Tony Blair’s ‘Long-Term’ Vision Is A ‘Valuable Intervention’ | Former US Ambassador

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]I I do think that some of the areas that that that Tony Blair has identified, you know, why do we have to pay the highest prices for energy of anywhere in the industrialized world, what about this extraordinary levels of debt? Why are we spending six times more on welfare than we are on defense at a time when we cannot be entirely reliant upon the United States to look after European security and so on and so on. And I think he is I think he is putting his finger on a number of important issues that that deserve proper public debate.

[00:00:26]Now to Tony Blair, Sir Tony Blair and that essay he's published today. He says Donald Trump represents a reckoning and not a rupture in the Western Alliance.

[00:00:35]In that essay, the former prime minister criticized the UK's refusal to support US operations in Iran and he told Times Radio that the risk of war with Russia makes America America vital for our security. I don't think the government is foolish in saying you you we've got to be prepared for the possibility of conflict in the future.

[00:00:57]Let's be very clear without America we don't win that conflict >> or we can't be sure of winning that conflict. So America is not an important ally. It's an indispensable part of our security. So when they come asking for our help, you got to think long and hard before you refuse it. Because if they are an indispensable part of our security, we should stand with them if we can. And that doesn't mean to say joining every action they do. I mean, for example, I don't think this was ever going to happen if they seriously considered taking Greenland or so. Of course, you wouldn't have said yes to that, but this is action in respect of Iran and we were being asked for support not to be part of the military action.

[00:01:38]>> So Tony Blair talking to Callum McDonald. Calluma and Rosie Wright are in for Stig and Kate on Times Radio weekday breakfast this week and that program of course goes out Monday to Thursday from 6 in the morning right through until 10. Now Blair also talked about what he sees as the UK's current weak international position and why he now thinks is it isn't the moment to rejoin the European Union. Uh lots to talk about then with our guest Sir Peter West Makott, the former British ambassador to the US. Uh so Peter, first of all, do we need interventions of this nature from former long-erving prime ministers?

[00:02:17]>> Well, thanks for giving me the chance to say a few words. I was just thinking that if we look at some of the things which Theresa May from the backbenches or Rishi Sunnak now on numeracy, Tony Blair with his institute, Gordon Brown on the eradication of poverty and disease around the world. I think we have got a number of former prime ministers who continue to make a real impact, an important impact not only for our national affairs but even at the global level. So I rather welcome it and I do think that this particular essay and I've I've gone through it makes some very important points many of them you know above my pay grade but a lot of them on issues that I've spent a lot of my life dealing with and thinking about and I think it's a I think it's a valuable intervention not least because I think I find amongst friends from all political parties uh and none that there is a sense that the United Kingdom doesn't quite know where it's headed at the moment that we've got a lot of short- termism amongst politicians a lot of opportunism but not much sense of strategic thought about where we go from here and how we deal with our issues. So personally I think this kind of intervention is helpful controversial as some of it is.

[00:03:27]>> Right. Okay. Um obviously many of us did assume and have assumed for years that we desperately need US support bluntly to fend off any kind of Russian threat.

[00:03:38]But right now it can sometimes feel as though Donald Trump is actually overly sympathetic to the Russian cause. But Tony Blair doesn't seem to acknowledge that in this essay.

[00:03:50]>> As far as I recall, um he doesn't say a great deal about the Russian issue and about Trump being sympathetic. I think the other thing to bear in mind is that without putting words in his mouth, I've always sensed that for Tony Blair, it was an important national interest for the United Kingdom to be aligned with uh the United States. And when it came to Iraq in 2003, he did take the view that it would be wrong for America to go in get involved in this kind of military intervention on its own without its closest and most reliable ally there as well. I never bought the stuff that he, you know, lied or or knew that the intelligence was defective. I don't believe any of that and I was in government at the time. But I do think that for him the United Kingdom strategic interest always was in remaining closely allied with the United States Sria. Now with uh Russia and Ukraine, I think his view is pretty similar to that of the rest of us, which is that the invasion is an outrageous illegal in action by Putin. And I don't think he ever has sought to defend that.

[00:04:52]but he's perhaps a little less critical sometimes of of Trump's vacasillation uh to put it mildly in terms of his support for Ukraine. And I think that on Iran, I'm not sure it's entirely right, but he may know better than me that all Trump was asking for from the British government was refueling rights for American aircraft on British bases. I had the impression it was a bit more than that that we were being asked to provide and certainly there was no consultation and there was none of the usual efforts that we had made in the past with Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya to ensure that there was international legitimacy for that military action which we both got involved with. Trump just off he went without any clear plan either for day one or for day four without consulting allies and with a very mixed set of objectives and it's turned out to be frankly a pretty disastrous war. So I have some sympathy for the fact that the prime minister at the time has said hang on I'm not too sure that this is the right thing to do either morally, legally or in terms of the national interest. And um from what we can gather, most members of the British public agree that this potentially could be one of the few things that Zakista has got right.

[00:06:03]Uh yes, I think that's right. Even if 36 hours later once it was explained that the American request was for support of a defensive nature so that the Americans could attack uh Iranian missile sites and other aggressive operations which were threatening British interests and British allies in the Gulf then we did change our view but we remained firmly of the view that the United Kingdom was not going to support what we called offensive operations and yes I think you're right in foreign policy terms I think the prime minister has had some credit for Just as at the beginning he got quite a lot of credit for going to the Oval Office and uh with that softly softly approach to Donald Trump, the offer of the unprecedented second state visit to the United Kingdom, he got the relationship with a with a demonstrably difficult and unpredictable uh American president off to a good start. So yeah, I think you're right. I I think people will give him credit for having got that right at the beginning even though or perhaps particularly because this war has turned out to be a dreadful case of of overreach which has not weakened but strengthened the regime in Iran and not strengthened but weakened the security of the region.

[00:07:12]>> Do you think Satony's essay is unnecessarily bleak about Britain? That that um sentence Britain marooned on an island of irrelevance. Honestly, we're not that bad, are we?

[00:07:24]>> Well, it's tough talk. There was a there was a very good piece by your colleague Fraser Nelson saying, you know what, we're not in that bad shape after all.

[00:07:32]We've got some fantastic universities, some fantastic technology. We've got some very good venture capital numbers.

[00:07:37]Uh the UK on in terms of AI and inventiveness is in a much better place.

[00:07:42]And by the way, being outside the single market, we are able to manage our own um arrangements if you like for AI and other new technologies in a way which is um more flexible, more agile, more relevant to our national needs. So I think I mean you're right in implying that we're not in that bad shape and in some areas we are very strong. But nevertheless I I do think that some of the areas that that that Tony Blair has identified, you know, why do we have to pay the highest prices for energy of anywhere in the industrialized world? Uh what about this extraordinary levels of debt? Why are we spending six times more on welfare than we are on defense at a time when we cannot be entirely reliant upon the United States to look after European security and so on and so on.

[00:08:23]And I think he is I think he is putting his finger on a number of important issues that that deserve proper public debate.

[00:08:29]>> Right. And um he really doesn't like the drive to net zero. Uh says it's ridiculous when Britain simply cannot solve uh climate change on its own. when uh the big hitters China, the US, India together they're responsible for 50% of global emissions. What do you say to that?

[00:08:49]>> Well, we are a small part of the problem that is true and I think it's this is an issue which is uh controversial as well because we do still have a modest amount of oil and gas in the North Sea and the government has taken a policy decision not to uh continue the exploration of those reserves. So it it makes people feel why are we paying foreigners to sell us expensive oil and gas rather than getting it out of the North Sea ourselves which would produce additional revenues of course for the extra up for the for the Treasury because of the of the tax on those things. So I think the fact that we've got this stuff and the fact that there are very large subsidies paid for wind turbines and the fact that we are paying turbine owners very large amounts of money not to generate electricity when the wind blows too hard and all those other you know parts of the debate. It means that people are saying to themselves at a time of minimal economic growth and no productivity increase and so on we are weakening our economic performance unnecessarily uh by adopting this policy. So, I think there's a I'm not an energy policy expert as you can tell, but I think that there's quite a lot of public sympathy for the arguments that that Tony's deploying there.

[00:09:59]>> And just a really quick word on the EU.

[00:10:02]In the essay, Sir Tony Blair says leaving it wasn't the answer back in whenever it was. To be honest, my mind has gone foggy about exactly when we finally did leave. But >> January 21, wasn't it?

[00:10:13]>> That's right. I don't know to be perfectly. I'm not even going to pretend I can remember. Um, but it was certainly around then. Um he doesn't also like the idea of rejoining now. Doesn't believe that would be the answer either. What do you think?

[00:10:25]>> Uh I I'm one of those people who thought that Brexit was a terrible mistake and I campaigned against it in a rather sort of ineffectual way when I came back from being ambassador in Washington. So uh I am with him on that. I wish we hadn't done it. I think it was a a contract that was propagated by a lot of people who didn't stick around to to face the consequences or pay the bill. But uh right now the idea that we can somehow go back and say can we have uh membership again on the similar terms that we had before is not an option. You know the terms we had then we threw away. We're not going to have those exemptions. We're not going to have the option of not joining the European currency. We're not going to have Shenhen again. So right now the terms available if there were any would be pretty disadvantageous. I think he's right that the United Kingdom should face up to the need to strengthen its own economy, its own clout. its own sense of purpose and direction uh and from a position of of relative strength.

[00:11:19]Um talk to the European partners about what we can do together. Does it mean rejoining the market itself, the single market, the customs union with all the disadvantages and sovereignty terms that that implies? I don't know. But I am very clear that my European friends anyway, they would like to have a a stronger, more structured relationship with the United Kingdom, partly for economic reasons, partly for freedom of travel reasons and everybody moving around Europe as we used to so marvelously before and partly because of security and foreign policy reasons. We are a strong security and foreign policy player in Europe and we need to find ways of engaging with our European partners so that that is even more effective than if we're trying to do it on our own.

[00:12:00]>> Thank you. appreciate your time this afternoon, Sir Peter Westmakott, former UK ambassador to the States.