571. Rory and Alastair Challenge Ed Miliband on Israel-Palestine

Last week, for the first time, the UK Foreign Secretary has announced sanctions against Israeli settlers and that new Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has come out with one of the clearest boldest statements about the illegality of the occupation. He's a new Foreign Secretary barely seven weeks into the role and we have him here with us today. We've received a thousand questions from listeners coming in for our new Foreign Secretary. We're very lucky to have him with us on the show. We're going to be asking how did he arrive at this position? What does it mean? Will he go further? And above all, we're going to step back and we're going to ask how much difference really can Britain make to the world? How much difference can it make to peace in Israel, Palestine? Can it join Mark Carney in redefining a new alliance that could have an independent voice from the US and China and stand up for the values we care about and confront the incredible crises which are accelerating all around us? 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And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go. I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creef. And of course, the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. It was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying. If you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks. Well, I think you're not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this. Or should I say Fiona managed to do this? I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So, to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com slash restlesspolitics. That's nordvpn.com slash restlesspolitics. And the link is in the episode description. So, Ed, we had well over a thousand questions from our listeners. And a lot of them were, I'd say, expressing support for the measures that you announced in Parliament recently. But maybe we'll get to go further. David, shouldn't the British government sanction the Israeli government that gives political and military support to the settlers and not just the settlers themselves? Why make the distinction when it is one system of occupation, which the UK now acknowledges is illegal? Can I come to the question just sort of do a slightly bigger picture? But I think it's important to contextualize this. What are we trying to do? We are trying to uphold the longstanding vision of successive British governments for a two-state solution. And we see the two-state solution, as your listeners will know, being destroyed by the facts on the ground. I think over – when I became Foreign Secretary, when I talked to Andy about this, we both agreed that mouthing platitudes about the two-state solution while seeing it destroyed was just no good. And therefore, all of the measures we were about were to make a difference to that. And the sanctions regime we're bringing in is deliberately targeted at the illegal occupation, as we confirmed with the judgment that I talked about in Parliament. And it's not targeted at delegitimizing in any way the state of Israel. And so that's the distinction I want to draw. And so the answer to your listeners' questions, we have sanctioned individual members of the Israeli government, Ben-Gavir and Smotrich, for the comments they have made and for what they've encouraged. But, you know, part of this is we want to have a relationship with Israel. We are trying to delegitimize the occupation. So, Foreign Secretary, this is a question coming up. Call me Ed, I think. Thank you. I'm very uncomfortable. He doesn't like doing that. I don't like doing that. He respects the position, not the person. Maybe it's that, Ed. Even if he apologized to you on air last week. I love the person, but I feel uncomfortable calling you Ed. He's known you for so long. Okay. All right. I'll call you Ed. Foreign Secretary stroke Ed, which you're very kindly encouraging me to ask you. We've had a number of questions, which I think kind of follow on a little bit from what you've said. And I think the nub of it is this, that it's very difficult to draw a clear line between the Israeli government, the settlements and the legal occupation. I mean, just to put myself in for a second, I felt when I was the junior minister in the foreign office, it took me some time to realize that what we were saying in Britain, these are all illegal settlements. This is occupied Palestinian territory, in which we were saying to the Israeli government was not the way that a lot of my colleagues in the Israeli government saw it. In fact, actually, they distinguished between settlements that they felt were legal, settlements that they called outposts. They never used the word occupied Palestinian territory. So, I sort of wonder whether there hasn't been this weird ambiguity at the heart of our relationship with this for decades now. Well, maybe that is true. But I suppose what really struck me in preparing to make this statement is some people didn't like what we said. But I think what was so clear was the status quo is not working. The status quo and E1, which your listeners may be familiar with, which is this settlement expansion, a tender was announced in August, had long been seen as a red line for the international community on these questions because it basically would split off East Jerusalem from the West Bank and really makes a Palestinian state unviable. I agree with you that in some of the conversations I had in the run-up to this statement, some people would say to me, well, some settlements we don't like, but some settlements may well be part of a future Israel on the basis of a negotiation. But to say something might be part of a future two-state solution through a negotiated settlement is very different than something that is occupied. And just this point on the illegality of the occupation, I mean, it's a big step that we've taken. The ICJ took a view on this in 2024. But it's the length of the occupation, the sense of permanence of the occupation, the driving out, the displacement of many Palestinians as part of this. So it's a combination of those things that led us to that view. John, while the sanctions are of course welcome, why so little action taken on the utter destruction of Gaza? Fiona and I went to see a film last night called Life Support, which is about British and other international doctors who've been in Gaza on and off over the last few years. We both came out of it in a complete rage because so much of it we don't see. These are people who've gone in as doctors. They filmed it, watching people being amputated on the floor, watching kids roll around in their own blood. It is unspeakable. And one of the points they made, you may have seen, she's not been on television that much because I'm afraid the media haven't shown that much interest in this. But the fact that a doctor called Victoria Rose, who she's been desperately trying to persuade the government to see her film, to see this film, to look at it, and just to speak out against the, now you've spoken out, and that's in relation to the settlements and in particular the West Bank, but what's happening in Gaza whilst you were in the cabinet is utterly unspeakable. Well, I have spoken out on Gaza as well because I met, in the run-up to my statement, I met a group of aid workers and a doctor who'd worked in Gaza, and it's absolutely unspeakable what they were saying. You know, the delay or denial of medicines, children dying on not being able to get out, waiting for relatively basic medical treatment, just the whole litany of things. Doctors being killed? A whole range of things. It is unspeakable and appalling. I talked about increasing evidence of war crimes because you're not supposed to deny, obviously, access to basic food, medicine, and all of that. The way in which so-called dual-use goods are stopped from going in, even though they are very, very innocent goods because somehow they could be used as weapons of war. Right, the instruments you need for operations. Yeah, absolutely. It seems like absolutely a deliberate strategy. We're going to be hosting a conference at the UN General Assembly next week with Jordan to try and draw attention to the health and humanitarian crisis and really strategize with partners about what can we do. And so, look, you're right. In a sense, I feel a sense of frustration that we can't do more on Gaza. We are taking humanitarian action. We want to do more. We are going to extend our sanctions regime to breaches of international humanitarian law, which could potentially help us to take action in Gaza. But really, you know, while Israel is in control of so much of the territory, while the 20-point peace plan, the Trump 20-point peace plan is not being implemented, you know, the situation on the ground is terrible. And, you know, the harsh spotlight of truth about what is happening is essential. I'm very happy to see the film, by the way. I'd like to see the film. It's on Apple TV, but I think it'd be great if you met the team. The doctors are incredible. Definitely. I'd like to. I absolutely will meet them. I want to do as much as I can on this. It's so terrible what is happening. And obviously, I think it is important to say this. All of us condemn in the strongest terms the murder that Hamas did on October the 7th, but nothing can justify what has unfolded in Gaza since then. And actually, it's worth saying since the ceasefire, the so-called ceasefire, 1200 Palestinians have been killed. You know, that is not much of a ceasefire. Max is asking how the mechanism is supposed to work. Is it just signaling to domestic audience? And I suppose you could develop Max's question because it's a question that many, many listens to. It's a very fundamental question, which is fundamentally people think it's too late. Britain doesn't really matter in the way that it would have done 20 years ago. If you'd done this when you were in with Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, it would have had much more influence. Our economy is much smaller. Our power is much less. We've left Europe, you know, and a lot of my friends in Israel say, well, to be honest, we're upset. We're angry. The British government said it's not going to make much difference to our decision-making. I think there's two parts to this. One is, can we have an impact on the settlement expansion? We believe we can with the sanctions regime because what we're trying to do is to cut off what you might call the supply lines of British finance, British construction, and so on to help settlement expansion. Will it definitely succeed? I can't say it'll definitely succeed. Does it have a chance of succeeding, particularly with other international partners acting? Maybe it does. That's the whole intention behind it. But I think there is something else. This is the second part of what I want to say. There is something else here that we don't know what's going to happen in the Israeli election on October 27th. But we are trying to send a very clear message really to the Israeli people to say, look, the international community is not going to stand by as this occupation proceeds. With all the settler violence, settler terrorism, with essentially the elimination or the attempt to eliminate a two-state solution, we can't give up. There is no alternative. By the way, security for Israel, I think, is reliant on a two-state solution. Netanyahu is not making Israel more secure. He's making it less secure. So I think we've got to do everything we can, and this is part of that. This event I was at last night, somebody came up to me at the end and asked whether I thought you would be encouraged by, I said that we were talking to you today, whether you would be encouraged by the very muted response of the United States to your statement. Was that something you discussed with Rubio? Was that something that you expected? Or are you doing this almost without regard to the Americans because they're currently so unreliable? We're doing it because it's the right thing for Britain to do, and it is about standing up for what is right. I also think it is that there is no stable Middle East without two-state solutions, as I've said. So we're doing it because it's right. Obviously, we talked to the US in advance. I don't want to speak for them because I think that wouldn't be the right thing to do. But I think what I can say is that the world over, people are deeply disturbed by what is happening in the US Bank and Gaza. I think the Israeli government is losing friends. It's not gaining allies. It's lost allies. It's losing allies all over. I think the other thing that is really interesting because I think it's important to – this can feel like too much of an elite conversation. It's really important to say that the publics across the world have been mobilized by this issue. We see it in Britain. We see it in the US. We see it in the rest of Europe. What happened in Gaza, what's happening in the West Bank has really mobilized people across the world, and rightly so. What's the solution? I mean, we've had a question here coming from Jack, who's a Trip Plus member from Essex. And he was particularly struck by two people we interviewed called Mawaz and Aziz, Palestinian-Israeli, who are talking about resolving the war in Gaza, starting with peace, conflict resolution. And what's your vision on what will happen? And let me put in a little coda. Let's say, for whatever reason, the answer isn't quite a two-state solution, that maybe that boat has sailed, however wonderful it would have been if Blair and Brown had gone on with it. How would you think about an alternative route to peace? Well, I don't think there is an alternative route. I mean, you should tell me what you think it is. But what do we want to happen? We've got to have Hamas disarmament and Israel to withdraw from Gaza, because what is happening in Gaza, 80% of the population penned into one third of the territory. We've got to put a stop to the settler terrorism, genuine terrorism. I use the phrase ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists. That is what is happening, not originally my phrase, but that of Ehud Elmert describing what is happening. We need Palestinian Authority reform, but we also need the Palestinian Authority not to be starved of funds in the way that Israel is doing. We need an inter-settlement expansion. And then we need to start to get a process towards a two-state solution. I'm not going to overstate this, because the idea that we're going to have a two-state solution next month, next year is unlikely. But we are so heading in the wrong direction, we need a change in direction. And I guess that the pushback would be that those four things that you've mentioned are basically just taking us back to the world before October 7th. If you're a Palestinian, you're just saying, well, it's not really progress, because what it is, is something that could have been said in the 90s or early 2000s. You know, Palestinian Authority is hopeless. We need to stop the settlers. We need to disarm Hamas, et cetera. You could have said it in 2005. But since then, the reality of the settlements has been to make it almost impossible to imagine a contiguous Palestinian state. And Israeli opinion has shifted so much. I mean, that's the thing that's so devastating here, is that the people who in the 90s were in favor of this now openly, most Israelis will say to me, no, of course, we don't think it's going to be a Palestinian state. I know, Rory, but just to put the question back to you, yes, you know, to say it looks bleak is correct. And to say the first four things I talked about are trying to get back to where we were before October 7th is also correct, although there was settlement expansion happening before October 7th. And if you're pointing out, I read in the run up to the statement, the Nobel Prize lecture by Rabin in 1994 makes you weep, makes you weep how far away we are, how hopeful things seemed at that time. But you've got to start somewhere. I think the other thing is I've been interested in Allison's view on this. No one thought there was going to be peace in Northern Ireland before the Good Friday Agreement. If you'd said to people a couple of years earlier that we'd have the Good Friday Agreement, nobody would have really believed you. And this isn't meant to sound like false optimism or just sort of kind of airy-fairy stuff. But I think you've got to hope that you can build momentum after the Israeli election towards something better. And then you've got to build a more virtuous circle towards improvement on the ground and trust building and so on. But that's the way peace starts. I mean, the guys we interviewed, Mao and Aziz, and we did an event last week at the festival hall with them. But the point they made was that they have this thing. This speaks to your point. They basically say, we could do this in two weeks. We could actually do it. And Aziz in particular is obsessed with the Northern Ireland peace process and sort of makes that point. So you do have to keep going and you do have to be positive. You've mentioned the Israeli elections a couple of times. We didn't get that many questions that were coming from a sort of supportive of the Israeli government position. But the ones that we did were essentially saying, were you in doing this either risking pushing Israeli people towards support for the current regime or actually trying to get this argument at a time that it might influence Israeli elections? Would you like the Netanyahu government to fall? So who the Israeli people elect in their elections is a matter for them. We've made clear our position to what the Netanyahu government has been doing over the last few years, but that is firmly a matter for them. The second part of your – I want to deal with both of them because they're both important questions. The second part of your question, did we sort of time this somehow influence the Israeli election? Absolutely not. The first part of your question is the sort of in a way the opposite question, which some people put to us in the run up, which is don't do this now. It will only help Netanyahu. We'll just wait. And we thought a lot about that. I don't buy it. And I'll tell you why I don't buy it. First of all, because it's sort of like, well, there's never a good time. It's like the law of the unripe time or something. A colleague of mine says, not now, do it later. Secondly, I think it overstates the impact of Britain on the Israeli election decision. And actually, when you look at how high it was up the news, it wasn't the top news item. In Israel? Yeah, it wasn't the top news item on the day. I think it was halfway down the news. And then it overstates our influence and it also outsources our responsibilities. In the end, the view I took was we can't outsource our political moral responsibilities to the Israeli opposition. We've got to make our own decisions about what we think is right. And just to go to the nub of this, which is once you take the view that the occupation is illegal, if you then say, oh, but we actually want the same economic relationships we'd have with any other territory. I mean, then you are, it's obviously a deeply unprincipled position. So therefore, you've got to fit your economic relationships into your view of the occupation. So you've said it's ethnic cleansing. Quite a lot of our questions want to know whether you think what's happening in Palestine, the Occupied Territories is genocide. And a very important question I think from Howard is from Melbourne in Australia. What is the threshold to apply sanctions fully to Israel as was applied to South Africa? Given it's now clear Israel intends to ethnically clear the majority of Palestinians at the West Bank and likely to in Gaza. A lot of people making that comparison feel there's a double standard going on. You're moving the position, but there's still a sense that Israel gets treated a lot better than the South Africans did. On ethnic cleansing, what we've said is that the settler terrorists have practiced ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. And too often, the Israeli government has turned a blind eye and members of it have made statements to encourage the false displacement of Palestinians. The reason I say that is because I was very careful and thought a lot in the run up to this statement about the words I use. We've also said increasing evidence of war crimes in Gaza. Just on genocide, it's really important to explain this. The term genocide obviously dates back to the Holocaust and the Genocide Convention of 1948. It's always been the case that the UK government has taken a view on genocide after a court or the ICJ in this case because they're considering this issue reaches a ruling. And I think it is very, very important that we stick to that. And that was the case with genocide against the Yezidi people, Srebrenica, the whole Rwanda, the whole history. But we did say, and I did say in the statement, we think it is important the court is looking at this issue and we support them reaching a determination. But I think it's just so important that one takes special care, particularly on the term of genocide, given its historical origins. And I was very careful about the words I chose. And some people didn't like the fact that I said it was ethnic cleansing on the West Bank. But that's what the former Prime Minister of Israel said, former Israeli general. But in your view, is the state of Israel seeking to destroy, eliminate part of an ethnic group in Gaza? Well, the state of Israel is a separate point. It's really important in these discussions to make distinctions. The Israeli government is distinct from the state of Israel. Israel is doing that. The government of Israel is doing that. Well, I'm not choosing those words. I'm choosing a different set of words. I think it's certainly the case that Israeli ministers have said things which have suggested a kind of a blanket view of everybody in Gaza. They've made comments that would be suggestive of wanting to not just kill Hamas terrorists, but at least push out and displace all residents of Gaza, force displacement. But I just think I'm choosing my words very carefully, because I think it is very, very important to choose one's words carefully in this. And I think where we've chosen, what we've chosen to say is increasing evidence of war crimes, and as I say, ethnic cleansing by settler terrorists. Francis, let's take a quick break and then come back and move on to your bigger portfolio and responsibilities. This episode is brought to you by Alzheimer's Research UK. It's Tom Holland here from Goldhangers. The rest is history. Now, in the course of a single lifetime, our understanding of a disease can change dramatically and the way that we treat it can change as well. So if you're born in the 1970s, you've seen cancer survival rates double and deaths by heart attacks have fallen by nearly 90%. What that means is people living longer, conditions becoming manageable, and new possibilities for treatment evolving that simply hadn't existed before. 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Welcome back to the Recess Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. So let's now look at your bigger role. You've just become Foreign Secretary. You've been in for how long now? Seven, eight weeks. Seven, eight weeks. And it's amazing. I mean, you're leader of the Labour Party, almost Prime Minister. You've been the Energy Secretary. You've been connected to politics for a very long time, but you've never been a Foreign Secretary. And you're taking over at a time when Britain is much, much weaker in the world. I mean, one of the things if I was being cheeky, I would say if I was being critical of this debate, we're still talking as though the exact question of what you say about these things is going to make much difference to what happens on the ground. The real challenge that you face is how does Britain with its limited power, create alliances, and actually reshape the world around it? So why is it not being seen as the beginning of a development of a completely different way of thinking about the world, moving beyond a US and China centred world towards thinking about how middle powers define values, define ambitions, so that we can really see over hopefully the next three years of your tenure, the beginnings of reconstructing a new architecture rather than Britain flying its own flag? You're hired. I agree with all of what you said. So let me sort of deal with this with the seriousness it deserves. I come to this very much with my family background, kind of prominent in my mind. My parents came to this country as Jewish refugees. They saw a country that wasn't just a sanctuary for them, but stood up for a set of values, the rule of law, fight against fascism, and so on. And those values are more under threat and under question than they've been, I think, any time since in the last eight decades. And that's very much the context in which I think about this job. I don't agree with you actually about Britain and its ability to make a difference in the world. I think we underestimate our ability to make a difference, actually. The thing that struck me a lot in this job, in the couple of months I've been doing this job, is people want Britain to be present, not on its own, but working with others. People think Britain has a lot to contribute. And so I think providing one doesn't sort of approach it arrogantly, I'm here to make a difference. Ed Llewellyn, who is the political director in the Foreign Office, former Chief of Staff to David Cameron, who I think is absolutely brilliant, I probably shouldn't be saying that, but he's really sort of very wise. He said to me on the first day in office that Lord Carrington used to say, one of my predecessors, Lord Carrington used to say at the end of meetings in the Foreign Office, and so what are we going to do? And I think we can make a difference. I think you are absolutely right, Rory, that working with others, one of the things we thought about a lot over the summer in August, as we were thinking about our own action and knew we were going to act, is let's assemble a coalition. It will be much more meaningful if it's France and Canada and others coming along. I went to the GIMNIC, the EU Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the beginning of September, talked to other colleagues about what we were going to do, this was our plan. You know, others had already moved, actually, to be fair. Ireland had already moved, the Netherlands had already moved, Spain and so on, Belgium. So, you know, mobilising that coalition, you know, 100%, and I think that is what we can do. One other thing just I'd say is sometimes people pose standing up for our values against standing up for our interests, and I think that is wrong. I think by standing up for our values, we're not only doing the right thing, but it is pursuing our interests in a stable world, and a stable world is a world based on the rule of law. That is the only basis for peace and prosperity. Matthew 14 I think I maybe wasted time getting into this question of how important Britain is, and of course, as a foreign secretary and a politician, you're going to tell us that Britain matters a lot in the world. Fine. The more interesting question is what is the formal architecture that we're going to create, right? We've got, and of course, you're going to say we're going to stick up for values, we're going to work with other people, but Mark Carney has done something very, very unusual, which is to say there is a possibility for an alliance of middle powers, and it really matters. We desperately need strategic autonomy. We've got AI taking off. We're reliant on China and the US in terrifying ways, right? So here is an opportunity to say, let's create a formal structure around Europe where the UK, Norway, Switzerland, who knows, Turkey, the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Canada, could actually create an institution that could steer the world through a time rather than ad hoc pick and mix, or worse, we'll do something with them today, we'll do something tomorrow, but we really recognize that we're getting into a world in which we need three legs to a tripod rather than just the US and China. So let me come to the sort of, I think the kind of principle question and then the architecture question. On the principle question, this is an ugly phrase, but plurilateral alliances really, really important. I'm going to be convening ministers at UNGA, not just alongside Jordan on Gaza, but also on climate, climate security. One of the biggest national security threats that we face alongside AI, and those coalitions, building those coalitions, incredibly important. On your specific point about Europe, it's really interesting that you say this. I wasn't really struck at the GIMNIG, which is this EU informal foreign ministers meeting, because you had Canada there, you had Iceland there, who just said no to accession talks, you had Norway there, you had the UK there, you had Ukraine there. I'm very open to the kind of thing you're talking about. And how formal it is, I don't know. But, you know, countries working together on these issues, on a whole range of issues, alongside us having a stronger and deeper relationship with the European Union, I think is really profound and important. But isn't what the post-war settlement showed is that you do need international institutions. And essentially, we got a lot of questions about Mark Carney's speech. It was a very important speech back in Davos. Speeches matter, as you and I both believe. We both believe that, we always have done. But Mark Carney's speech was interesting, because he was really the first to say, this is a rupture, not a transition. Now, we can have a debate about that. But he actually, I think, is leaning into a post-US hegemonic world. He is saying that to leave the world in the state that it is with only the US and China as the driving powers. And as you say, Britain does have a role in this. So, shouldn't we be leaning into that more, actually trying to think through new structures to meet some of these challenges? Matthew 15 Yeah. And I'm open to that. Look, leaning into our relationship with the European Union, you know, in my first week, I was in Manila at the ASEAN Foreign Minister's meeting. But the second week, I deliberately, you know, went to Paris, went to Madrid, you know, I think, you know, forming a deeper, closer relationship with the EU, or whether it's on defence or security or trade, or all of climate, all of those issues is crucial. I just want to say about the US, though, you know, maybe foreign secretaries tend to say this, but I do believe it, the enduring alliance with the US also matters to us, matters for NATO, matters for trade, matters for defence, matters for intelligence, all of those things. And so, you know, I think, I think you can do both of those things. And... I don't think we need a complete new international architecture, that the post-war settlement is, frankly, breaking down. And while we pretend that we can get it back, we actually might be doing... What does that mean, though? I'm sorry to ask this question, but what does it mean in a whole new international architecture? You actually get together and say that, you know, this settlement is broken down, we have to work with our allies. So, in fact, a little bit by the bricks are doing an equivalent, they're doing an equivalent of this. Or maybe to come in behind Alistair, if we were, and we've interviewed Mark Carney twice, and I think without putting words in his mouth, he would say Britain still hasn't woken up to how much the world has changed and the US has changed. One of the things that frustrates him is that Britain continues to have its cake and eat it and pretend that it's going to be able to have a confident five, 10 year future where it's going to be incredibly dependent still on the US over the next 10, 20 years for its patron missile defense, its AI, its cloud computing, its everything. And it doesn't need to worry about that because the US will always be a reliable partner and there's no vulnerability there. Well, I wouldn't, but I don't think I would characterize my position that way. I mean, look, for example, I think, you know, becoming the foreign secretary makes you more of an advocate for defense spending and Europe being able to do its defense properly. And, you know, when you look at what's happening in Ukraine and the importance of that fight for us against Russian aggression, not just as a matter of principle, but as a matter of our future security, yes, you know, European security really, really important. But then at the same time, I would also say, and I think Mark would sort of agree with this, is that if you think about, well, how are we going to really get on track for a two state solution or Israel-Palestine, you know, you need the US to be part of this. Lots of these things are just not going to happen without the US being at the table and being part of those discussions. And so in a way, I think one can have a position which says closer, deeper relationships with the European Union, continuing your alliance with the US, accepting that there'll be times when you disagree with the US administrations, but it doesn't mean that the enduring partnership doesn't carry on and isn't important. I guess the alternative view would be that, which is what Canada, I think, is doing, which is to say, let's actually work backwards and map all our dependencies, map all the ways in which we're now discovering that interdependency is now a choke point vulnerability that somebody can weaponize. And we're going to list out who are we dependent on for cloud computing? Who are we dependent on for AI? Who are we dependent on for defense? Who are we dependent on for critical minerals and borers? And then we're going to work with Canada and Europe and perhaps South Korea and Japan, who knows, to fund an entirely autonomous third source of supply across all those domains. So that in the future, if God forbid, you were dealing with the US administration that decided to deny you access to the latest frontier AI model, or God forbid, switch off the Google accounts of the International Criminal Court, or God forbid, suddenly close the Strait of Hormuz through some war with Iran, you would have some form of resilience and independence. And that will be absolutely critical. And that you, I'm afraid, if you don't do it, in 2025 years time, people will be deeply critical saying, could you not see the writing on the wall? Why don't you do something about this? Matthew Feeney Well, where I'll come with you is that greater national resilience is an incredibly important part of the world that we are in. Daniel Disney We're too small for national. Matthew Feeney Well, national resilience is also working with others. I do accept that. And if you just think about what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz and what is meant for energy prices and so on, the agenda that I used to be in charge of around energy and clean energy takes on even more importance. But look, I agree with you in that you want diverse partnerships, is the way I would put it. Matthew Feeney So we've talked about, you just mentioned the Strait of Hormuz. What do you really think about Trump and what he's done in Iran? Daniel Disney What I would say to you is, I wasn't in favor of us joining the action at the start of the conflict, as you know. I think Kiir made the right call. I think it was a hard call to make because it doesn't tend to be what British prime ministers do. Well, now if I'm frank, we had the memorandum of understanding, the peace agreement between the US and Iran, and Iran has actually broken it by attacking ships in the Strait. And I think it is actually Iran now that has moved away from that peace agreement. And it constantly looks like you're going to get an agreement between Iran and Oman to get back on track and allow the Strait to reopen. And Iran just keeps pushing, you know, making greater demands, pushing further demands. And I don't want to see a nuclear Iran. You know, nuclear Iran is dangerous for the world. So I didn't agree with the action. What we need now is a proper ceasefire, the Strait reopened, the nuclear talks to recommence, Iran to be, have its ability to access a nuclear weapon put beyond reach. And this is incredibly important. But do you have any sense of the UK having any ability really to shape the response that is required from the United States to meet to move towards those goals? Yes, I do actually. Because is that why we never call them out? Well, when you say that, we did say at the beginning, we couldn't have been clearer at the beginning of the beginning. But then since then, this thing's gone on and on, the economic hit continues. And it's like we're spectators. Now we're increasingly following American talking points on this. And it's very difficult to see distinction between what an American spokesman would say about Iran and what we would say. Well, I'm not sure. Where would you differ from an American spokesman on the situation in Iran? Well, we thought it was wrong to join the conflict to begin with. Today, in the analysis of who's to blame, you are essentially saying all the blame rests with the Iranians and the US haven't done nothing wrong here. I certainly mischaracterization of what I'm saying, because I wasn't in favor of the offensive action against Iran to begin with, nor was the British government. But all else has flowed from that. But you've got two different positions. You're just wanting me to keep talking about what shouldn't have been done at the beginning. Well, what I would say to you is our work with our Gulf allies who are trying to get some kind of breakthrough and agreement, my conversations with Marco Rubio, my job as Foreign Secretary is to help the British people with the terrible cost of living crisis they face. And one of the biggest contributors to that is the fact that the strait is closed. So, you know, my job is not to say what should have happened at the beginning. My job is to say, OK, what can we do now to get out of the mess we're in? And that is absolutely what my diplomatic focus is on. That's what I talked to the Secretary of State, US Secretary of State about. That's what I talked to. In the first week in the job, I went to Doha, went to Qatar, talked to the Prime Minister about what can we do to try and get this thing back on track. But the risk is it sounds like you're saying what we can do is force the Iranians to the table. In other words, if the diagnosis that's being presented from the White House and what we do about it is forget about the initial invasion. Now it's the Iranians fault. It's the Iranians break the ceasefire answer. What do we do about it? We put the pressure on Iran militarily and economically until they open the strait. And the U.S. keeps putting on the pressure until that happens, which is, from my money, a recipe for actually continuing blockade, continuing cost of living and this thing not being resolved in the next nine months. Well, look, I am not saying that the answer is offensive military action against Iran. I do believe that economic pressure on Iran makes sense. And look, you talk to our Gulf partners who are still under attack from Iran. You know, they've got a sort of different perspective, maybe from what you're saying. I think their perspective would be hell on both their houses. We are furious with the U.S. and Israel. We're furious with Iran and the loss of them need to stop it. They see this as fury with Iran, but they also appreciate the extent to which this is tit for tat in relation to U.S. and Iran. So I do think I've been very clear about the position we took on the original conflict. And I don't think I could make no bones about that. We didn't think it was the right thing to do. I come back to this point that I think the most important thing I can do, because I am concerned about the impact this is going to have on people at home, is – and this is a sort of point about British diplomacy. It goes back to your point about what influence can Britain have. I know it sounds like the kind of thing I would say, but thought leadership is incredibly important. That is what the British diplomatic service, British civil service is respected for. Thought leadership based on values, based on our expertise. And that is what we're trying to do. The hard yards of diplomacy to find a way through the situation that we're in. Mark Carney's leading the world on that though, isn't he? Definitely. What do you mean on middle powers? Well, just I think if there's a voice that's sort of giving a bit of hope and a bit of leadership to – you've done it last week on a specific issue. But I think in general terms, Mark Carney – I mean, our friend the Mooch calls him the current leader of the Western world. I may overstate it, but I wonder if we're doing – I know you've only been there two months, but I wonder if there's not a lot more that we could do. Well, look, in a way, I think what last week does have a wider relevance, which is we stood up for what we think was right. Now, some people would have said, oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you. The US might be annoyed. Israel might be annoyed. That's not what British governments do. I mean, I don't want to sort of overstate this, but I think it was quite a big moment last week what we did. And the way I think about it is we want to be bold in our values. We want to be strong in the actions we take, and we want to build alliances. And that's the approach I'm going to try and take as Foreign Secretary in a very complex world. My final question, Miriam from Cardiff, which is essentially to say, for goodness sake, please don't stop there. I mean, it would be a tragedy if you launched your time as Foreign Secretary taking one big, clear, bold position and thereafter didn't see how many opportunities that opens up. I just beg to say you've done the right thing there. Do the right thing on the United States. Call out a changing world. Understand why the one thing for some reason Islam could never say, which is Trump shows us the world's changed. We can't go back to what so many people in the British government want to do, which is pretend it's all going to be all right when he goes away. We'll be able to get back. I don't think I am. I don't think I am. That's where Carney's been so brave because he's so clear about where America poses a threat. And we haven't heard you express what Carney seems to be able to do very, very articulately, which is to point to Greenland, point to the statements on Canada, point to what's happened in Iran, point to the tariffs, point to what he's saying on the United and say, put all that together. We cannot continue in the way we have. We need an independent policy, independent of the US. And this is what the structure is going to be. Look, much of what you say, I don't demur from on the specific issues. I think my only point here is our alliance with the US matters. But if what you're saying is we need to recognize the world has changed, particularly regarding our relationship with Europe and the importance of our relationship with the European Union, but also working with middle sized powers beyond that, 100%. And that's what we're going to do. The final one from me relates actually to the process that led to you being in this job. Somebody at this event last night said to me, said in the Q&A that followed the film, Keir Starmer lost his job because he got the line wrong on Gaza. Now, that's a very, very big statement. But I do think that Labour at the time underestimated the political damage that they were doing to themselves and he was doing to himself. Is this part of trying to fix that? And I know you're going to say we're just doing the right thing. But you could have, you could have, you know, the previous Labour government, the Starmer government could have done the right thing because the facts haven't changed that much in recent weeks and months since you came on, since you came into the job. And the final thing I want to ask you is just whether, I get why you don't want to say genocide and understand that, but do you think Netanyahu is a war criminal? And do you think that if he did come to the UK, we should feel his collar? Well, the latter point is a matter for the, was a matter for the courts. Well, it's not actually a matter for the courts. No, it is, it is. The question of the ICC and so on is, no, no, it's a different situation. That is a matter for the courts. But look, let me go to your first question. I think it's sort of quite fundamental and I'll end on a more personal note. You knew my mum who died at the end of May and, you know, Jewish refugee, most appalling wartime experience, lost her father, 60 relatives in the concentration camps. Before she got ill, one of the things she, what she really saw, devote 20 years of her life to was the situation of the Palestinians. And, you know, politics is a, the timing was a strange thing, but, you know, she died at the end of May and I, frankly, in the last few weeks, I've thought a lot about, as I wrestled with this statement and what I should say and what I shouldn't say and how far I should go, I wrestled a lot with what she would say. And she'd say, look at what is happening to Palestinians. Look at what is happening to these poor people. It's wrong and you've got to call it out. And, you know, was saying ethnic cleansing a big deal because, partly because of, you know, what the term connotes? Yes. And I thought a lot about that. I thought a lot about talking about war crimes. And I thought, well, actually, she would be saying, you know, for goodness sake, you've got to say what is happening. You've got to be willing to tell the truth. You know, the least that the poor people who are suffering are owed is the truth and then try and do something about it. And genuinely, Alistair, you know, we did what we did. Yes, Gaza has mobilized a whole generation of people, but those people were right, not wrong. And we did what we did because, genuinely, it's the right thing to do. It's the morally right thing to do. And also, there's something about – we talked about British influence a lot in this. We lose influence when people think, well, you're willing to call out what's happening there, but you're just not willing to talk about this particular issue. You just won't talk about this issue. And I'm really struck by the number of people, Global South and so on, who've been in touch with me since I made the statement who said, you know, thank goodness someone's, you know, actually called this out. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you for your time. Thank you for giving us more time, Steve. Thank you. I'm a Trip Plus subscriber. Thank you. Cheers. Well, I mean, I wonder, Alistair, whether I wasn't getting frustrated in the way that I usually do about wealth taxes. Yeah. You weren't quite wealth taxed. You got close. I think it's that I'm worried that having done something very bold on Gaza, in the end, it's a bit business as usual. The truth of the matter is that Gaza has become an incredibly powerful symbol. And in British progressive politics, I think people want to talk about almost nothing except this. And I think that what Edmund Levin did was completely right. But the truth of the matter is that it's unlikely to actually generate two state solution. I think it's being serious actually about how impossible a two state solution is. And then when we move away from that region, from the great thing that he's so proud of, and that his mother would have loved him to do, to try to think about where Britain should be in 15 years, I've almost felt like I was back to talking about the Foreign Office from 15 years ago. And that I can imagine, you know, if Ed Llewellyn's listening, or Lindy Cameron's listening, or half the diplomats are listening, they will very much be on the Foreign Secretary's side and saying, war is not being realistic. You know, he's still trying to push for some love actually moment. But I think Mark Carney has actually weirdly produced the space for that. He's actually given people permission. And we found this, I mean, when all your friends that we've interviewed, the Norwegian Prime Minister, Yanis Karasoura, the Finnish President, almost all the other European leaders actually are beginning to find a way to talk more confidently about a post Trump world. Yeah, I think the only place in the interview where you were getting close to your wealth tax rage was when, as you say, he was speaking some of the White House talking points, you know, I'm determined that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon, da da da. And I think there is a balance, there is a really, I don't think we should underestimate how difficult this balance is. And the difference, of course, with Mark Carney is that Trump has openly stated an existential threat to Canada, which means that the duty and responsibility of Mark Carney to stand up against that, first of all, is what made him Prime Minister in the first place, because he was so strong about it during the election campaign against Polly Everett. But secondly, not least last week with yet another of these stupid AI things where he's, you know, puts Iceland and Greenland and Canada under an American flag on one of his AI things. And the other thing I would say, I don't know what Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham were going to say on foreign policy at the Labour Party conference, but I'm, I'm hopeful that is the next stage at which there is another shift forward on this. For me, for me personally, having watched this, this film really did make an impact on me and Fiona last night. I think having watched it, I will now make sure he does follow up on that, because I think anybody who sees these British doctors talking the way they do about the experiences they've had, I think he will want to go further because what he did last week, it was about the West Bank. But part of what the whole Trumpian madness of the world does is we just move on. If last night there was in the film, there was a bit about, do you remember the humanitarian fund, the Gaza humanitarian fund when, you know, there was this whole new, let's keep all the aid agencies out. I'd completely forgotten about it. I'd totally forgotten about it. And there it was, it's not that long ago, reliving a total catastrophe of an American initiative, which backfired. And so I think that he's having to work out whether in a way you sort of ignore and park American stuff. I mean, it's really interesting. If you think about it, we're going to talk about this on the main podcast. There was a time when Trump, an American president saying there should be a united Ireland. That's what we'd have been talking about today. It would have been epoch-making global news. Trump talks such nonsense most of the time, they can ignore it. Well, it is interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, you were saying quite rightly that a lot of Mark Carney's entire political project is about opposing Trump. But it is interesting to a lot of European leaders seem to be more confident talking about strategic autonomy and why we can't be as reliant on the US and actually being open about all the difficult decisions we would have to make to be less dependent on the US. And here's a great, the United Ireland thing is a great example. I mean, you said Trump's an existential threat to Canada. It's a pretty existential threat to the United Kingdom for the president of the United States. This guy says, is the only guy who can make things happen, the only guy who can fix the Iran war, the only guy who can bring a two-state solution. That same guy is saying Northern Ireland should be part of the Republic of Ireland. So I think he's got to feel in his gut what you and I feel, which is the world's change. And I think actually the government is behind the public. When we started this podcast three, four years ago, we were having to convince the public in a way that we were in an age of populism and conflict and the rules-based international order was collapsing. And it was quite difficult to do because Biden was still in. Even early Trump things, people were like, this is Trump's arrangement syndrome. Now, if you say to people, the world is becoming more dangerous, more conflict-ridden, more populist, more divided, everyone's like, yeah, yeah, okay. So what are you going to do about it? Answer, what are you going to do about it? And you have to work back from that. It isn't just, we need more national resilience or we like the European Union. It's we're doing it because we don't want to be dependent on the US. I also do think, I mean, we had BRICS last week and okay, they had one or two differences over, particularly over Iran, but they are developing a new outlook, new structures, new systems. They're drawing in new countries. And I think what I'd love to see Britain lead into, and by the way, I think Mark Carney is quite confident this will happen, but I'd like to see whether you give them a label or you don't, but those countries that still have the values of democracy, rule of law, anti-corruption, all the stuff that's just vanished in the United States. And I get why he can't say that he's a politician. We're not active politicians. He can't say it in the same way, but I do think he can say, let's have a, let's rededicate ourselves to the rule of law and let's work out a structure. Let's do that on democracy. Human rights. I mean, his narrative, I wonder whether he could say, could he say, listen, we have so much affection and admiration for the United States, but the United States itself has said they want people to be more independent and have more autonomy. And we have to recognize from what we've seen over the last few years, that it would be very dangerous for Britain to be too dependent on any other country, even a country that is a friend. And so we are going to create a whole series of new alliances whose exact purpose is to give us more resilience. Yeah. Yeah. And there'll be plenty of them. That's not offensive, is it? Right. He should be able to say that. Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah. Anyway, it was good of him to come in. He's, uh, he's got quite a lot on his plate. He's off to Hungary shortly, but, uh, yeah, thank you. All of those listeners who send in questions, sorry, we couldn't get through. It's impossible to do over a thousand. It really is. Rory, by the way, I know you sometimes you think I'm too active on my phone while these things go. I was actually fixing for the doctor, Dr. Victoria Rose, who is a heroine to write a piece of the newsletter. 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