153. How radical would Labour be in power?

24:19Well, I think as you pointed out, one of the problems is the UK already has trade deals with nine out of the 11 countries that participates. So it really doesn't make that much difference. You're only talking about bringing in deals with two of those countries. The other nine were already there in place and were rolled over from the EU deals. The other thing I think that's interesting is the way that the world, we often talk about that period, sort of 2014, 15, 16 as being a big turning point in the world, are turning away from the old liberal world order of the 1990s, which was all about open free trade, democracies, etc.

24:56to the world of populism, authoritarianism. And we can see now that this deal, an Obama's hopes for it, with the kind of last hurrah of the old period, now in the US context. Protectionism is very much the order of the day. It's no longer a people making traditional arguments about comparative advantage and how it's cheaper and better for everybody if goods are produced in the place where they can be produced most cheaply. Instead, people are very much about industrial strategy, about relocating chip factories, thinking about security interests, which I guess is something we'll get onto with the with the China report.

25:31And even I noticed there was a small detail on this just centroidon in New Zealand had been challenging this deal because it allowed Vietnamese to buy property in New Zealand, driving up property prices for New Zealanders. And it was another sort of interesting example of how Brexit was part of a broader world moving away from open global free trade towards more protectionists and more concerns about sovereignty. How do you prevent Vietnamese buying properties in your country? Whereas 10 years earlier, the story was all about, let's make it easier for Vietnamese investors to come in. They've stopped talking about global Britain, are they?

26:07We haven't heard about that recently since your friend Boris Johnson totalled off. That was a dive with him. And I'm not convinced that the successors of these academics who've written this book about, called Sino -Stan, I'm not convinced they'll be writing one about how Britain sort of transformed world trade through this membership of the CPTPP. I must say, when I first heard it, I got the number wrong. I thought 0 .8%, that's not bad, but 0 .08%, that's really not very impressive at all. 0 .08 % is not not great. And also, although he has dropped some of the Boris Johnson mantras, I do think it's pretty incredible that when he has these newspapers, these ridiculous newspapers like the Express, who will literally put on the front page.

26:49I do, they do it because they're asked to buy number 10, or do they do it just because they're on autopilot to give whatever they think, propagate the propaganda they think the government wants. But surely, if you're a serious politician and a newspaper says it's 12 trillion pound deal, I saw a minister's going out sort of defending it rather than saying, no, no, no, no, that's obviously nonsense. And the other thing he did, I don't think he saw he else because we keep going on about how grown up he isn't all that stuff. I noticed after the NATO summit recently, Rishi Sunak did a tweet saying, Labour asked me not to go to this, but here's what I've achieved.

27:27And that was based upon the fact that at the Liaison Committee, I think it was Chris Bryant, who by the way, I'm missing, I gave his book the wrong name last week, it's not out of order, it's code of conduct. But Chris Bryant has sort of said, you know, you do seem to miss Prime Minister's question quite a lot. Do you think he should be in Parliament a bit more often? And on that basis, he does a tweet saying, Labour didn't want me to go to the NATO summit. So I think, you know, Rory, we've got to call out his populace moves at the same time. I think it's the desperation of the comms machines.

27:55Do you think it is? I hope, because I just think it's part of them playing into this post -truth world, which our newspapers are such a part. I think it's even, I mean, if I think about people in Rishi Sunak's inner circle, who I like and sympathise with, most of them are not people who are populace, most of them are people who are horrified by Boris Johnson. But they shouldn't be, he shouldn't, he shouldn't be putting out stuff like that, actually. Labour didn't, Labour didn't want me to go to the NATO summit. It's astonishing how when the tension shows, when people are 25 points behind in the polls, when people are attacking, what complete nonsense people come up with, I agree.

28:31Right. Should we take a quick break? Let's have a break.

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29:51Welcome back to The Restless Polities with me, Alice Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart, we've put out two additional pods this week. And so, Alice, you've interviewed your friend Fergel Sharkey. And we both interviewed Richard Engel, who's done an amazing piece of reporting on pregoation. Pregoation being of course the head of the Russian Vagna Group, who led him mutiny and raced up towards Moscow until at the last moment he gave up. And he's told us the whole rich story. He followed him through mercenary adventures in the Central African Republic, through Syria, through Ukraine. He was personally threatened by pregoation.

30:33He's got a fantastic recording of pregoation saying, if you come near enough to me, we will find out whether it is Yorra Adam's Apple or mine that gets squeezed. No, I really enjoy talking to him. And I thought we'll put the film in the newsletter. And I think people will really find it interesting. And he's a proper old fashioned journalist who just sort of, you know, dust stuff from the ground doesn't really speculate. Just digs out a hard fact. And a real, and a real suggest on that. I mean, I really struck by how difficult it was even for him to get commissioned. So he is a big star American reporter.

31:11He's one of the most famous American foreign correspondents. But even him found it incredibly difficult in the modern world to get a commission to do a story on something like pregoation. And they sort of let him do it a bit grudgingly. But my goodness, he's been vindicated. He obviously had a nose for the story. And also he, a big part of the story, which I think was maybe part of the story that most people here will know less, was it related to the Central African Republic. And I don't even aware of this, but there's a referendum there on July the 30th where the president is trying to change the constitution so as he can stay on in power.

31:47Or always a good sign. Always a great sign. So powerful is the Wagner group within the CER that is being seen as a test of them as much as it is of the of the government. Well, Richard explained to us that they've built an entire statue to themselves, the central square in the Central African Republic. It's like a Wagner group statue. Well, he likes, he clearly likes medals and statues. And he's definitely one of those guys who sees himself as a sort of, you know, a big man of history. And on, anyway, I thought he was great as a sort of old fashioned journalist. And I thought, Fergill was terrific as an old fashioned campaigner who I got some message, a message from somebody who works in the, in the water industry who basically said that they, they lie awake and I'm worrying about what a fertile shark is going to say, lakes, which if you think about it, I can't think of which politicians have led a campaign on water.

32:37He has done it. And I think that's, you know, big, big, big feather in his hat. And I wonder, is that something about the changing nature of the world that actually for a single issue campaign 40, 50 years ago, a backman champion could really make their name around a single issue campaign. And the work MPs who are very famous for that. I mean, obviously, you know, right back to Will be forced leading the campaign on the abolition slavery. But maybe today, you've got more chance of doing it if you're a famous musician or you're a celebrity or someone than if you're an MP. Interesting. You look at something like Karl Valderman and the kind of impact that she's having, particularly on social media, John Bishop, I noticed he's getting very, very angry with the government.

33:17Footballers on free school meals. Yeah, Marcus Rashford or that. By the way, the next time you, I know you're not a I promise you will like it, even though you don't like football. Okay. And even though it is all about football. Is it, are you really upset about what they're doing to the Barcelona stadium, which is almost the only place I've ever seen the live football match? And apparently then I'll replacing it with a very kind of generic looking boring stadium. Does that matter to you? As long as they don't change turf more, which is the home of Bernie Football Club, I will survive. They care what Barcelona does.

33:50Very good. Should we talk about your friend, Julian Lewis, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee in Parliament? Because I think this report was pretty surprising in a way. My experience of the Intelligence Committee. This is a committee of MPs who are allowed to see intelligence reports that most MPs do not. And they've delivered a very, very, very scathing report, which says that China is all over us in terms of, you know, our economic sector, our university sector, our politics, and that the government really doesn't have a strategy for it. Now, the government's defence was that actually they brought in some changes in recent months, which will have addressed some of these problems.

34:33But what did you make of it? Well, I think just firstly, maybe give a little bit of background on the committee. So, Julian Lewis is a veteran MP. He actually is quite famous because he went in as a fifth columnist as a young conservative activist, pretending, I think, to be allied to Labour in order to infiltrate and disrupt Labour meetings. That was kind of classic politics of the early 80s. Bastard. Bastard, exactly. And he was, in my time, a sort of character, he's got a doctorate in defence studies. And John Burco would love sort of chanting out, he was then the speaker, would love chanting out, Dr Julian Lewis, and this great thing, and then Dr.

35:16Julian Lewis would speak. He was my successor as the chair of the Defence Select Committee. So I knew him quite well. I ran the Defence Select Committee, and then after I stepped down, he ran and was elected as the chair. And he then went on to run to be chair of the Intelligence Committee. And the Intelligence Committee was always traditionally a bit of a place for sort of grand individuals. So, Samalkum Rifkin, was the person who tell it. And Boris Johnson thought that he could tear it up for his friend Chris Grayling. So, Chris Grayling, having been through a number of government departments, including the Ministry of Justice, where he privatised probation, and then we had had to turn around and re -nationalise probation.

35:56And then gone through some pretty chaotic times with railways, was rewarded by Boris Johnson for his support by being told that he could be the next head of the Intelligence Select Committee. At which point Julian Lewis thought he was having none of this, and ran at the last moment, getting a lot of labour support. And to Boris Johnson's absolute fury managed to take the chair, and I had the whip removed from him briefly in revenge by Boris Johnson for him doing that. You'd if you'd get all this stuff done, completely forgot all of that. Yeah, it was extraordinary sort of because it's just part of Boris Johnson's total contempt for parliament, removing the whip from somebody who's been duly elected as a committee chair, because he's not the person that you wanted in.

36:36So, Boris Johnson then stuffed the committee with a lot of his sort of brexiteer friends. So, on the Conservative side, it's people like Sir John Hayes, Colonel Bob Stewart, Theresa Villiers. And I think that's important because it's important to understand that one of the things that a lot of these brexite supporters were saying during the Brexit campaign is that if you look at the economic evidence, Europe is shrinking, China is growing dramatically, and therefore what Britain needs to do is leave the European Union and connect itself with this enormous 7 % rapidly growing a year, economic powerhouse of China.

37:18And how rapidly that's changed, how rapidly the US confrontation with China, the problems with Russia, Ukraine, and now this big rush to try to de -risk or decouple from China, finds these brexiteers in this very awkward position where the logic is almost saying to them, they should be returning to their natural allies in Europe, rather than reaching out to places like China and Russia, where they were hoping to get their economic growth from. Well, we talked about the pivot under Obama, and I guess there was something similar from David Cameron George Osborne. And when we talk to George Osborne, if you remember, he still defends that as a sensible thing to do.

37:55And I think he is the one who would say that while we can de -risk that decoupling would be a very, very, very big mistake. But I do sometimes wonder whether we underestimate the extent to which in terms of its intelligence operations, China is now so powerful. Obviously, there's still a lot of focus on Russia. But what this report seemed to be saying is that if you analyze all the threats, the bigger one comes from China. It's amazing. I mean, and the report for people who've got a bit of time is worth reading in detail. It's a really impressive piece of work. And although Dr. Julian Lewis was often told off for being a little bit earnest, my goodness, he's done his homework here.

38:37What it really seems to argue is that the UK is not a top priority for China. The Chinese intelligence services are enormous. The number of their employees, number in the hundreds of thousands. It's believed they have 40 ,000 employees as the Chinese intelligence services overseas alone, 40 ,000. That's more than the entire deployable strength of the British military. But in the case of Britain, the way that they wield influence is much more through economic power. So they've got 150 ,000 approximately Chinese students studying at British universities, which contributes about 600 million pounds a year to the British university sector.

39:17And that in addition to them setting up centers means that university vice -chancellor is a bit reluctant to host the Dalai Lama or come out criticizing Chinese human rights in Xinjiang. Listeners will remember that China was in pole position to build a lot of our digital network through Huawei, the 5G network, which was then stopped in 2020. They are in a commanding position for the next nuclear investment. They've put 37 billion pounds in the Britain since 2000, which is more than China's put into France, Germany and Italy combined. But I guess one of the things I was left asking myself at the end of this report, which of course, as you can imagine, like all these reports, the conclusions tend to be less exciting in the problems, and the conclusions are we need a whole of government approach, we need to think about the security implications of accepting Chinese investment.

40:10But a lot of this is just another way of saying China is a giant economy, and with enormous economic strength comes enormous influence, and that would be as true for the United States all over the world as it is for China. And of course, in the case of China, unlike the US, they have a system that we don't like. They're on the wrong side, on democracy, on the wrong side, on human rights. And so they'll be using those influences in a way that we don't like, whereas when the United States uses its economic influence, we tend to be more supportive. But I'm not quite sure this really adds up to a story about Chinese intelligence penetration, so much as just a statement of Chinese influence.

40:50And Britain is just one example of a hundred countries where this is true. Well, I'm without that book I mentioned, it's so evident that they literally went after all of the Starns and made considerable progress. By the way, I was completely taken about by one thing in here. I didn't realize that when President Xi launched the Silk Road Economic Belt, he did so in Astana, in Kazakhstan. And then the next big speech he did, it was in Jakarta, in the Indonesian Parliament. And I just go back to the point I made earlier, the scale of their ambition is so vast, they don't go around the place saying global China, they just sort of get on and do it.

41:29He really doesn't the promise that I'll be delivered. The other thing that's been happening at the same time in parallel with this select committee is that the Americans in Congress have launched their own committee called the US Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US and China. And we're going to interview in September Richie Torres, who's a Democrat member of that committee, and we'll be able to get into this a bit more. But it's essentially become the central battleground now in American politics for people out competing themselves, on who can be most anti -China, most ramp up the Cold War Retriever on China, coming out of this Congressional Committee.

42:07And it's led by a guy called Mike Gamma, who I know a little bit, met a couple of times. He's a very, very impressively muskly ex -US veteran who served in Afghanistan, did his three tours on the ground, I think, with the US Marine Corps. And my goodness, he sounds like it. I mean, you sound like you're being lectured by a drill sergeant when he talked to him. And he's got this thing on China where he says, this is a country that is committing genocide and singe -jang that is covering up the COVID outbreak that are stolen hundreds of billions of dollars of intellectual property from the United States of America and is about to invade Taiwan.

42:44And you really sense that the rhetoric, but you also sense that problem, which is they are still struggling to get allies, apart from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines. There are very, very few people who seem to be signing up to this US confrontation with China. And what did the Democrats want, like I'm going to say? Did they feel under pressure to go down the same road? Well, we should push Richie on this. So I'm really pleased that he's coming on. He's a just a guy you may own the plane. Exactly. First gay African American Latino Congressman. And he is incredibly eloquent, a very, very good looking like most American politicians.

43:22I was thinking that whenever I go to the US Congress. I remember I took the, I took the, you really? Yeah, I took the, I took the, I took the defense committee. I did a well -dressed. I'm not doing a good looking. I took the defense committee and the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to, to the States. And it was really extraordinary. We all turn up. So it's me, it's Frank Roy, we're all about five foot six. We're not necessarily looking after ourselves that much. Did you wear good suits, Roy? No, we didn't. We all went shambling in. And the security guards literally couldn't believe that the Democrats are public.

43:51And then the Americans all come out. It's not just the white teeth. They're all over six foot tall. It's enormous handshakes. It's great kind of classic square -jord faces. And again, I think they found it quite difficult to believe that any of us could really be politicians at all. Well, Julia Lewis, doubtless, will be heading over there. I was grilled by the Intelligence Select Committee over the, the whole Iraq, weapons of mass destruction. There's one of the several committees that I was in front of. And you did get the feeling with some of them that they just loved the fact that they were allowed to read intelligence reports.

44:26No, no, exactly. It was, it's an extraordinary thing. It's very weird. I mean, I remember how much showing off they do in the House of Commons. And I feel having, you know, come from a kind of diplomatic background. I feel that they are terribly, terribly under -equipped to perform the role they're supposed to be doing. It's all very well -producing reports on China, but what they're actually supposed to be doing is overseeing the intelligence and security services. And that is very, very difficult for them because it's not exactly as though John Hayes or Bob Stewart are the world's greatest experts on how those services work.

45:01And what happens, I'm afraid, is that you get these very, very charming presentations from the head of MI5 and the head of MI6. And quite a lot of control over which classified information they're shown. And even if there isn't control over that, very difficult them to know what to ask for. And so I think the oversight function, I think, remains very, very difficult. Just to go on this point about the, the, the shift in America, I saw the director of the FBI giving evidence to, committee of Congress to the day. And my God, they were vile to him. And basically, there were, there was, these were all the Trump people.

45:39Yeah. This entry is saying that he was, and then he, he's a declared Republican by the way, this guy. You know, we've got to be very, very careful if we were ever to go down that road where people heading these important security agencies are being defined through their politics. I just, I've just dug out the report in New York Times. Christopher A. Ray, he's called. And he did that thing which we're all advised to do where we're in front of these committees. This was all about the, you know, the, the role of the FBI in addressing extremeist violence, but it all turned into stuff about Trump. And he says, the idea that I'm biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background.

46:21The FBI does not, has no interest in protecting anyone politically. But I think, you know, at least we can say, I think that if Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, or the head of MI6, or GCHQ, I don't think even the Johnson death cult people, as you call them, Rory, would say that they were politically biased. No, no, I think they'd be treated with a lot of respect. I almost think in Britain that we're almost a little bit too shy to hold the military and our intelligence agencies to account were a little bit too differential. And that's a bigger, bigger conversation. I mean, I've testified to the US Senate and it's completely terrifying.

46:57It's a much more serious deal than testifying to British committees partly because they have these enormous staffs. They've scheduled to the last 30 seconds the questions they're going to be asked. They know exactly what sound bite they want to hit. I think we have to finish with probably the biggest story of the week, which is what we began with, which is this unbelievable temperatures. It's awful isn't it? El Nino, which is the Pacific cycle, is still quite moderate. And so it seems as though there is a very strong correlation between these temperatures obviously and human -made climate change.

47:33And it's just an accelerating cycle, year on year on year, of these extreme temperatures now. No, it's terrifying. I found it absolutely terrifying. I was at my Fiona's and Lisa's daughter's christening at the weekend, even though I don't do God, I do witness God when other people do God. And I did genuinely have this thought about, you know, what sort of world is this going to be by the time she's my age? I find what's going on now absolutely terrifying. The stuff in China, 50 degrees plus. And then you see this, I don't if you saw the stuff in Arizona where the tourists are sort of flooding there so as they can have their picture taken next to stuff say 100 and X degrees.

48:20We're not cracking this at all. Just for the one on China, by the way, I was drawn to it on social media, to a picture, a graphic of all the railway lines that have been built in China in the last couple of decades. And it is phenomenal when you think how long it's taken us to not build HS2. And you see these trains going there. And there's a guy called, he's on Twitter, he's called At Kyle Train emoji. And he's just put together, he just seemed to have a sort of fairly fond view of the Chinese generally. But it's just absolutely article upon article upon article suggesting actually that China, we've talked about China leading the world in lots of things, but actually they are leading the world now in renewable energy.

49:05These amazing pictures of, you know, vast as far as the I can see solar panels in which they're now leading, I think both in terms of manufacturing use. I think this is why again, I mean, I think we maybe can link these two things together, which is the climate change and the intelligence and security committee report. Because the danger of a new Cold War with China is that we desperately need China to fix all these global challenges. So the US and China combined are about 40 % of global emissions. And as you say, China is both one of the biggest emitters still building coal fired generation plants, but also leading the world in the critical rare earths, battery solar panels, wind turbines, and everything that's needed for the energy transition.

49:50And we also need China, as we said before, desperately for AI regulation. They've actually come out with more restrictive AI regulation than anyone could anticipate. But again, the US and China working together on AI regulation is vital for the next three years of humanity. So I slightly am questioning whether we have the luxury to go on a Cold War against China, particularly since the Chinese economy is now beginning to falter, attention in China is going to turn more inward. And I'm very, very cheered up that Kerry's been visiting and working closely with the Chinese lead climate negotiator.

50:27Is John Kerry the American climate envoy? John Kerry the American climate envoy. Another tall, good -looking American. Square George. This guy, we should put in the news letter, some of the graphics that he posted, one was from the Financial Times. He's basically a graph that shows solar, wind, hydro power, and other renewables. And it's got China, EU, US, India. And China is frankly in the league of its own. So you look at some of the, they've done three times as much new solar capacity in the first four months of this year than they did in the same period last year, whereas the others are improving but lagging behind that sort of progress.

51:09And it goes back to this point they made earlier about the scale of change that they can make when they want to. And it goes back and we're afraid to the point that it's a lot easier when you're not a democracy being told what you can and can't do. That's the real worry. Well, I think as maybe, you know, we're coming to the end of this, but there's so much more to do on climate change and a couple of things I'd love us to pick up in another episode. One of them is how far shorter I think the UK is going to come of its own targets to get to zero carbon electricity. Governments offering 2035, Labour's offering 2030.

51:40Both dates completely unrealistic. And then the impacts of climate change on places like Somalia, seventh year of drought. We talk about climate change in terms of its impacts on olive growing in Italy. But when you get to the extreme poor, and you think about what it means for your only cow to be killed or your only half acre of maize to be wiped out when your child is already on the virtuous tabation. And the sense that too much of this conversation is about people talking about technology and mitigation and the middle income countries and not enough effort is being put into the people who are the worst receiving end of this and always well -being, which is the people who've got no resilience at all, no other options when climate change gets them.

52:24And that's the extreme poor. Yeah, just finally, I've found this, we will definitely put this in the newsletter, the graphic showing China rail, high speed railways in 2008, next and non -existent, again alongside what they have today. And then now, if all the railway lines that have been laid in those in the last 12 years were laid one into the other, they would wrap around the circumference of the earth. Wow. And we still can't quite get our act together sufficient to build HS2, let alone the bit for the northern powerhouse that has been long been promised from Mr. Osborne and others. Amazing.

53:11Well, thank you, Alistair, very, very much. And congratulations on that beautiful Hawaiian shirt that you're wearing. I'm sporting in honour of your father a northern veteran area in shirt. Yeah, there is very much a pedrhythmic shirt that were definitely. See you soon. Bye -bye.