World Review: Is Cuba next? Will Taiwan fall? British Politics in Crisis.

本站添加: 2026-05-25

[00:00:01]I am Evo Dalder and this is World Review. Each week I sit down with leading journalists and experts to break down what's happening in the world, why it matters, and what comes next. We're recording this on Friday, May 22nd. Here is what is on tapped this week. US pressure on Cuba increased this week with the indictment of its former president. So, what can we expect next?

[00:00:22]Then President Trump appeared to adopt China's talking points when it came to Taiwan after his summit in Beijing.

[00:00:31]Should Taipei be worried? And finally, Prime Minister Kierstar of Britain is under pressure to resign after a disastrous local election. But who can replace him and what difference will it make? Joining me to discuss these stories are Karen D. Young, who is the associate editor and senior national security correspondent at the Washington Post, where she has worked for more than five decades. She served as bureau chief in Latin America and London, as foreign editor, as White House correspondent and as assisting managing editor for national news, a Puliter Prize winner, she is also the author of Soldier, a excellent biography of Colon Powell.

[00:01:10]Karen, great to have you back on World Review.

[00:01:13]>> Thanks, Evo. Good to be here. Anton LaGuardia is the diplomatic editor of the Economist now based in London. He previously served as the paper's digital editor, deputy foreign editor, Middle East and Africa editor and EU correspondent and author of the Charlemagne column from Brussels. He's the author of the excellent Holy Land and Unholy War. Anton, wonderful to have you back.

[00:01:37]>> Great to be back with you, Evo. And Philip Stevens is a contributing editor of the Financial Times where he previously was the director of the editorial board and chief political commentator. He is also the author of the excellent Substack inside out newsletter and a visiting research fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. His most recent book must readading is these divided Isles Britain and Ireland past and future. It was published last year.

[00:02:06]Philip great to have you back on. Good to be with you.

[00:02:09]>> Well, let's start uh our conversation.

[00:02:11]The Trump administration has been ratcheting up pressure on Cuba for months now. An oil embargo, supporting for exile groups, and now, of course, the indictment of former President Raul Castro on murder charges. Havana is in a desperate economic strait, but we've seen this movie before. 12 presidents have tried and failed to bring down Dcastro regime. Karen Young of the Washington Post. You've been reporting on Cuba for decades. So why do you think Trump now sees this time as different and what do you think is going to come next?

[00:02:48]>> You know, I think I think if you listen to the president uh and he spoke about it again in the past few days, his uh he lives in southern Florida. uh as he often says, he knows a lot of Cubans there and uh a lot of rich Cubans, he also says, and I think that uh he his idea of Cuba is is the view of a lot of these people who have talked to him for years about Cuba. But I I also think that it's important that Marco Rubio uh is now the Secretary of State and has based a lot of his political career uh in Florida obviously and has uh been very long for decades uh dedicated to the end of the communist uh regime in Cuba. I think that the president now is pleased with what happened in Venezuela.

[00:03:44]He thinks that there can be a repetition of that in Cuba. Uh he often mentions that as he says 97% of Cubanameans voted for him last time.

[00:03:55]I don't know if that's true, but that's what he said. It wouldn't surprise me.

[00:03:58]Um so what have they done? As you said, Evo, uh R. Castro, the once president of Cuba, the brother of Fidel Castro, uh now uh 94 years old and enjoying his retirement as a revolutionary hero in Cuba, was indicted uh this week or they unsealed an indictment this week in Miami uh charging him with the murder of four people in 1996.

[00:04:28]Uh this goes back to a group called Brothers to the Rescue, which was an or a humanitarian organization founded in the early 90s to rescue what were tens of thousands of Cubans that were fleeing the island in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union basically cut off their economic lifeline. The uh Cubans were allowed to come to this country. President Clinton at that time stopped at least part of that program and sent the Coast Guard out to pick up people at sea who were traveling on rafts and and inner tubes in some cases to cross the 90m Florida straits and and get to Florida. When he did that, he sent the Coast Guard out to pick them up and actually sent them to Guantanamo and then returned them to Cuba. Um, the rafters stopped and the brothers to the rescue who were flying flights over the straits to see if there were people in need and call the Coast Guard to rescue them uh suddenly found themselves uh without as much work to do. And they started dropping leaflets over over Havana uh urging people to rise up uh mocking the the Cuban government. The Cuban government didn't do much about it except to complain to the US government.

[00:05:48]This happened at least a dozen times and uh the US government tried to get the flights to stop. They were unsuccessful.

[00:05:57]I couldn't vouch how hard they tried, but uh in any case, the Cubans finally said after more than a year of this said, "Look, next time we're going to shoot them down." And in fact, they did.

[00:06:08]There were three flights. They shot down two of them. Uh, I think it was pretty clear, although the Cubans denied this, that they were over international waters, not over Cuban airspace. Four people were killed, three of them uh, American citizens. The other uh, a Cuban exile who had not yet received his citizenship. For years, uh, Florida politicians, Cubanameans have said somebody needs to be punished for this.

[00:06:36]uh first Fidel Castro who obviously died in 2016 uh and and Castro who was the defense minister at the time this happened. So finally they did it. Why did they do it?

[00:06:49]Because as you said the Trump administration has been ratcheting up pressure hoping it can take over Cuba be they see it as a quick big political win. Uh I don't think they really want to invade, but what they've done is uh imposed an oil blockade on top of the economic embargo that's existed for six decades. Um they have sanctioned all kinds of organizations and individuals beyond those that were already sanctioned. Uh they've put Cuba back on the state sponsor of terrorism list.

[00:07:25]It's not clear whether they want to do what they did in Venezuela, which was to top off the head of the government uh in the form of Nicholas Maduro and allow the uh now compliant uh existing government to stay in power or whether they actually plan to do a sort of full Iran on Cuba. I sus I suspect that their strong preference is the former. Uh they sent uh John Radcliffe, the director of the CIA, down there last week for private talks with them. Um the the the problem is I think that the Cuban government is a lot different than than Venezuela. It's not just one guy. It's a it's a very closely integrated um communist party military system. And I think right now they're not quite sure what they're going to do.

[00:08:20]This is uh Karen, wonderful overview here of of sort of where we have come from and where we are today. And and Anton, let me let me ask you uh sort of as you as you look at this, you you have this sense that there's there's kind of two models that the White House is struggling with. There's the uh the the Venezuela model. You you arrest the top, you cut off the head of the snake, so to say, and then things are are willing to will will move in a direction that we would want to go. And there is the Iran model where you where you try to do regime change through military force. Uh do you think they're looking Anton uh at this uh model in in in are they going to try to choose between the two? Are they trying to figure out a third way to do it or or how do you see it?

[00:09:07]Well, you know, the Venezuela model was supposed to be the third way uh of doing things, which is neither an Iraq style invasion, nor a, you know, sending a few tomahawks against al-Qaeda, but a targeted operation to decapitate the regime and then weaken it from within and then find a more pliant uh person to take over. Uh this is what they thought they were doing in Iran until they discovered that Iran is not Venezuela.

[00:09:34]So they decapitated the regime and strengthened the hardliners and then found themselves uh in a prolonged campaign uh of air bombardment to try and unseat the regime or at least try to do sufficient damage to the nuclear program and to its ability to close the straight of Hormuz to be able to claim victory. A victory that is elusive. So there are two questions here. First of all, does the Venezuela model work in Cuba? And I think for reasons that Karen has mentioned, uh it is a different kind of regime. And secondly, um is there a risk that this spirals out of control and becomes another uh protracted conflict uh at a time when they're already deeply involved in Iran and keeps threatening uh to take more action in Iran? Now, perhaps Cub is a welcome distraction. They think they can win quickly. They think it's weakened, particularly since the fall of of Maduro in Venezuela and the banning of Mexican oil, but uh you know it would be a hell of a gamble uh to try it. So I suspect they're trying to put pressure on in the hope that something will snap within Venez within Cuba and uh and you know somebody somebody pushes Raul aside.

[00:10:45]It's interesting that um Radcliffe went to speak to Raito uh his relative, but um it doesn't seem that he came away with much.

[00:10:53]>> Uh it's a really a fascinating set of uh issues here, Philip. and and and you know, if if if you had told me uh I'll be honest, uh in November of 2025 that the president of the United States was uh going to invade Venezuela uh target Iran uh and try to uh engage in regime chains in Cuba within the next 6 months, I would have said, "You're crazy. This guy doesn't that's not his base. That's not who uh who he is." And yet, that is exactly what Donald Trump started to do in 2026. And you know, as a as as someone who's observed American politics and American foreign policy for a long time, uh h how should we interpret this?

[00:11:34]What what do you think we're we're uh uh we're seeing here? Are these just a confluence of issues that the president has decided he wants to tackle or is there some grander strategy behind this?

[00:11:47]I don't think there's a grand strategy, but I think there's a uh a profound and really profound shift, which is you could sum it up by saying the United States has left the West. And by the West, I mean the system that the United States created itself based on rules, you know, sometimes broken, but ba basically a superructure for uh peaceful resolution of most problems. not all but most. Uh Trump has walked out of that system uh in terms of Venezuela, in terms of Cuba, in terms of Iran, but also in terms of threats to Greenland.

[00:12:27]So what we now have is what I would call a a sort of a belligerent unilateralism in American foreign policy, which is the policy is to do what the president wants to do um using uh American power as he can. And what he's discovering, of course, is that uh American military power is only half the story. Do you need political power in a complicated world? I think I I called up an old friend in Brussels um ahead of this show to ask what the European view of of uh the US Cuba policy was. And he said to me, well, we just can't fight the president on everything.

[00:13:16]uh and then went on to say that the eur Europeans who have some differences between themselves on how but basically think the way um to to to end the regime in Cuba is to is to engage and integrate it economically over time. Um basically they think the policy is profoundly wrong. They resent the unilateralism of the embargo, the trade embargo being imposed by the American Navy in effect.

[00:13:48]Um, but you know, they don't want to fight Trump on this one because, you know, Iran's enough.

[00:13:57]Iran's enough to fight on and and and Greenland and NATO troops and, uh, trade relations. Uh, for sure. So Karen, I I think I think what Philip underscores is is the the president in this issue has a pretty a pretty uh uh free hand uh in the sense that no one is really going to come to the aid of Cuba. You don't see the Chinese or the Russians doing it. Uh um or maybe maybe I'm wrong. So sort of if if he really wanted to do something, could he? Um uh including militarily. It is pretty close to Florida's coast. One of the one of the things about Cuba is that um over the years the people who who don't want interference in Cuba politic people in the United States and in Europe and and other allies um don't care as much about it as the people who really want it. And that has always been the case. So that it the president whoever the president is or or the political force of the day that the president wants something from um you know they they have had a pretty free hand. I think unless there actually is unless actual fighting breaks out which I think could be really really messy because Cuba they they will fight back um and um unless that happens and I think I think they are the government is prepared to make a lot of concessions but it's a pretty sclerotic system um and they can't move very quickly and Trump has sort of set all these deadlines and so that's why I think the whole situation's up in the air right now.

[00:15:40]>> I mean, deadlines seems to be uh the way that Trump deals with everything uh including missing them, right?

[00:15:47]>> Yeah. Although although it also must be said that he cancels his own deadlines frequently. So, exactly. Who knows?

[00:15:53]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:54]>> They are uh they're there until they know are no longer they are no longer there. Anton, in terms of military, you you've looked at the defense side. In terms of military uh how how would you think uh this would evolve? This is a place where overwhelming military capabilities are present. Uh there seems to have been widespread surveillance being done over the island in the last few uh few weeks. Um how would you see this playing out?

[00:16:21]>> You know, I would assume that the problem is not to defeat the Cuban military. The problem will be to secure the peace or to, you know, convince them to stop fighting against whatever follows. Um so I would imagine that uh as with a lot of these wars uh the initial kinetic phase could be successful but the long potential insurgency that might follow and the political instability that might follow will be difficult to will be difficult to manage. Uh and you know not to not to minimize the fact that you might get a lot of people getting on votes again uh which is not presumably what Donald Trump wants. I'd also add to that one of the lessons of Iran is you don't win these conflicts from the air with missiles and bombs. In the end, you need boots on the ground. And if you put boots on the ground, that means casualties. You don't need you can win, but you got to pay you can pay a price for it. And question I have is, you know, although his supporters feel, you know, profoundly uh that that the regime should be overturned, how many American deaths are they likely to accept in order to do that?

[00:17:35]>> Well, and and let's not forget that there's an American naval base at Guantanamo where there are a lot of American troops.

[00:17:43]>> So, what does it so and and and what what does that mean in in practice, Karen? So there are a lot of troops there and of course it can be resupplied pretty easily, right?

[00:17:52]>> Yeah. Uh I would assume that the Cubans have reinforced both their offensive and defensive uh capabilities around Guantanamo. Um and and that the Americans would move to if they were going to start some kind of kinetic action, they would move to to remove a lot of those people um to to take them out of harm's way. But I think that that, you know, they are a pretty large target.

[00:18:22]>> Certainly a large target and and uh a very difficult set of military circumstances with an island that really since 1959 has been preparing for a possible invasion uh in one way or another. I'm joined by Karen Young of the Washington Post, Anton LaGuardia of The Economist, and Philip Stevens of the Financial Times. Coming out of last week's Beijing summit, President Trump appeared to embrace several of Beijing's longstanding positions on Taiwan. He said that armshells were now a bargaining chip. He echoed Chinese language about reunification and he declined to reaffirm in any real formal way the long-standing one China policy with all of the ambiguities that that has. Danton LaGuardia of the Economist.

[00:19:08]You've covered USChina relations and what is happening in the Pacific for many many years. How alarmed should Taipei be? How alarmed is Taipei? And what do you think is the broader commitment of the United States to the security of Taiwan coming out of this summit?

[00:19:29]>> I think this has come out at the uh more worrying end from the Taiwanese perspective.

[00:19:36]um of the range of options that people speculated about before Trump went into the summit. Uh you will remember that Taiwan is often called the most dangerous place on earth. Uh a place where a future war between China and America might start. uh and Xiinping was careful to note remind Donald Trump that uh of the danger of falling into the so-called trap where a declining power in his view America uh you takes to arms to prevent a rising power from uh from dominating. So uh a lot of attention has been focused on uh Iran. Um the talks seemed to have gone relatively well and then Donald Trump uh got onto Fox News and some of the worst fears started to emerge and the way he spoke about uh Taiwan uh an island that in his view had stolen America's microprocessing uh chips industry uh in which uh he said that negos you know he had talked at length to Xiinping about arm sales to Taiwan uh which is something that he's not supposed to do and has been American practice not to talk to China about the nature of arm sales to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act. He called it, as you reminded us, a bargaining chip. Uh he accused Lingo of seeking independence uh thinking that America had his back.

[00:21:02]So I think all this language is uh is worrying. He also talked, you remember, do Joe Biden would say that he would, you know, of course defend Taiwan and then his officials would have to walk him back. Uh Donald Trump has said it the other way round. He said, uh, you know, it's an awfully long way away from us. It's 9,500 miles from America. It's only a few hundred miles from China. You know, it's a very different proposition.

[00:21:26]Um, implying that this is not a fight that he he would want to to wage. Um so I think altogether it has been worrying for the Taiwanese and worrying also for the Japanese who said that for them the security of Taiwan was you know in essence an existential issue on which they would be prepared to commit military forces. So the concern is that America is losing interest in holding the line at the first island chain which runs from Japan through Taiwan through the Philippines and out to Malaysia. Uh that's very different from what the Pentagon are talking about and preparing for which is to do precisely that to defend the first island chain with uh by dispersing their forces and so on. So American policy in Asia is up in arms as it is up in arms up in the air as it is in much else of the world.

[00:22:22]>> Up in the air I think Philip uh strikes me as as a an accurate reflection. It's up in the air and one because the president of the United States doesn't agree with the rest of his administration on what to do, which is a a kind of a conflict that's that's hard to uh uh to deal with for anyone. But but also up in the air because it strikes me that uh at the meeting Xi Jinping uh put the monkey squarely squarely on on Trump's back. He said that the core issue in US US China relations is not the economy. It's not global governance. it's not dealing with uh global threats or global uh challenges. It's Taiwan. Um and um and the president basically said, "Yeah, I get it." In which case, we'll site with you. Is that the fair way to think about it? Well, I think and pick up something that Anton said, I think the optics of this summit was very much that of the rising power and the declining power.

[00:23:22]You know, watching the watching the body language Uh it you know it really looked as if um she was the man in in command as it were and Trump was responding to his initiatives rather than presenting America's initiatives. I think also I think Trump is caught in the logic of his own worldview because you can see as he speaks him thinking well if I want to run the western hemisphere how can I say that the Chinese can't run their neighborhood there is a sort of you know there is a a logic there in his position which is often not to be found in other foreign policy positions stakes. I think he did, as I understand it, he did resist pressure um from the Chinese to to say directly that the US would oppose um you know independent you know complete independence for China that I think the Chinese wanted the Americans to harden up the language. But I think you know I think the logic of his position and his body language and what he said to Fox all points in the direction that perhaps this isn't quite so much now the most dangerous place in the world because question will America fight for Taiwan you know if I had to say that you know I think the direction is pretty clear and it's away from that possibility whatever you know the Pentagon I think will you will always do what it thinks it needs to do to to protect uh the present position. But I think um the logic and ironically Europeans I think are quite I mean I I got two responses from from European diplomats to the summit. one great relief that nothing, you know, mad had happened, that, you know, the president hadn't, you know, introduced some entirely new policy or approach, but two, a sense of anything that takes tension out of that relationship um is good. And you know, to be frank, you know, the Europeans are not that interested in Taiwan in in its sort of uh in its principal state. Obviously there are huge economic interests and um but in the sense that you know Europe won't die in the ditch for Taiwan and indications that the US now won't die in the ditch for Taiwan um are quite in a curious perverse way reassuring.

[00:26:09]>> Well that's a that's an interesting way probably not reassuring to both the South Koreans and in particularly the Japanese uh in some ways. Um but I mean Karen uh if there is one issue it seems to me where there has been a bipartisan consensus it is that China is a rival it's a competitor uh it is up to no good. Uh in fact uh uh it was the first Trump administration that probably consolidated that perspective of of China better than than uh certainly uh anyone before him uh and was continued under under President Biden. And yet we seem to have a president who who's looking for what they tantlike uh relationship. Uh how is this playing in Washington?

[00:26:57]I think it's not playing well uh and it will probably play worse in the future when uh some of Trump's biggest supporters uh particularly in the Senate um get their attention shifted back from um you know what's occupying them now about uh slush funds and and uh various things that they're really mad about. Um, you know, you you've got people like people like Lindsey Graham. I mean, Taiwan is is like the the the load stone. Um, and and it's it's one thing for Trump to sort of glory in the pomp of a of a state visit to to China and not do anything particularly bad. It's another thing to to sort of put put some teeth behind what Anton was saying that in terms of what the president has said since he got back about about Taiwan.

[00:28:00]You know, Trump has never talked that much about Taiwan. It's not it's it's not been his thing. His thing is trade.

[00:28:06]Um his thing is who's on top. Um but but as Philip said um if you look at the their national security strategy this year, China barely figures at all um on a national security sense. Again leaving out the the economics of it for a minute. So I think that any I if if China were to take a move against Taiwan, I think that there would be a lot of Republicans in particular um in Congress who would be very upset if the United States did not respond forcefully to that.

[00:28:47]Uh, I mean, it'd be interesting to see what what how it means to be upset and then actually getting the president of the United States as commander-in-chief to do something about it, right?

[00:28:56]>> Well, that's a good question. You know, we we still have this big arm sale just kind of sitting there uh that with these weapons uh for Taiwan that just they're not acting on.

[00:29:09]>> Yeah. And there's this question uh apparently uh Bridge KBY who is the under secretary of defense/war I guess we call it these days uh uh for policy Anton who is supposed to go to Beijing to u start a to to prepare a visit of of uh of Pete Hexath uh to Beijing and he's been denied entry uh and the Chinese are sort of indicating yeah well we'd like to have a decision on arm sales like a no on arm sales before you come uh when the president uh makes makes uh arm sales a bargaining chip as he said.

[00:29:41]Anton, how do you uh what what leverage do you lose in that sense?

[00:29:49]Well, I think this is a president who in his first term reintroduced the idea of great power competition uh in the national security strategy or at least officials around him and in this incarnation is much more interested in great power accommodation. So we've seen him do it with Putin and we've seen him do it with uh with Xiinping. And the cost of that is of course to treat allies, democratic allies and so on with much greater contempt um uh perhaps even than in his first term. So you know I think this is a kind of bad a bad world that we're that we we've entered. Uh and you know I I agree with I think the implication of what you were saying which is Republicans may be upset about this but he has an incredible hold over the Republican party and they can't possibly compel him uh to fight over Taiwan. So um and uh his military action in Iran has expended a lot of the munitions that America would need in in any conflict with China, not least long-range weapons, um air defense interceptors and so on. So America's ability to help Taiwan or in general intervene in Asia is diminished to some extent, although we don't know the precise precise numbers, but the leaks suggest they've used up a lot of ammunition.

[00:31:13]>> They Yeah, indeed. In fact, uh the Washington Post uh uh uh had an an incredibly important story and many of them, but the most recent one was that the US had used more air defense cap missiles, interceptors to defend Israel than Israel had itself. And and again, uh Israel has to defend itself. The United States has huge global responsibilities. Uh, Philip, I want to come back to you because I was I was kind of struck by this this uh point you made on the Europeans don't really care uh as much about what's happening in in Taiwan, which I I I get. Uh there is though this this question uh that Taiwan happens to be the uh semiconductor producer of the world. Um including its most advanced semiconductors which have not been are not able to be produced anywhere else. And to the extent we now have sort of AI and all the other advanced technological capabilities reliant on uh on these uh on these chips uh the president may say you know they stole it. uh that one not true but two uh uh water under the bridge they have it uh and if China were to be able to control the export of uh of ex of these chips in the same way that for example uh they are controlling critical uh mineral uh and material exports or magnets that are based on this etc everybody is going to suffer and that must be an interest that thei that the Europeans understand.

[00:32:39]>> Yeah. No, I think and I I I try to say particularly on trade and of as you say on technology um incredibly important um for Europe um particularly for a Europe that wants to be a bit more independent from the US as it were on some of these things. So I wasn't in any way suggesting that the Europeans would be comfortable with a Chinese takeover of Taiwan. You know to the contrary you know that it would be a profound shock.

[00:33:08]What I do think though is that you know in when they look at this troubled world Taiw you know protecting or standing up for Taiwan is not you top of the list of the pri of priorities and the sense that there isn't a crisis in China US relations over Taiwan or indeed you know Taiwan isn't going to be you know isn't going to be the sort of flash point for the third world war is you know is I a bit reassuring. I mean, and it's a long way away and you know, Europeans of course, you know, stand up and say, "Look, we've got to defend the rules-based order and territorial integrity everywhere, but uh they, you know, they look a bit closer to home obviously to Europe and Ukraine and to the Middle East before they looked at."

[00:33:58]So, it's more a sense of, as I was trying to say, a sort of relief that nothing has gone wrong and that, you know, uh, that Trump isn't saber rattling about Taiwan and not doing anything that would encourage the Chinese to try and preempt the situation with military intervention. Um but frankly we are you know beginning to enter a world and also you know Europe wants a good relationship with China at one level on the trade international cooperation level whether it's global warming whatever and one of the interesting things is that she is now positioning himself as you know the guardian of international rules you know it's it's not the US president who's standing up and saying look we can't fall to a world where might is right and it's, you know, everyone for themselves.

[00:34:49]It's the Chinese president which is a bit of a some is some reversal. But I think your point about the dangers of Taiwan for Japan uh and South Korea in particular, but also the region as a whole, um is is well taken and that you know certainly Europe would be threatened profoundly if uh China sought to run its neighborhood in the way that the US is trying to run its neighborhood.

[00:35:23]Yeah. I think uh this this this idea of uh spheres of influence in which by the way of course Russia can run its neighborhood which is Europe or at least the Europeans need to take care of them themselves. That is a a dangerous uh dangerous situation. I do come away from I must say from this summit uh uh I think we will look back at this summit as the beginning of a very different new era in which the United States for the first time came to came to Beijing as as the supplicant rather than the deandur uh uh of a relationship and and Xiinping set the rules and uh in fact even created the the ideas of constructive strategic stability which he Xiinping would determine what was strategic what was stable and what was constructive not the president of the United States and that's a extraordinary change.

[00:36:11]>> Yeah, I think this could well be a turning point in this >> and invited another supplicant who was uh Vladimir Putin within a few days.

[00:36:18]>> Absolutely. There are many supplicants at the at the emperor she's uh >> but as Trump pointed out his celebration and his reception was more flashy.

[00:36:29]>> Yeah, much much better. It was much flasher and and and after all for uh for the Mara Lago uh president that is what is important. Now on to Britain. K Starmer came to power nearly two years ago with one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern British history. And yet here we are a poor showing in local elections, labor hemorrhaging support to reform and the Greens and growing calls within Starmer's own party for him to go.

[00:36:59]Philip Stevens, you have looked at British politics for an awfully long time, both for the Financial Times uh where you were the chief political commentator, but also uh continuing in your inside and out uh uh Substack. uh how did uh help us understand how did how did we get to this point so quickly with Labor uh with his large majority now uh seemingly uh going away and and Starmer uh looking at uh at not whether but when he will exit who replaces him and and does it really matter as you say I' one way or another I've been writing about British politics for 40 odd years and you know there have been some you know some momentous um moments in that, you know, I was sort of uh there at the sort of fall of Margaret Thatcher, the great Margaret Thatcher, defenistrated by her own party um at the end of the 1980s. Um and more recently, of course, we've had Brexit and we've had Boris Johnson as a sort of serial liar, you know, in in Downing Street, thrown out from, among other things, holding parties in Downing Street during the COVID pandemic. And then we had Liz Truss who was there, you know, whose shelf life was that of a, as the economist uh pointed out, a supermarket uh lettuce. So, we've had some, you know, odd moments, but I find this actually in many ways the most inexplicable.

[00:38:27]I step back two years ago only to less slightly less than two years ago. Um Karmama won a general election the majority of over 170 what you know an impregnable majority which by normal assumptions would mean this wasn't a victory for 5 years it was a victory for 10 years.

[00:38:52]Now his own party looks pretty much set to one way or another to get him out of office. Um and you know the government of course is unpopular, very unpopular as you'd mentioned the local elections demonstrated it to be so. On the other hand there are three more years before a general election. You know it's you can more easily imagine a party panicking 18 months out from a general election. say do we new need a new leader but 3 years out you know we we've learned in recent times how much can change in 3 years but the Labour party is indeed in a state of panic as um one of uh Star's colleagues cabinet colleagues um put it to me it's a comedy of errors turned fast um uh and his you know to make it even more difficult to understand none of the contenders for for the crown. And there are a couple from the what's called the soft left, the more the more socialist um uh uh wing of the party and one prominent contender from what you might call the the more moderate Blairite wing of the party, but none of them are suggesting a fundamental change of course if they win power. you know, uh, the main one, an Andy Burnham, who's the mayor of of, uh, Manchester, is suggesting a, you know, a tilt to the left, as it were. Bit more public spending, a bit more public intervention, maybe some higher taxes, but nothing that would really change the course of of British politics. So to understand it, I think you have to go beyond below this and look at the more fundamental shifts in British politics.

[00:40:43]And they're much the same as in uh most of Europe. And it's the fragmentation of politics as the old government governing coalitions of center right and center left um fall victim to the rise of populist parties mostly of the right but some of the left. And what's happened to labor? I mean the Tories have been destabilized by reform for for some years and are still uh reformist Nigel Farage's MAGA movement uh as it were in Britain uh nationalist ethnist anti- anti-migrant socially uh conservative. Um but so recently is Labor and Labor is threatened on two from from two directions. You have a Green Party which is pretty much now more a far-left econ far left party in terms of economic policy than an environmentalist party. And then you have Nigel Faraj's reform which is taking workingass blue as Trump did workingclass voters in some of the de-industrialized um uh former heartlands of Labor. And frankly, the party is panicking because Star's sin is to be less popular than his own party. So he's going to be thrown out basically because of these structural shift, but because he's a poor communicator. he is he's made some avoidable errors, unforced errors and he lacks the sort of emotional intelligence which is the prerequisite of sort of modern politics in the digital age. Um but you know it seems to quite a lot of people in including quite a lot in the Labour party itself that these are not really capital crimes. Um, and none of the, as I say, none of the candidates, um, seems set to have a prospectus that offers a way out of this for Labor, a way to rebuild the coalition between Labour's always been a coalition between its sort of workingass traditional labor rights and lower middle class and middle class metropolitan progressives.

[00:43:03]uh if Labour's to win again, it has to rebuild that coalition. Well, what Andy Bernham, the the preeminent uh contender, is offering is actually a shift back to the the traditional working class vote, but that loses Labor uh probably to the Liberal Democrats, but also some to the Greens, the the sort of progressive uh vote. um where streeting who's on the Blairite wing um will struggle to to to if you like attract back into the party uh blue collar workers who've gone to reform. So I think you've got a contest um without any prospect at the moment of of a result that will change Labour's fortunes. What what was needed if you were going to replace a leader, what's needed is a leader strong enough and with enough appeal across the across the piece as it were to bind rebind together those two wings of the Labor Party. Uh a figure like Blair, you know, Blair did this extremely well um when he won three elections uh during the 1990s and early 2000s. We haven't got that. just to run through the candidates quickly. Uh Bernham is as I say the sort of soft left as he's called uh lead contender.

[00:44:28]Um but he's first got to win and there is this is an important but in he's got to get back into parliament to stand for the leadership and he's got to win a bi-election to do that and Nigel Farage's reform will contest that very strongly. So he may he may actually fall. That leaves a couple of candidates like Ed Miband who's the environmental and energy uh uh minister who former leader of the party and Angela Raina who's a former deputy leader who had some trouble with our tax affairs and had to stand down but has now been uh cleared of that and always treating the as I say the sort of modernizing progressive if Biden wins the bi-election he'll win the leadership even though Stalmer may fight on it maybe get very messy. Um if he Bham doesn't win my bet would be on Ed Milliband as a sort of compromise candidate um who is the sort of least offensive to the other side of the party as it were. Thanks Philip.

[00:45:38]That's a that's a great great way to sort of sum up where where the state of play is in in insight the Labor Party and to some extent in British politics and Karen uh you you're uh uh it was a long time ago what you were in London in fact that's when we we we met but you've you've observed this before. What Philip is describing sounds like the Democratic party to me. uh a a bunch of people running around really not having a lot of differences of policy but really don't know not really knowing how to to move forward uh in a deeply fragmented uh society and and figure out a way to uh to get there. Does that sound right to you?

[00:46:17]>> It it does. I I see a lot of similarities. Um I'm I'm assume the economic forces that have driven the the um the working class as as Philip described uh are the same as they are in this country. I wonder if social issues play as much a part uh as they have in this country in terms of of pushing that group of voters that that kind of base of the of the Democratic party in this country pushing them away from labor.

[00:46:52]Yeah. Just to come back on that, the the what Farage has done is basically um set up the quotes elite as the enemy and the elites have allowed in lots of migrants.

[00:47:09]Um, and this is the story goes, those migrants have not only stolen the jobs or pushed down the wages for bluecollar workers, they're also robbing them of their cultural identity. So yeah, we have not on the same scale or the same intensity as the US, but we have the same cultural war which is pulling the disenfranchise um blue collar workers on into the far right.

[00:47:40]Anton, I want to uh as a former uh EU correspondent for the economist and and the person who wrote the Charlemagne column, the European issue all of a sudden seems to have come back in some way uh to the political uh discussion including in the Labor Party uh uh because there is now sort of this overwhelming sentiment that Brexit was a mistake. Uh uh you know could have told you so by the way uh many did including including the economist and uh and Philip Stevens in countless columns. Um, but here we are 10 years later and there seems to be this this this this idea that maybe we need to reverse that mistake and that both Starmer is starting to play with the idea of a closer uh alignment with the with Europe driven in part by the division with the United States over a whole series of issues. Uh some of the candidates I think West Streeting has said we should reapply for for uh membership in uh in the EU. The EU has said, well, not sure we want you, but that's a a a different set of issues. I is this the time where in fact Europe may become an issue for British politics that can mobilize a majority of the people?

[00:48:53]>> I think not in the short term. I think this is a slow burn issue. uh was treating raised the question of Europe and you know returning to Europe as a long-term question and I think he did it rather instrumentally in order to put a a stick between the wheels in the spokes of um uh of Andy Burnham who's the constituency where he's running voted very heavily in favor of leave. So he sort of poses you know raises the issue of the European flag uh to create to create trouble is I mean I don't know Philip will know better but I suspect there's a bit of Mcavelian politicking going on there but you're right which is that there is a sense of buyers remorse in Britain about uh about Brexit there is now a majority who tell pollsters that they would like to rejoin Europe but I don't think that majority is yet strong enough and is not broadly based enough across the political parties uh to surmount the problem of having to call another referendum to overcome the last referendum. So the Conservatives are still in in in the Brexit camp uh and the the issue divides uh Labor. So I don't see this um uh really get taking off very quickly although it will be part of the debate and in the meantime how to devise relations with Europe that are more constructive is not really being debated in much issue in terms of do they accept the jurisdiction of the Europe European Court of Justice on some issues? Do they reenter the customs union? the lots of things short of eventual membership that could and should be debated that are not being debated by the Labor Party.

[00:50:38]Incidentally, the other thing that the Labor Party is not debating is the fiscal position of Britain as spend as public spending increases as a share of GDP and more calls are made on the budget for example to increase defense spending. Uh neither can neither of the leading candidates is really talking about how this is going to be paid for.

[00:51:00]Andy Bernham in the past has said yes, we should be thinking about in the longest term getting back into the European Union, but he's now saying, well, for the purposes of this bi-election, we're not not allowed to talk about that. He's been quite liberal on immigration, but for the purposes of this bi-election, we're not allowed to talk about that, which is part of the sort of craziness of this. Anton's right about the fiscal position. It's not discussed but it it's the major constraint. Burnham went out a little while ago and started talking about look we shouldn't be frightened of the bond markets. The bond market started falling but is now saying of course we'll keep to all the same fiscal rules as the present government. But this is a lunacy. You know Starman's got to go. We need a new government but we're going to do the same things with a little tilt here and a little tilt there. But it's mostly about tone. I mean, Burnham is who I've known for, you know, 20 odd years. I'm afraid to say, you know, he's a he's a politician that floats with any any wind and he'll do anything and say anything in order to um promote himself.

[00:52:12]I mean, all politicians are ambitious, but there are levels of degrees. Um I don't think there's a huge amount of substance there. I think Miliband is I think streeting is by far the most impressive but I think he mishandled the challenge to Stalmer by resigning from the cabinet and I think he just doesn't have the base within the party but Brexit is one of these dividing lines within the party as Anton says because you have the progressive professional wing of the Labor party which is almost unanimous as it were in saying we got to get back into the EU. you tomorrow.

[00:52:51]And then the old working class uh blue collar part of the party mostly in the Midlands and the North which says no no we may it may have been a mistake but we don't want to be told that it was a mistake. Um and we don't want to present this to the voters because it'll it'll give votes to Nigel Farage and reform. I I I do wonder though that in this lineup as as Kier Starmer looks at uh the reality uh that he's sort of losing sense of uh of ownership of the uh of the Labor Party and yet being faced with uh opponents who are not going to fundamentally change anything that there might be an opportunity and maybe he's not deaf enough a politician but an opportunity to say let's take this Europe issue which he's actually spoken to quite eloquently uh in the context of of the United States and make it we don't we no longer can count on the United States. we need to be with Europe, not make it about Brexit, but as as Anton said, make it about a closer relationship, perhaps the customs union and some some issues uh and run with that, which would, by the way, take a lot of votes away, I assume, uh down the road from the Liberal Democrats that is a pro-Uropean platform, not pro-EU, but pro- European uh in defense, in security, in trade, and in education.

[00:54:14]uh um uh and and make that part of the uh of the way forward. But >> you're right, but a bolder, more confident politician who, you know, knew how to project himself and the platform would do precisely that. But I'm afraid, you know, Starmmer, who, as I say, I think is a bit of an intercept in this, is just not really of that caliber of leader.

[00:54:41]some some sense he wouldn't have gotten into trouble if he had been uh and and sort of there you have it. So you can't really uh project the future on the basis if you have to project the future on the basis of the past and he's unlikely to do it. Uh what a terrific conversation. We we we unfortunately have to leave it here. I want to thank uh all three of you for a uh wonderful conversation. Karen Young, associate editor of the Washington Post. Thanks so much uh for your insight. Really terrific. Great to have you back on.

[00:55:07]>> Thank you. Anteluardia, a diplomatic editor of the Economist. Always great to have you back.

[00:55:14]>> Good to be with you, Evo.

[00:55:17]>> And Philip Stevens, contributing editor of the Financial Times and author of Inside Out Substack Newsletter.

[00:55:22]Wonderful to see you as well.

[00:55:24]>> Really enjoyed it and learned a lot.

[00:55:26]Thank you.

[00:55:27]>> Well, thank you and we'll we'll get all three of you back on uh very soon and thank you for listening. World Review is a Belelfer Center for Science and International Affairs podcast from Harvard Kennedy School. Find us Sunday mornings at 7 a.m. on WBZ Chicago or wherever you get your podcast. I am Evo Dalder. We'll be back next week with another edition of World Review. Until then, be well and stay safe.