that. So that's a great place to leave
Speaker 1: it for now. Tom, Will you come back and join
Speaker 1: us in the months ahead these events are real rather
Speaker 1: than in prospect.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I feel we'll be talking about foreign policy a
Speaker 6: lot over the next three months.
Speaker 3: Tom Fletcher, thank you very much.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to hear him be unequivocally concerned about Trump ather.
Speaker 4: Yees striking, isn't it? Because I suppose some people have
Speaker 4: maybe made their peace with it or just thinking even
Speaker 4: I think privately lots of labor people just sort of
Speaker 4: thinking that that's a bridge they may likely have to cross,
Speaker 4: and so they're just already thinking about it. It's interesting
Speaker 4: to just have another voice to spell it again, the
Speaker 4: mass of concerns around that.
Speaker 2: I thought it was really interesting him sort of saying
Speaker 2: that there's almost a naivety among European politicians who think
Speaker 2: they can go over and diplomatically make their case to
Speaker 2: Trump world. Boris Johnson, we've s and make the argument
Speaker 2: to Donald Trump on in favor of continue to support
Speaker 2: for Ukraine. It is very unclear whether that has made
Speaker 2: any difference.
Speaker 4: I was trying to imagine it. It's hard just with
Speaker 4: the personalities to imagine Starmer and Trump Gelling.
Speaker 1: I think I think reporters, you guys are going to
Speaker 1: have a lot of fun at the first Trump Starmer
Speaker 1: press conference where you've got the former Director of Prosecutions
Speaker 1: up of the UK alongside someone who's been convicted of
Speaker 1: fifty four crimes.
Speaker 2: You could barely imagine two more different people. Everything that
Speaker 2: Kirs Starmer sets is about public service and restoring priberty
Speaker 2: in public life and all of this stuff. I think
Speaker 2: we're pretty pretty clear on how much contempt to Kis
Speaker 2: Starma had for Boris Johnson. Well, Donald Trump's a different.
Speaker 1: Level against all of that. I think the thing I
Speaker 1: have observed in recent years is that you can have
Speaker 1: unlikely alliances. They can be more powerful because of it,
Speaker 1: and if their agendas in any way coalesce or a line,
Speaker 1: then then we have seen.
Speaker 2: It, Yeah, and it is important to say that we
Speaker 2: don't for certain know what Trump's going to do. One
Speaker 2: things like Ukraine optimists in the West clearly see a
Speaker 2: world where Trump thinks there's political opportunity for him to
Speaker 2: continue to support Ukraine militarily and to show America is stronger,
Speaker 2: and you show progress in the way that Biden has
Speaker 2: unable to be unable to on the on the battlefield.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's not it's not a complete no hoper,
Speaker 2: but certainly difficult.
Speaker 4: I also thought that one of Tom's first comments that
Speaker 4: we need to get him back on to discuss in
Speaker 4: more detail maybe is saying about how Labour needs to
Speaker 4: work backwards in terms of where it wants its relationship
Speaker 4: with China to be at the end of one parliament
Speaker 4: or two parliaments. That's clearly the sort of big strategic difficulty.
Speaker 4: There are lots of sort of industrial and geopolitical questions
Speaker 4: that Labour's going to have to tackle that everyone's already
Speaker 4: talking about privately. So I think that's going to be
Speaker 4: really interesting.
Speaker 3: Until we see you next.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Alva Ray and Alex Wickham, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to this week's vot Nomics from Bloomberg. This
Speaker 1: episode was hosted by me alegra Stratton with Alex Wickham
Speaker 1: and Alva Ray. It was produced by Somersadi with bookly
Speaker 1: support from Chris Martin, production support and sound design by
Speaker 1: Moses and am Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Sage Bauman is Head of Podcasts and special thanks to
Speaker 1: Tom Fletcher and Ellen Milligan. Please subscribe, rate, and review
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts