The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 54. Guy Verhofstadt: Is there a case for a European army?

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

What's it like to run Belgium for a decade? How many people in the EU actually believe in 'ever-closer union'? What are the pros and cons of being a career politician? On today's episode of Leading, Rory and Alastair are joined by former Belgium prime minister and advocate of a federal Europe, Guy Verhofstadt, to answer all these questions and more. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's therestispoletics.com. Welcome to the Restis Politics leading with me, Alistair Campbell. And me, Rory Stewart. And I guess today, I suspect to most British listeners, they know him as that Belgian MEP who kept popping up on our TV screens during the Brexit debate. And fair to say, not a fan of Brexit and very much not a fan of the politics and the politicians who bought Brexit into being. But there's a lot more to him than that because this is a man who was president of his own political party in his late 20s,

who was finance minister and deputy prime minister of his own country in his early 30s, prime minister in his mid-40s, and a job that he did in a pretty difficult country to govern Belgium, for almost a decade, almost virtually coincident with the time that New Labour was in power. And it's very, very, very kind of him to do this interview with me in particular, because I think it's fair to say that it was partly and largely thanks to my old boss, Tony Blair, that this gentleman did not become president of the European Commission. So I'm very grateful. Exactly, exactly.

That he's here. And I want to ask you, first of all, Guy, are there any hard feelings over that decision? way back when? A lot, a lot, a lot. I'm still thinking about it. I'm waking it up and I say, blah, blare, blare, blare, blare. He blocks me.

He blocks me. No, no. But in the meanwhile, I discovered something that is at least so passionate than be president of the European Commission. That's the European Parliament and European democracy. Because, yeah, without European democracy, a European parliament, there is no future for this. for this continent. So no hard feelings, Alistair. No heart feelings. Thank you. I'm glad to hear it.

Well, Guy, we're going to bring you back to talk about your time in Europe. But if we can begin with your time in Belgium, and can you begin by just giving listeners, because we have listeners all over the world, a little bit of an introduction to Belgian and Belgian politics, and in particular some of the divisions between the Flemish, French and German communities and the way that the politics works in Belgium. How many hours you have? To do. An introduction in Belgian politics in five minutes.

Well, let's say the following thing. So, we have been created, as you know, after the Napoleon wars and after the Congress of Vienna, as one of the first countries who went against the outcome of the Congress of Vienna. There are two countries. Greece was created at that moment in the 20s, and we, in 1830, with in fact different language communities. So we have the ability, I think, in Belgium to find compromises and to keep together

what in other parts of the world would already have been separated for decades or for centuries. Does it make it harder to govern Belgian the fact that you have these languages? It's not easy. You see, it's like an intergovernmental conference on a daily basis, an intergovernmental conference on a daily basis where you have to make agreements, compromises, not only between political parties or inside the political party, but also between communities. And it's a federal country that became federal after it was, first of all, a central country. So that's the opposite way of history. Normally you have different countries coming together and making a federation.

That's the way it normally were. did the opposite. From a central bureaucratic country governed by Brussels, we went to a federal country. And in fact, yeah, with all the difficulties, it works because we have no war, we have no casualties, we have no violence between the communities. Can I just come in just to take people back to the basics and my understanding of it. So my understanding is, there are broadly speaking three main communities. There's a Flemish community which speaks a language closely related to Dutch. It's the same as Dutch.

It's the same as Dutch. No, you have to know there is one language community between the Dutch and the Flemish. So it's an international language community. We have a common vocabulary and a common grammar. Very good. So it's a Dutch-speaking community, a French-speaking community and a German-speaking community.

The German-speaking community is, yeah, teeny, teeny, teeny, and came after the Second World War. Very good. And traditionally, people, perceives that there was a big domination of the Walloon French-speaking community economically and politically, and the Flemish-Dutch-speaking community felt more marginalized back in time, and Belgian politics partly reflected these divisions. So when you began as a politician, you were associated more with the Flemish community, is that correct?

I live in Ghent, so I'm a Flemish. So my native language, my mother tongue, as you say, is Dutch. but automatically you need to, for example, when you're a prime minister, there is a member of the French-speaking immunity putting a question to you, you have to respond in French. And if it is a German representative, you have to respond in German. So that's the way it works. And it's true that in the beginning there was a French-speaking domination, not only in the southern part of the country, also the elites, for example,

in cities like my city in Ghent and Antwerp spoke French. And that changed completely between the two world wars and after the second world war, because there is a majority of Flemish-speaking people in Belgium. So it's 60%. And traditionally, am I right, going back in time, traditionally, this is a generalization, but most Flemish-speak people voted for Flemish parties, and most of the Waluan-French-speaking community voted for Waluan parties traditionally, is that right? Because there are no federal parties in Belgium.

So there is a Flemish Liberal Party where I belong to, like you have a French-speaking liberal party, are two separate parties. They are the same family. They are working together. They will be normally always together in government, but they are separate parties. And so that is one of the difficulties of policymaking in Belgium. That is, that is a federal country without federal political parties. That's quite unique.

Can we just wind right back to the beginning? Just to give us a sense of your childhood, who your parents were, what your influences were. And when you first decided or realized that you were probably going to be a politician, who's now been 50 years in active politics. When I was young 12 years or 30 years old, I was already talking about politics, discussing with my father about politics, about the Vietnam War, because that was then the main topic. Who is responsible for it?

the communists or the Americans, the death of Kennedy, who is behind it. And so when I was 50, 60 years old, I said, I want to become prime minister of my country because I want to change things. When you were 15? Yeah, already then. It's crazy. It's crazy. But when I was really, before I went to university, I was already involved and so on in the local

section of the Flemish Liberal Party and so on. so on. So when people ask me, what you do for profession, I'm saying, yeah, I'm a professional politician. I know nothing else than to do politics. But, but, but let's be, let's be clear, politics is quite important. There are people now saying, well, politics, politics, dirty business and so on. We don't want it. But the reality is exactly the opposite. There is no normal governance possible of a society without politics because you have to make choice. Otherwise, it will be the jungle. So politics is quite an interesting thing to do, I think. What is the advantage and what is the disadvantage of having only been a professional politician?

The advantage is that you can have really a focus on what needs to change in society. I did politics to gain power. And power, gaining power in politics, is a positive thing. It's not a negative thing. So people are saying, you are certainly in politics. because you want power. And I'm saying, yes, I'm in politics because I want power. Because power is the only way to change things in society. If you are in politics and you say, I'm in politics, but I'm not there for power. Where are you there then?

For the money? For the protocol? For the, if a politician tells you, I want to go in politics. I am in politics, but not for the power. Then, oh, put him aside because that's not. what politics is about. Politics about is about gaining power and trying to use that power. I'm going to interrupt for a second.

And keep developing for us. Tell us what you think your strength and weaknesses are as a politician. Which part of politics are you really good at and which parts of politics are you less good at? I am stubborn. So I start with the negative. That's positive. That's positive. Percivillian.

Yeah, yeah. True. But you can be too much, you know? so that you make more enemies than you gain ground in politics. So that's certainly one of my weakest points. And then the other way, I think I'm passionate about politics, and I think that politics needs to work as supply-side politics. So we all know supply-side economics.

It was popular at a certain moment decades ago. Well, I believe in supply-side politics, that it is the politician who has to propose something to the, public opinion and not to follow the public opinion. I don't like those who are saying, you have to listen to the public opinion and that's a good politician. No, that's the opposite. A good politician has a vision, a direction about the future, creates hope for the public opinion and can describe it, can show it. And people will follow you if they like you, if they believe in you. Politics doesn't work like most people are saying today. That's the reason why we have a crisis

of politics. It doesn't work that people are waking up in the morning at 7 o'clock and are saying, oh, I have a bright political idea about Europe, for example. It doesn't work like that. What you need are politicians who have passion and vision. That are all the two key elements, in my opinion, to be a successful politician and a successful politician is somebody who can change things in society, who can bring change and reform. Guy, you sort of, at one point, you've had quite, for a Belgian politician, you get quite a lot of coverage in the UK media and it's gone through various phases. At one point when you were a pretty tax-cutting, market-orientated finance minister age 32, I think at one point... It was a libertarian at that time, yeah.

Yeah, and you were called, in Britain, they called you Baby Thatcher sometimes. Maybe they called you in Belgium too. And now you're this kind of, I guess we'd describe it as a sort of ethical, progressive, progressive. globalist. Yeah. So just told me through that. What happened, yeah. That journey, yeah.

I mean, you've ended up in a better place than you started. Let me say that. But how did you get that? That depends. I don't know if Mr. Stewart is in agreement with you, but that happened something indeed. What happened was my involvement in the Rwanda genocide. So I was appointed by the Belgium Senate to inquire in what happened, one of the most awful human tragedies that happened.

happened in Africa. In our country, we hear a lot about Rwanda in relation to this nonsense about stop the boats. Tell us about the Rwandan genocide. Yeah, 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, but also moderate Hutus, that have been massacred, killed in the most brutal way by Hutu extremists. So 800,000 people were killed in two months, in two months in the most brutal way. Every day, these Hutsu extremists went into Interhamme, was their name, went into concentration camps, killing people with the Mach Chaitis. First their arm, then their feet. The most incredible thing.

I went there as a representative of the Belgian Parliament because we believe that there were mistakes made by the Belgian government by the international community, by Kofi Annan, not to name him, in managing that. They know in advance that a genocide. was in preparation. That was the key point. And they did nothing to avoid it. And how did that change you as a politician? I went there. I was there just a few years after the genocide and I went into church and churches and with bodies, with bones, totally alone. And I came to to a conclusion. And my conclusion was, yeah, there is more in politics than the deficit, you know, than the figures.

then, okay, I need to reduce the deficit, the current deficit of Belgium, and that's a huge task, I can tell you, to reduce it to a certain amount and to lower it. There is more than that. And what is more? There are values. There are principles. There is human dignity. There is the existence of humanity. That's important. That's far more important that all ideological battles that you can have and battles between political parties that you can have. So that changed me completely. So I came back from Rwanda, I went a few times there. And then, yeah, I did politics in another way. And I became prime minister, what never happened before.

And I started with the government, with Socialist and Greens. And the first thing what I did was to return to Rwanda, to Kihali, to say sorry. And to say, yeah, we are responsible for the suffering that you have seen for the most incredible suffering that you can see in human history. 800,000 people in two months in the most brutal way. It's a genocide at the moment where everybody was saying, well, it may never happen again. It will not never happen again, but it happens again and again and again.

One challenge that every country in the West faces is coming to terms with its history. In Britain, the British Empire, in America, the legacy of slavery. In Belgium, of course, the Congo. And I'd be interested, how do you talk today to a modern generation to young people about what Belgium did in the Congo, what kind of responsibility you have, how do you teach it in schools, how do you deal with this issue? Yeah, that started already now a few. After Rwanda and after the fact that we apologize for Rwanda, we started also to look into

a role in Congo. That's something very new, in fact. in Belgium politics. We have an inquiry committee that had made conclusions that have also made apologies to Congolese people and to what happened in history, the role of Leopold II. I don't know. If you were speaking to, I don't know whether you have a grandson or something, but they asked you what did Belgium do in the Congo? What would you say today? How would you explain the situation? I think colonialism everywhere in the 19th centuries, they're the most awful atrocities that

you can imagine. I don't think that we can imagine today in the beginning of the 21st century what really happened at the end of the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century in every colonial power being the Dutch there, be the Belgium there, being the Brits there, being the Brits there, be it the French there. Incredible.

Maybe the only exception I would make is the Portuguese because they had a little bit another way of looking to the territories that they discovered and they mixed themselves with the local population. But we, I think, yeah, our grand, grand, grandparents were responsible for a colonial period that is maybe the most awful that time in history that you can imagine.

Guy, we don't need to spend too long on this because we will talk about British politics, more in the context of Brexit, but I'm sure you've followed the situation regarding Rwanda in the current debate in the UK about immigration and this stop the boat's obsession which the government has and this desire to send what they call illegal immigrants to Rwanda. What have you been making of that? I find it an awful idea that you're going to put your problem with asylum, seaches and migration towards an African country. I find that the most awful idea that you can have.

In top of that, I think that a lot of the problems in the British recent history on migration have something to do with Brexit. Sorry, I see the figures. I can look to the figures as you can look to the figures and everybody can see them. That is that there is an enormous increase in illegal migration since Brexit. Not because of Brexit, since Brexit.

And what's your understanding? I mean, why are people leaving France, which is a safe country in boats to go to Britain? Why are 40,000 people a year doing this? Yeah, because for historical reasons, for the fact that they have already family living there. Most of these people are saying, I want to go to Britain. Why, yeah, have a cousin already living there.

Or I have a link with that country. And the only way to tackle that problem is, in my opinion, is on a continental scale. In my opinion, on a European scale. Because the problem is not a British problem alone or a French problem alone, or a German problem alone. But if you put yourself outside the system, then it's far more difficult to, to manage it. So it's very ironic that Brexit came because the Brexiteers used migration and illegal migration in saying we have to cut it and then the result of it is exactly the opposite. So that's

the reality. But, Guy, I guess the issue that I'm trying to get at is the question of, I mean, and I quite like the proposals that the Labour Party has made, that Kirstam has made. His proposal is to say we should not be accepting people from France. Instead, we should take genuine asylum seekers, people who are female judges from Afghanistan, people who are at genuine risk to their lives. We should agree a quota with Europe and we should take however many, 25, 30,000 people to Britain who are genuinely at threat. But we don't not have an obligation to take people who are coming from a safe country. This is not what the asylum system exists for. That's true. But the asylum system everywhere, not only in Britain, but also in the rest of Europe, is abused naturally because there is no legal migration routes. So if there are no legal migration routes available, what people try to do is to abuse the existing asylum route. That is what is happening. And so the first way to tackle this illegal migration is to create a have the possibility of legal migration. That's the first thing to do. And the second thing. to do is to organize yourself at the outside borders of Europe and the European Union. I'm always asking myself why it is necessary that you have to come into Europe to ask for asylum. Why somebody was really persecuted in his country cannot ask for asylum in a consulate of a European country?

Why it's necessary that you jump into the arms of the smugglers to come into Europe, maybe to lose your life before you can ask for asylum. That's completely crazy. So we have a system of non-existing legal migration that push people into asylum schemes. And it's asylum. You can only ask for it if first of all pay a smuggler to arrive in Europe. So we have to really completely revolutionize this. And that has to be done, I think, by all European countries.

And together, Britain and Europe together. Just before we leave this one, you've been a politician for literally for half a century. and you've witnessed many, many, many, many political leaders. I'd just like your assessment of what you think has happened to our politics, that we had Johnson, then Truss, and now Sunak, who, unlike you, has only been a politician for a few years. And I'd just like your assessment of them. Before we get onto Brexit, was your assessment of them as leaders?

You have in general, naturally, a crisis of politics. It's not a unique British problem, but your... electoral system makes it more visible. The crisis of politics that you see is everywhere in Europe, but you see a very sharp image of it or representation of it in Britain, I think because of the electoral system. Because it's an electoral system who is in fact give to a minority, the possibility to govern for a majority. That's what is happening. And I have seen that in Brexit nearly every day, every week, every month. Because we from the continent, we from the European Union,

we tried to have a compromise where there was an exit, a Brexit, but not a hard version of it in saying, maybe it's good to stay in the single market because the single market has been invented by whom, by Margaret Thatcher. So maybe it's not a bad idea to stay in the single market and not to cut you off from your main market, has happened with Brexit. That was our idea, because we know very well that there was a majority during this referendum,

so we need to be serious about that. And we pushed both sides, the moderate conservative, the Conservative Party led by Theresa May and Liddington and all these people. And we pushed also Stamo, who was responsible of Labour for the Brexit. We pushed them to make an agreement, to have a common understanding of. of the Brexit they want and was possible. We pushed them. And every time we saw that it was impossible.

Putting Stammer and Littington together, what they did a few times, never materialized in a compromise. Never. Because the British politics doesn't work like that. That was also the stupidity from the remainers during this whole period when they pushed for an election,

a parliamentary election, at the request of Boris Johnson, thinking that it would be a referendum about Brexit. That's nonsense naturally because the electoral system of Britain is absolutely not a referendum. It's first past the post. You know it better than I do. So what I saw was that besides the general crisis in politics that we see and we can talk about it because I think our social media play an important role in that crisis for the moment,

what we saw is a country that we are classically with first past, oppose, works, opposition, majority, and they will never, could never work together, while the interest of Britain at that time was that Labor and moderate conservatives work it out a compromise with us. That was, in fact, the interest of the UK at that moment. And they could not do it because of the electoral and political system. So, Guy, I mean, I'm very sympathetic towards moving to more of a proportional representation system. But sometimes on the podcast, we discuss the other side of that. You know, we worry that, in fact, the proportional representation system gives space to the AFD in Germany, to the Swedish

Democrats, to what's happening in Finland. Not in Britain, your first part of the post. In a few times now, in a few months now, maybe Farage will be on the list of the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party have become, I will not say completely the AFD in Germany, but is in extreme water, no? I'd say they're closer to the AFD than they are to the old conservative party that Rory Stewart's part of. Exactly. If you see what they are saying about migration, well, there are many populist right-wing parties who are more moderate than the conservatives for the moment in Britain.

I would say they're very, very different to the AFD. I think that's a very peculiar characterization. Maybe not the AFD, but I say it in general. Marches of hate, Rory. There's a wonderful conspiracy going on here. There's a wonderful conspiracy going on here. They're not the AFD. and I think that trivialises the horror of the AFD.

No, he said they were closer. He said they were closer to the AFD than to the old Triviel. No, I think we have to be careful. Rishi Sunak, James Cleverly, David Cameron would not be welcome in the AFD. This is a very, very dangerous comparison. But they're welcoming Farage back to the Tory party.

That's the point is making. That was my point. That was my point. So this is this, you don't, I think actually it's very dangerous because in fact you normalize parties like the AFD by suggesting they're just a version of Rishi Sunak and David Cameron. No, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying, Roy, listen to what I'm saying. I said, and I think this is what Gehr's saying, that we pride ourselves on not having these right-wing populist parties. That's a point of. We have a right-wing populist party in government, pursuing policies. This is what this Braverman thing is all about, in part to be part of. She's not in government. No, but she's running the government from outside it right now.

Otherwise, why was you doing a press conference at 11 o'clock to respond to her? Look, there is no one European country for the moment making a deal with Rwanda for whatever African country. That's the point. Let's just go to, this is because you've been a prime minister. You've studied prime ministers. Johnson in a word, trust in a word, Sunak in a word. What a question. Well, in fact, I never met Truss or Johnson as a, as, as, as, as, as, as, a question.

Prime Minister. So I met Truce later on when she was not longer Prime Minister in one or other meeting in Japan or relationship with China. And I had a lot of admiration, I have to tell you, for Theresa May, because with her, I got a few meetings. And she understood very well. And her attempts were very, I think, serious. And unfortunately, it did it materialize her attempts to have an agreement and the majority in the British Parliament. And then David Cameron, yeah, I think he did the stupidity to do a referendum about the EU. And the stupidity is also that in principle, based on the British Constitution, it's an advisory referendum.

But yeah, advisor or referendum doesn't exist naturally. If you organize a referendum, you have to follow it. So most, when I was Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament, my relations were with the people surrounding Theresa May and Theresa May herself. And that was, I have to tell you, very positive. I have also very positive feeling about Stama, who was then the representative of labor for the Brexit negotiations. The only point, and I said it already during our interview, is this incapacity in British politics for both sides to make an agreement or a compromise on a question so existential for a country as are we in or are we out the EU? and if we are out of EU, what is our relationship with EU?

Even in Belgium, I have to tell you, even in Belgium, with all our differences and with all the tensions we have, we would make a compromise between the different political parties. So there is one solid attitude and opinion and strategy from our country towards such negotiations. And that didn't happen in Britain. And the other thing where I think you do have a certain locus in being able to comment on this, which is about Britain, is our media? What,

because you get a fair bit of flack from our media. I was looking at some of the coverage of you in the sun. You're a, a detestable, blabber-mouthed, arrogant, European super state federalist was something I saw.

They may be not quite as horrible. Yeah, I know. I know. Not as horrible as they were to DeLore, but what do you think, what do you see in our media? What do you see in our media culture?

And what influence do you think it has on our politics? I think I have an enormous impact because it's mainly a very, popular driven, populist driven. Actually, I'm not very objective in that sense that I read the Guardian or the Independent, but I don't think that the majority of the British electorate doesn't treat the Guardian or the FT or

the Independent. And things that I have seen in newspapers like the Express for example is awful and it's not the reality. So they are talking about the super state Europe. You know what the super state Europe is. The super state Europe is 1% of European GDP. That's a super state Europe.

1%. The American federal system has a budget of 25% of the American GDP. The Swiss confederation, not even a federation, has a budget of 15% of the Swiss GDP. We have 1% and everybody is talking about the super state. The reality is that in the world of tomorrow, The brutal world of tomorrow with China, with India, with the US, with Russia that wants to become again an empire, we can only be safe and insecurity when we work together in one big continental organization. I'm sorry, the world of tomorrow is not a world of nation states. It's a world of empires.

That is the brutal world of tomorrow. Okay, let's just take a quick break. Back in a minute. Hi, everybody. It's Dominic Samrick here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Restis Politics, when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alistair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Restis History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like, It's sunk in a bit of a malaise. People are arguing about Europe. The government has got a few issues with the trade unions. And we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite,

a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues. And people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we're looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistaira will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and we'll be

talking about one of the grimest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History wherever you get your podcasts. You're a very, very skilled politician with a very thoughtful, sophisticated view of the world, but you chose to, in the Brexit discussion, become famous for making very provocative comments about Britain that upset a lot of the British population through the media.

Give me an example of such a provocative statement. Well, maybe I'm being unfair. But the perception, strong perception, Guy, was that you had content. And I think that's, and that's why, and that's why these questions about what do you think about Boris Johnson, what do you think about Brexit are being asked. Yeah, just that the opposite is true. And, you know, Alastair is, believes like me that you have profound contempt and you express that contempt. I don't think he has profound contempt from Britain. I think the, I think the perception was created by people saying that he had it.

I don't think that it was ever provocative towards British politics on the country. I love to follow British politics and British culture and British. You know, I have a number of hobbies and one of my hobbies is racing with British cars. So I like Britain. I love Britain. But the fact that I'm attacking, for example, I'm very provocative to Nigel Fires, for example, in European Parliament to other heartline Brexiteers. That's a difference in opinion. That's a difference of point of view.

That has nothing to do with provocation. But I'm just sort of trying to understand the style. I mean, so you called one of my colleagues, for example, a wanker. Now, that must be a deliberate decision. So what was your audience? What were you hoping to achieve by doing that? I mean, you're a professional politician. You don't do this by accident.

So who was your constituency? Who were you appealing to? What were you hoping to achieve by doing that? My constituency is always the same. It's my constituency in Belgium. So that's Flanders. That's my constituency. And secondly, I'm pretty sure that we try,

to fight the compromise on Brexit, keeping at least the UK into the single market. That was our goal. And that would have been good and for Europe and for Britain. Let me explain the issue, right? I was on your side on that. I was on the moderate side. I was very supportive of David Littington, Theresa May. I was trying to push very hard to get customs union votes through, all this kind of stuff, right?

But it wasn't made easier by the perception that you were. were calling colleagues of mine wankers. And so I suppose the, and I think I'm interested in this because you seem to me such a thoughtful, interesting person. Why do you do this? You think it's fun for your constituents. You think it's going to catch media attention. You have a bad temper. I mean, what's happening here? We should say for the list of the, the wankering question was Andrew Rosendell, I think. Yeah. Yeah. He's one of my colleagues, yeah. I don't even remember that I used that word, but okay. It's possible. that I did it. So it could be, but that is not the main force that drives me. What drives me

is to get it right. And in Brexit, that was to keep at least Britain in a customs union and single market construction. And the fact that it did materialize has nothing to do with what I said of your colleague that had to do with the incapacity of the British political system to find an agreement and a compromise, bridging the classical divisions between opposition and majority. Sorry, that's my firm conviction. Now, Guy, you're 70, I'm 66, Rory's 50. That's a young guy. Yeah, he's a young guy.

Do you think that Britain will be back in the European Union or something close to it in your, my or Rory's lifetime? Yeah, I think so, because we're going to live long. both of us, because politics is not a bad environment to live long, I think. And secondly, because I think it's clear. You look to the figures today. You look to what people are saying. I was in the Rejoin March a few months ago in London.

And young people are clearly in favor to return to a union. What I hope in the meanwhile is that we can change the European Union in a better Union because the fact that Britain was exiting the European Union was a failure for the European Union. If a country, a big country, an important country, a powerful country like the UK saying, we leave the EU, that was a failure for the EU. And that was a, it's a reason for us to reform ourselves. What was that failure and what reform? The fact is that Europe today, and you see it in every file, because of his bad governance structure, is always acting too little too late. That's the problem of the European Union. It concerns migration. It concerns the pandemic. We are talking about

the aftermath of the financial crisis. We can talk about a war in Ukraine. We are acting too little too late. That's always the same. But, Guy, is that not because the federal structures that can work for a population the size of Belgium, that becomes much, much more difficult when you have 27, maybe moving to 30 plus countries? No, no, the problem is, there is no federal structure in Europe. That's the problem. It's an intergovernmental patchwork

based on unanimity voting. So the 27 member states need to be an agreement. Tomorrow there will be 35 or 36 or 37 member states because Moldavia will enter, Georgia will enter, Ukraine needs to enter for all security. And we're going to still give a veto

to every of these members. So what is happening then, that is that you cannot decide. For example, on sanctions to Russia, it takes always months more for Europe to decide than for the US to decide on this issue. So the main thing to do in Europe, the big reform, is to end a veto system that is in place. And, Ghee, what would you like the European Union to look like in your dream in 30 years' time? What would be the real dream in 30 years' time for the European Union to look like?

Well, I think Europe, a small government executive, 15, 16 people, not the big commission that we have today, where you have a number of commissioners who have not even a portfolio. Secondly, a union that is based on a serious budget to manage the problems we have, certainly on defense. I think defense, for example, is one of the big scandals in Europe on waste of money. You know what we spent in Europe? We spent more or less $230, 240 billion euro. So that's 210, 220 billion pounds on defense. Without the UK.

At the moment the UK was inside, we spent nearly 300 billion on defense. And you know what the Chinese are spending today? 240. We spent the same amount as the Chinese. We spent four times more on defense than the Russians. but we are not capable to defend ourselves. If tomorrow Trump's come back in America and he decides to go outside NATO or to change NATO, so what he already said a few times in the past, there is no security in Europe.

But we spent 240, 230 billion euros on it. It's the biggest waste of money. We do every time, everything 20 same. Would you like a much more integrated single European army? Yeah, a European defense union that I want. and that can be the European pillar of NATO. That would make sense. So that you have a North American pillar, that you have a European pillar,

maybe even an Asian pillar in the future with countries like Japan and Australia, New Zealand and so on and so on. But that is the way forward. We are not capable. We spend four times more than the Russians, but we are not capable to support Ukraine in a sufficient way for the brutal invasion they have to suffer from Russia. That's the reality on the ground.

And more central control of the budget of the European Union. So in some areas less discretion for member states, more control from Europe over defense, over budget. And from time to time also the opposite. There are, in my opinions, too much regulations on the single market that can return to the member states. A federal system is not a system is based on subsidiarity. You do it on the level where you can best do it. What you can do on the local level, you do on the local level. What you can best do on the regional level, you do on the regional level.

What best is you can do on the national, you do on the national level. But where there is an added value to do it together on the European level, you do it on the European level. That's subsidiarity. That has nothing to do with super state. I know with super states. Superstates is France. Everything is decided in Paris. Superstate are the Dutch, the Netherlands.

Everything is decided in the NARC. That's the consequence of Napoleon. But a federal system is the opposite of a super state. system says, no, subsidiarity is the basis. You do it on the lowest level possible. And if it is not possible on the lowest level, you do it on national on the European level. It's absolutely not eliminating sovereignty. It's the opposite. It's reinventing sovereignty. What is the sovereignty today of Britain in managing migration? Zero. What is the sovereignty of France, Germany, in supporting Ukraine, zero.

They are not capable. They need the Americans. Otherwise, it's not possible. So we need to reinvent sovereignty. And sovereignty for us and for Britain means sovereignty on the European level. If you are not capable to defend or interest on the European level, while we whipped out by the Chinese, the Indians, the Americans, it's already the case today. Look to the digital infrastructure in Europe and the tech industry.

We make the data and the Americans. I can make the profits. Guy, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. I'm loving the fact that the passion is still there as you go into your eighth decade on the planet. And as you know, Roy and I both written books about the future of politics this year, and you're working on one as well. So give us something optimistic about the future of politics before we go.

Well, one of the points that I will raise in the book was inspired by your book, Alasda. the point about an individual, a citizen can make a change, can change things. That was one of the topics in the book. You remember that. Yeah, yeah. And I think that is true. That's the big thing that we have to repeat.

An individual with a conviction can make a difference. You look, one of the biggest men that I have ever met was Mandela. He made the difference, you know? Yeah. He ended apartheid because he had a difference. a conviction and he had also an attitude to make it happen. And I can give you a lot of examples like that. Zelensky will make a difference, you know? Without Zelensky, this war was already over and not in the right way, not in favor of the Ukrainian democracy. So Zelensky make a difference.

We make a difference. And so it's necessary that we ask young people to engage in politics because politics is necessary, but with politics you can change the course of history, of your country, of your local community. Can I bring you away from the grand to the particular, the how of politics? Give us a sense of one thing that you were successful in and how you did it and one thing that you failed in and how you failed. It can be a small thing, but I'd like to see more of the practical skill of the politician where you feel you were skillful, where you felt you were less skillful, and what lessons you learned?

So, again, I can not start about the budget we reduced that we will adapt in Belgium to 80% coming for more than 130%. That's a good thing. And I failed in inviting a compromise on giving voting rights to foreign people, and that caused a lot of trouble in my government. That are practical things or concrete dossiers. But, Ging, just quickly on that, what lessons did you take from what you? you did well and what you did badly in terms of advice for a practical politician in terms of the technique of politics? I don't like the word technique. So what I like in politics is rhetoric or important. Passion is important. Given direction to society is important. Giving vision. I don't like all this stuff of pragmatism. We have to be pragmatic. And if you are pragmatic, we have a problem

and we solve the problem. And okay, that's our job. No. Or for those who are living in the post-truth now. So there is no truth anymore. There are no facts anymore. You can invent your own facts. What we need is again a period where ideologies are important, where vision is important. What people need from politicians is direction, is vision, is hope again.

There is no hope in our societies for the moment. That's the crisis of politics. Because hope has been destroyed. because politicians doesn't express anymore hope and vision. I don't want from a leader in politics that he knows the A, B and C of every dossier and everything. That's not necessary. He needs to give direction. People need that.

Otherwise, we continue to live in this post-truth period where there is no facts and no reality. Basically, what you've just said, we started our conversation on Tony Blair and we've ended it on Tony Blair. Well, is he still candidate Tony Blair? Because I have the impression that Alistair Campbell is still the man behind Tony Blair who is making his speeches. Well, it's been fantastic to talk you. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you, Guy, very much.

Thank you for your time, and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, bye-bye. See you again soon. Take care. So, Rory, Guy, Verhofstadt. Yeah, I thought he was fascinating. I mean, I think the thing that I would have, I almost thought the last bit was the bit

that I found most interesting. He obviously feels very strongly that politics must not be a business of pragmatic compromise and technocrats. Also, he thinks it isn't about post-truths, but there's a contradiction in his mind. On the one hand, he says that the problem with the British system is there's not enough compromise. And what he loves about Belgium is they all have to get around and reach a reasonable compromise. And he was obviously very good at that. I mean, he ran Belgian for 10 years, so he must have been an absolute master. at the techniques of politics, the compromises, the backroom deals, holding these big coalitions together. In that sense, he's professional politician. But age 70, that's not what he wants

to remember. He wants to imagine politics in terms of the big vision stuff. And I wanted to get into that because actually, I think in a way, one of the problems for the center ground in an age of populism is that everybody's pushing for more and more big vision. And big vision tends to suit the populace and actually it's time that somebody made the case for the more quiet, competent, compromise and technical work. But he's obviously not keen on that at all. Well, I don't know, you see, because I think that part of what he said, I mean, Tony Blair used to have this line about calling the radical centre. How do you make the centre feel like it's the radical place to be? And I think that's where Hofstadt seems to want to be. And I thought it was interesting

two or three times he pushed back on things that he would have seen as micro. Now, we saw during the Brexit debate, he's very, very good at detail. He gets on top of detail. He knows his facts. But in terms of what he's trying to project, I think, to the outside world as what politics is, what a good politician should be, it's much more in that big picture, the vision stuff. And it's interesting. Before you came on, we were talking about this book that he's writing. He's writing in English because he says he wants to admit it at the American market because he's absolutely terrified about what's happening within American democracy right now. what I really like about him is the fact that he talked a lot about the importance of passion in politics.

He's always had that. He's always had that. I mean, I can remember the very first time we met him because he's quite an odd-looking politician. You know, he's got this sort of floppy hair and he doesn't look like, you know, when you're always talking about these sort of classic American-style politicians, that's not him. But I do think that passion comes through and a resilience that just keeps him going. He's also, I think, a much more lonely, marginal figure than maybe we're getting into and maybe than he wants to acknowledge. I mean, basically, he is the voice in the European Parliament pushing for ever closer union. He thinks these, despite all the talk about subsidiarity, basically he's known as the guy who wants ever closer union and thinks that most problems benefit from being Europeanized. But he's massively out of step with a lot of the new member states, massively out of step with the things that would have to have.

happen in order to bring any future treaty changes through. And one of the questions with the whole vision stuff is that by talking about vision, he's taking the risk of being unrealistic and actually raising impossible expectations and giving opponents of the European Union a perfect straw man to attack. I mean, that's largely why he became the target for people like Farage, but that's also while he'll become the target for many of the states in particularly Eastern Europe, some in northern Europe that are more skeptical about ever close to Union. And possibly Holland now. Yeah, yeah.

We'll see him and his push as a real red rag to the bull. I've done a few events with him in recent years, but I've always felt there was a little sort of overhang from the 2004 blocking of his European Commission presidency. But I'm glad that he said on record, no hard feelings. No, no, I imagine it must have been the most shattering experience, given that he believes that Europe is the future, that these countries, and obviously he feels it very strongly with Belgium, but he feels it with Britain, Germany, and France,

he basically thinks are too small, that we're in a world of giant superpowers and empires, and that Europe needs to become like that. And he had the chance of being president of the commission. He could have been running what he saw as a project to create this much more integrated state. It must have been an absolutely shattering experience for him and must have left him very angry

because one of the reasons he was vetoed, he felt, I think, is that it was because he opposed the Iraq war, and he'll feel vindicated in opposed the Iraq war and feel that the perfidious British stabbed him in the back when he was trying to do the right thing. Yeah, I think it was, from memory, I think it was a combination of the sort of federalist approach, possibly the divisions they'd been over Iraq. And who was the other one that, was it John Major who blocked John Luke Dahana? That's right. Then, of course, Cameron catastrophically tried and failed to block Juncker.

and totally alienated him in the process and then ended up the worst of all worlds, which is Juncker then getting in with a very bad feeling towards Cameron. I also, I mean, I think, I mean, obviously I'm extremely overly defensive about him criticizing British politics and British politicians. But I do think there's an interesting question for a working politician about how much of that you want to do.

And I definitely felt that when I talked about other people's countries when I was a working politician, that you may think you know a lot about their countries, but to confidently say, this is what's going on in France, this is what's going on, this is what you're getting wrong. But, Roy, we now do that for a living.

But we're not working politicians. And also, I think it's, I do think when you've had as much abuse from the, it's why when I saw Michel Barnier in the summer, I said, I don't know how you managed to keep your call with our media, given the stuff they were saying about you. But I think for Hofstadt, he took a lot and then gave a bit.

bit. I think it's his attitude to the press. Very good. So are you regretting it? I mean, hearing him, do you think actually bringing in somebody who believes in ever-closer union, federal Europe would have been the right thing to do and that you regret not making him the president? I might think with a historical lens on that it might have been. Really? You don't think at the time you and Tony Blair would have felt that is absolutely the last thing we need. Oh, I think at the time, possibly, yeah. And do you really think that it's consistent his idea of ever closer union, European army, single European budget, tight European government is going to be consistent with getting Britain back into the European Union.

No, but I'm talking about, you're asking if we could have had our time again, might we have done it differently? I just think that some of the things he was saying, the stuff about defence was fascinating, compelling. And Tony did try to get something going on the kind of European defence front. He's right. We have, we don't have a super state. We have 27 different people. doing their different things with lots of duplication. But if he got his dream of more of a super state, more ever close to union, presumably that would make it ever more difficult for Britain to ever rejoin, which is one of the reasons Britain tried to keep the thing loose.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And also, I think it was interesting how much he regrets the fact that the loss of the UK within the debate has weakened the European Union. But he's taken a very odd lesson from it. So when I said, you know, what were the failures of the European Union, what reforms? he said, well, what we should have done is we should have centralized more, we should have made more decisions in Brussels. Normally, the lessons you take is the way to keep Britain in would have been to have a looser federation that provided more space for diversity. Anyway, he's clearly got us talking, so hopefully you'll get our listeners talking as well.

And I'll see you next week. See you next week. Thank you, Alice. Take care. Bye-bye.