The Rest Is Politics - 525. JD Vance vs. the Pope and the Far-Right Funding Machine (Question Time)

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

Why do Trump and JD Vance keep arguing with the Pope about theology? Who is funding the British and European far-right? As nationalism grows in Scotland and Wales, did devolution make this inevitable? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. __________ Go deeper into the world of The Rest Is Politics by signing up for our free newsletter HERE, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and weekend reads from Alastair and Rory. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus. Start your free trial at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, exclusive newsletters, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Stop overpaying for energy. Switch at fuseenergy.com/politics and get a free TRIP+ subscription. Secret Service starts Monday 27th of April, on ITV1 and ITVX Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ __________ Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [e-mail] __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Producer: Evan Green Exec Producer: Chris Sawyer General Manager: Tom Whiter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com. That's the rest is politics.com. The reality is that Vance and the administration are wrong. I mean, they're theoretically illiterate. They are consistently portraying a worldview, which is, well, in a lot of their actions, almost seems to be completely unbound by any kind of ethical principle. This is a deliberate thing of constantly wrapping up what they're doing in religious rhetoric. And if you are somebody like Poitlo, who clearly can't stand what these people are doing to America and to the world,

then you can see why he would get very, very offended. This episode is brought you by Fuse Energy. Energy policy rarely stays in Westminster for long, usually arise for the bill. And from the first of April, 75% of renewables' obligation costs will come. costs will come off electricity bills and move into general taxation. So if bills are meant to fall from April, why would anyone bother switching? Because policy sets the floor. The saving itself is automatic. What suppliers offer beyond that isn't, and that's where real competition operates. Fuse goes beyond the mandated saving.

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just got off a plane in the US, and when you're travelling frequently, convenience takes over. There I was, my airport Wi-Fi, and I'm on a hotel network, looking for quick connection between meetings. It all feels routine. And that, of course, is when I'm most exposed online. And cybercriminals, they're not stupid, they move quickly to exploit all these opportunities. And these online security breaches are rarely one dramatic moment. It's the small attempts that slip through because they're easy to overlook. Which is why personal online security matters more than ever. And our very good friends at NordVPN, protect your privacy and sensitive data, keeping your digital footprint out of reach. And with threat protection pro, it blocks malicious

websites, ads and trackers, and stops fishing attempts before they reach you, giving you real peace of mind online. To get the best discount on your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash Restis Politics. You'll get four extra months free. On the two-year plan plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the episode. description. Welcome to the rest of this politics question time with me Rory Stewart and me Alice Campbell and we're going to talk Trump v the Pope again because he keeps rumbling on. We are going to have a bit of a deep dive into the well-organized funding of right-wing organizations against women's rights and other issues which will take us into Hungary which plays a big

part in that, and then we'll maybe try and lighten up a bit because it's been a pretty heavy week. But Rory, where shall we start? Okay, so why don't we start with the first question, who's from Ellie, who's a trip plus member from Hong Kong? Hi, Alice and Rory, I really enjoyed your articles in the newsletter about Trump's response to the Pope. My question is, what does it say about the state of religion and politics when political figures feel comfortable lecturing religious leaders on their own theology. Is this just naked power politics, or does it reflect a genuine belief among the Maga movement that they represent true Christianity better than the Pope does? And before I hand over to you, there are two examples of this. Strongly from J.D. Vance,

who of course is very, very proud of being a born-again Catholic, he managed to get in an argument with the last Pope about what he called the Order of Love, in which he tried to argue that Christianity was essentially about looking after your own family and people first and other people later. And now he's managed to get an argument with the current Pope about Augustinian just war theory where he claims the Iran War is a just war. Over to you. Well, I was thinking about this. So, as you know, Roy, I love football, but I would not argue about football tactics with Pep Guadiola. I wouldn't argue with Margaret Atwood about how to construct a novel. And I would definitely not argue about theology with the Pope.

And that is not because I believe in papal infallibility. I don't. But I know that to get where he is, he has had to devote his whole life to theology and to impressing a lot of people in the Catholic Church that he knows his stuff. J.D. Vance got to where he is because Donald Trump put him there.

And as you say, he's become a Catholic. He's frankly writing a book about this wonderful conversion. And he genuinely thinks he can argue with the Pope on theology. So does Mike Johnson, the speaker, so does Pete Hexeth. And this is what happens, I think, with cults. You know how Sean Hannity, the kind of well-known MAGA broadcaster, saying, I no longer consider myself a Catholic because of this brow going on between Trump and the Pope. In other words, if I have to choose the Pope or the Trump, I'm going to go with Trump.

And what's incredible about all of these people is that they seem to have real trouble with the Pope being an expert on scripture, but no trouble with Trump posting pictures of himself as Jesus, or frankly, being a deeply unchristian human being. And the other thing, don't forget, Roy, this all started, this particular chapter in this row, started when Hexas deputy in the Pentagon, Elbridge Colby, met the Vatican's US envoy, a guy called Cardinal Christoph Pierre, and warned that the US military had the power to do every it wants in the world and the Catholic Church better decide what side it's on.

So it's just a form of the maga madness that we've seen. But there is a method to the madness. Now you know, I've been I think twice now, I did it again with Dominic Sambrot when he stood in for you when you were away in the Galapagos and these 14 tenets, if you like, of fascism

that are posted up in the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Number eight, religion and government are intertwined, governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions. And maybe that's where you can pick up on the just war, because that's what

has taken this to the next stage of this round. Well, one of the things that strikes me here is there's a difference between the Catholics and the administration and the evangelicals. So as you pointed out, the Catholics and the administration, people like J.D. Vance, are already committed very, very strongly to a religion which would defer to the Pope on questions of theology. I mean, it's absolutely baked into the whole structure of the thing. And the whole idea of Hannity saying he's stopping being a Catholic because he can't sit with the Pope on this. or Vance saying the Pope should stay out of these theological matters and there's something he doesn't understand called Just War's theory is completely bizarre because it goes against the whole

doctrine of the Catholic Church. The second thing, though, that has been really striking is you began by making the move, which I think many people feel, which is an appeal to the naked authority of the Pope, you know, the guys like Pep Guardiola in relation to football. What isn't happening so much is a real engagement with a substance. There's a lot of Vance said, Pope said, Pope's more important. Actually, the reality is that Vance and the administration are wrong. I mean, they're theoretically illiterate. They are consistently portraying a worldview, which is, well, in a lot of their actions,

almost seems to be completely unbound by any kind of ethical principles. there's no sense of empathy, there's no sense of caring for the vulnerable. I mean, if Christ's message is about anything, I mean, I guess the repeated theme of the gospels again and again is that this is someone who is perpetually reaching out to the most marginalized people in society. Maybe that's a two-PC way of putting it. But, I mean, he's deliberately reaching out to lepers, to prostitutes, to rejected tax collectors to Samaritans who are, you know, a real sort of minority groups that are

hated by the majority. And that's what the Pope has been doing in saying he's not going to go to the 250th anniversary. Instead, he's going to greet refugees on the Greek islands. He was bathing feet during Easter week, including the feet of Muslims. He's done a big publicized tour to the Muslim world. And this is really the Pope reminding us that, Christianity properly understood. It's about forgiveness, it's about sinners, and it's about grace. And actually, what the Pope is communicating, and a lot of people in the Anglican Church here in Britain, is much more thoughtful, compassion and respect for Islam than we're

getting out of this so-called Christian right, who are increasingly creating this Judeo-Christian stuff. Over you. Yeah. And also, bear in mind, that Pete Hickseth has said, I think this is what must have provoked, in part, provoked the Pope into feeling he had to speak out when he said, this is a war for Jesus. And that goes back to what we talked about in a previous episode, about George Bush, I think genuinely made a mistake when he said, you know, about the crusade. This is a crusade. You have to be very, very careful with the language. And I think the Maga people, the Hexas, the vans, the Trumps,

they are being careful with their language, and that they're being very, very deliberate about this. And I do think it relates to basically saying, There is only one power in this country, and it is Donald Trump, and it is those who follow Donald Trump. I don't think the Jesus thing was a mistake. I think it was, you know, when he posted the picture of himself as Jesus. It's all part of the same kind of crazy stuff. Along the Just War, you said that they're just wrong. I looked it up and found this explanation in one of the old books of the Catholic Church,

and it says a constant tenet of the thousand-year tradition of Just War theory, is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword in self-defense once all peace efforts have failed. That is, to be a just war, it must be a defense against another who actively wages war. And that's why Pope Leo said he, God, does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. Now, I can see why that would rile up Trump. It's because that essentially is almost saying that Iran, in the current set of circumstances has a greater justification to defend itself because it has come under attack. So that, I think, goes to the heart of it. But, you know, where you're absolutely right.

Of course, this is interesting territory for you, because, I mean, when was it? You got into a real row with J.D. Vant, none other than J.D. Vance, when you, was that over, that was all the Ordo Amoris, wasn't it? That was right at the beginning of his thing. So that was him effectively saying at the moment when the US was deciding to cut all its overseas aid, he tried to say, this makes perfect sense because as a Christian, I basically believe we should look after

our families and our own people first and bugger the rest of them. And what was so weird about that is that that insight is not a Christian insight. That Vance view is really the view of Genghis Khan. I mean, you don't really need Jesus to come along and say, put your family first, right? That's the kind of mafia stuff.

In fact, Christ's message in the parable of the Good Samaritan is exactly the reverse. It's exactly about not putting your own verse, but reaching out to the people excluded. On your Augustine point, there's this big distinction which people talk about, which Augustine makes, between the use ad bellum, which is the justice of going to war, and the use in bellow, which is how you conduct yourself in the war. So one of them is about are you making the correct moral arguments for going to war in the first place? And the second thing is, are you doing your very best to protect civilians, etc., follow the rules of war? And these things go right back to the early Middle Ages. And one of the things that we will get attacked by obviously is people will then jump up and down and say, how about the Iraq war? Of course it's true that in the Iraq War and in many other things that people have done over the last hundreds of years,

years, we have done things which may have been hypocritical, may have been poorly justified, may in many cases have been wrong. But there's all the difference in the world between a situation where governments tried to make arguments for going to war, in good faith or bad faith, tried to go to the United Nations tried to explain what threat they thought they were facing and the new world of Trump where you don't even have the pretense, you don't even have the hypocrisy. And people would say, well, okay, maybe getting rid of hypocrisy is a good thing. It isn't. The hypocrisy, if that's what you want to call it, in other words, all our attempts in the past to try to make legal arguments for these wars is what allowed other people to challenge these wars on their own terms.

If you move into a world in which you make no moral arguments at all, and that's what's so weird about what Vance is saying, I mean, of course they're not making Augustinian just war theory arguments. We don't even know why they went to war. One of the things we discussed, the main podcast, of course, how do you get a peace deal when you can't even define why you've gone to war in the first place, right? That's right at the heart of the whole thing. And whether you're talking about Sudan or whether you're talking about Iran or whether you're talking about what's happening inside the United States, the fundamental thing that's going on with Trump, is the complete lack of any kind of legal or moral principle, which makes it impossible, actually, to resolve things or indeed argue against them because they're not making arguments. Yeah. There's a couple of other things that just underline this point, that it's all about him. So, for example, when he was quiz by journalist the other day

and somebody mentioned the gospel, the Pope was explaining the gospel. And Trump's response was this, how she made a note, I'm all about the gospel. His brother is Maga all the way. The Pope's brother. So I'm all about the gospel.

His brother is maga all the way. And then the next thing is that they cancelled an £11 million fund, which, okay, and the overall budget of the administration is tiny, but it was for a charity that deal, the Catholic church charity that deals with children of immigrants, helps children of immigrants. So, and then you have Hexoth. say, I don't know if you saw his latest rant at the media says the press of the Pharisees.

Again, making you think that Trump is Jesus, right? The Pharisees are the people who tried to always undermine Jesus. And you, the press, you're always trying to undermine Trump. And I think this is a kind of form of madness. And of course, they have wrapped themselves in this. I don't know what they really believe. I don't, and I don't want to question their beliefs. beliefs are a very, very personal thing.

And, you know, Texas talks constantly about going to church every day. The reason he read out that fake Bible verse was he claims that he heard something, the sermons. Remind us of the fake Bible verse. He took it from reservoir dogs or something. No, Pulp Fiction. It was a speech by Samuel Jackson. Just explain to the audience, because they don't know about this. This was in a briefing.

And he was basically read out this thing from the Bible. A room full of military. Somebody is that a brilliant splicing of Samuel Jackson, who I think is playing a murderer, and he's sort of doing this incredibly sort of, you know, fire and brimstone reading of what sounds like the Bible. But it's not the Bible. But Pete Haysen, somebody's put this in front of him,

said, this will fit the moment. But then he also said that this was the prayer that he says was used by the search and rescue. team that saved the downed airman in Iran a few weeks ago. And this was the same thing when he said, this is the guy who was downed on Friday and rose on Sunday. So to go back to my point about the Holocaust Museum, Point 8, this is a deliberate thing of constantly wrapping up what they're doing in religious

rhetoric. And if you are somebody like Pope Leo, who clearly, clearly can't stand what these people are doing to America and to the world, then you can see why he would get very, very offended. One of the things that's so slippery about this and one of the reasons why it's so disturbing is that the very same members of Christian right, and we're seeing this with the far right across Europe

who are creating these Judeo-Christian coalitions against Islam, their technique is basically to claim that every Muslim in the world, of whom there are two billion people, fourth of the world's population, quarter of the world's population, almost, somehow are supposed to believe all the most extreme versus the Quran. I mean, if this were true, the world would be mayhem. Of course it's not true.

Of course it's not true. That billions of Muslims believe the most extreme versus the Quran. And yet, what you're seeing with Hexeth is he's quoting some of the most extreme lines from the Old Testament. And you can see the same with some of the religious scientists in Israel, quoting very, very extreme lines. So it suits them, you know, John Cleese just did this on Twitter, saying, oh, all Muslims are a bunch of genocidal maniacs because here is a line from the Quran about killing non-believers. And then they reserve the right to say, oh, when it suits them to quote these blood-curdling lines from the Old Testament right in the heart of the Jewish Christian tradition.

And then when it suits them to distance themselves from it and say, of course, you know, we don't really believe in that stuff anymore. instead of realizing that all these religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, are about living people, living difficult, spiritual, sinful, moral lives, struggling with ancient texts in different ways, interpreting them in very sophisticated ways that the Pope intuitively understands. That's why he's comfortable sitting with Muslim clerics or indeed sitting with Jewish scholars and why we have to get away from this. kind of social media fundamentalism. I'm very grateful to one of our listeners called Stephen Rogers, who's down in Bristol. And after the episode with Dominic, he wrote to me and said that the poster you're quoting from the Washington Holocaust Museum was actually from an essay by a guy called Lawrence W. Britt called Fascism Anyone.

Okay. He said, even more interesting, Lawrence W. Britt wrote a novel in 1997, which was called June 2004. And he said, I think you'd find it very, very interesting. The trouble is it's out of print. If you've struggled to find one, I'll send you mine. It's out of print. Couldn't find anywhere he sent it to me. And obviously, somebody needs to bring it back into print. So it's published in 1998. It's called June 2004. I've now finished it. I won't give away the whole story. But essentially the story is this. on the back of an economic crash, a very right-wing, charismatic, celebrity politician takes over and suborns and transforms the Republican Party. He becomes president. He oversees the most chilling centralisation of power. He reforms communications law so that his backers have control of TV networks.

He politicizes the Department of Justice to go after his critics and his enemies. He gives the police more power. he uses the military to enforce domestic political decisions and then eventually accelerates to the kind of crimes and cover-up that become exposed. And you think these are now so bad he can't survive. And he does. It's really, really chilly. So it's due 2004s.

It was just 20 years ahead of its time. But Stephen, thank you for sending that to me. I don't know if Lawrence W. Britt is still alive. I think he is. but he should update it for the modern age. It's absolutely brilliant. Thank you. Next question.

Amanda, who's from Rye in Sussex, you've talked a lot about Project 2025 as an American phenomenon, but a recent report shows it's actually part of a transatlantic movement. Project 2025 just remind people is that extraordinary document created by the Heritage Foundation, which was very important in the election campaign for Trump because the Democrats were saying, look at this, this is all the staff.

this very dangerous stuff that Trump's going to do. And Trump was absolutely denying it. I haven't really heard of this document. This isn't really my program. And since he's come into the office, a great deal of it has now been implemented. It now becomes apparent that it's pretty close to his manifesto. Why aren't we talking, Amanda from Wright, asks about this as a coordinated international authoritarian project.

What can democracies actually do to counter it? So over to you on this report. So one of the reasons that Victor Orban, who we talked about a lot last week, such a big global figure, because he was the first, I think, fully to understand that if you were going to change minds on big cultural issues, then you had to internationalize campaigns. He understood the importance of propaganda. He understood the need for networks. He understood the need for money to fund it all. He was the key to Steve Bannon's operation in the States and around the world. He's the key to the rise of Nigel Farage. He's the key to far right parties and campaigns

everywhere. And I've always felt that the right has always been better than the left at this, this international organisation. So just to say this one report written by this guy, Neil Data, Executive Director of the European Parliamentary Forum on Section of Reproductive Rights, so his report covers just four years, 2019-2020-203, and it calculates at $1.18 billion the money that has flowed into over 270 organisations, variously opposing, gender equality, LGBT, abortion, contraception and planning, children's rights to education about sexuality and health. A lot of the work comes out of America, but the funding very focused on Europe. 73% is across Europe, $869.5 million, 18% in Russia, and 90%.

and 9% US organizations based in Europe, over 100 million. And of the five countries in Europe where most of this money is spent, number one is Hungary, number two is France, number three is the UK, then Poland, then Spain. And it's used for advocacy, for lobbying, for their own media networks, for big grants, for anti-gender services, getting into political parties. A lot of it's about litigation. You know, when we had all that fuss not long ago about buffer zones around abortion clinics,

changing hate speech laws. So it's all very, very strategic. And the questioner is absolutely right. This is a very well-organized, very well-funded international campaign. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting report. One small bit of agreeable disagreement, I think a lot of different movements are being conflated here. So when you dig down on the report into what's happening in the UK, It's very, very different from what's happening in Russia, Hungary or Poland.

So on the Russian side, the full Orthodox Church backing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on the Polish side, you've got this thing pushing, it's called the Ordo Uris, pushing a very, very aggressive vision. You've got Hungarian state-funded NGOs. And then on the UK side, you've got CARE UK, which has got, you know, people in parliament, Billy Graham, even. Evangelical Foundation. These are evangelical foundations more on the conservative side, but they've counted all their funding into this. They haven't attempted to distinguish the amount of

money that's being used to do other types of things and the fact that they have conservative views on marriage. And I think in a way that detracts a little bit from the power of this report, which should be focused on Russia, Hungary, Poland. And if there are actors in the UK and elsewhere that are really pushing extreme stuff, then we need to push onto how much money they're putting into it and what exactly they're doing. The overall story, I think, is very compelling. But I think it's probably that it's undermining its own case by lumping everything together and then taking the full funding of organisations like Care, UK and Billy Graham. Yeah. And it's like, for example, Patriots for Europe was an organisation that I think Allban set up,

and we know Allban's politics are, but then it will go on to be involved in all sorts of of other issues not necessarily related to this. You just get a question of the scale of organization in some of these campaigns. And we don't have time to go through all of it now, but I think what we should maybe do, the research team put together a very, very good note on the detail of the report. And I think we should maybe put it in the newsletter and let people just digest the scale and the nature of some of the campaigns that they're involved in. And then to bring it back to Mr. Orban, one of the first things that the new Prime Minister, Peter Magjar, Magsha?

Magsha. I thought the emphasis was on the first syllable, but anyway, listen, I'm no better at this than you. I'm not a Hungarian speaker. Okay, okay, okay. Anyway, the new Hungarian Prime Minister, one of the first things he announced after winning the election was he, in a sense, he exposed what was already an open secret,

and that was the use of state funding for what he identified, I think we would identify as straightforward propaganda operations. And he announced that the state was no longer going to finance institutions such as, I'll just give you one, the Matthias Corvinus Collegium, MCC, which is a private college, which sounds great, you know, Brazos College, Oxford,

Matthias Corvina's Collegium. But it is basically a propaganda organisation that is putting out all bands views on everything from gender to race, far-right ideology, universities, think tanks, right-wing figureheads. And interestingly, the Prime Minister has added that he thinks it's been a criminal offence for Orban to have funded MCC using the public purse, and which he said he intends to investigate along with the European Union, because of course a lot of the money that came to Hungary, came via the European Union. And the interesting prospect has been raised about whether those people, including many in Britain, including, I believe Mr. Matt Badlos, who have been on the receiving end of some of this money

actually might have to be investigated under proceeds of crime legislation. I think that's probably a bit far-fetched, but nonetheless interesting. And of course, so what Orbán was brilliant at, was this sense building his own profile, becoming an international figure, using state funds then to help build networks,

which one, let's be frank, won a lot of the big arguments, or certainly felt like it was winning a lot of the big arguments, that have made people like you and me feel very much on the defensive on some of the big progressive causes that we believe in. Well, I guess one of the questions will be now that Orbán's been kicked out of office. And so there won't be hundreds of millions of euros of Hungarian state money flowing into this stuff, whether this will actually weaken the far-right movement because Curacy, it doesn't feel at the moment as though Trump and the US are major funders of these European movements. They're major endorsers, but we're not seeing the reports

tracking US money in the same way. Yeah, yeah. You know, you and I were, I think a lot of people across Europe, jubilant at Orban's fall and Magyar's win. But then we had the elation of the weekend in Bulgaria, where Rumen Radef, who is sometimes described as a Kremlin, and friendly. He has won the election and won it big. And I really do think this is, we're reaching the time where the European Union has got to grasp this nettle that it's struggled with for so long about, how do you have a European Union that's so much bigger than it used to be now, 27 countries and so many of the decisions have to be made by unanimity, everybody agreeing with the same thing. One of the problems with the Orban is that he became the chief disagreeer,

for example, in relation to Ukraine. Now, this guy, Radef, is not maybe as powerful within the firmament as Orban, but it just shows you that you can sometimes take one step forward and one step back in a very, very similar time frame. Very good. Well, yeah, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to do two quick questions. We'll look at the chimpanzee Civil War.

And we'll look at the question of devolution and nationalism. This episode is brought to you by ITV. There is a new drama on ITV and ITVX called Secret Service, a political thriller that appeals both Aurora and me, not least because of our very different and varied backgrounds, I might say, makes it uncomfortably plausible. Yeah, the premise is simple. What if Russia had an asset right at the very top of the British government?

I mean, I think it's a great story, isn't it? This is David and Gordon from The Rest Is Classified podcast. this transmission has been intercepted. From the streets of Malta to the corridors of Whitehall, the enemy is closer than you think. Even podcast channels aren't immune to interference. To try to do it today. So anyway, it's based on the Sunday Times bestseller by ITV News

at 10's Tom Bradby, someone who understands that world. And it stars Gemma Artheton and Rave Spall Secret Service starts Monday the 27th of April on ITV. and ITVX. Recommended both by Rory and yours truly. Hi everybody, it's Dominic Zavrick here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is 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 Rest is 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. 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'll be 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 Alistair 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 grimmest 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. Welcome back to the racist policies. Question time with me, Alastair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. Tom Evans on devolution and nationalism, as you say, in hindsight, was devolution always going to lead to nationalism? Oh, well, let me turn it around. I mean, so I guess the big debate, and it's a difficult one in a sense for you, because you were right at the heart of the process that created it,

is the question of whether the instincts that you guys had, which I think was, was that devolution in a way would give more autonomy and freedom to Scotland and perhaps deal with the question of full independence because it would give people much more controlled over their everyday lives. Against the other view, which came from some conservative colleagues, which is, it's a slippery slope. Once you grant devolution, you're on fast track to independence. Where do you sit on that now?

Well, where I sat then, for sure, I was very much. in that camp that believed that the status quo as was was completely untenable, that there was a real democratic illegitimacy point about a big part of the United Kingdom that kept essentially saying we do not want conservative government here at all and wasn't electing conservatives. And yet it was constantly felt like it was just being governed by a distant remote government based in Westminster. I felt that the Scottish Parliament, after a very, very long gap, that it's reestablishment, would settle that debate. I did think that. And I've said to you before that, you know, this is something we talked about with Anna Sawa,

who's our guest on leading this week, the Scottish Labour leader. I can vividly remember the media. I remember Pat McFadden was there, Donald Gere was there, I think Gordon Brown might have been there. I can't remember. But I can remember the debate being, you know, we are so powerful. This government has got such a big majority in the UK. We are so much the dominant power in Scotland. So this electoral system, remember, we all had to become experts on De Haunt,

one of the famous Belgians, whose legacy is that he has an electoral system named after him. And I can remember it was all about how do you make sure that no one party can ever have lots of power? So what definitely we underestimated was the extent to which the devolution debate would politically benefit the SNP to make it more about this is a sort of step towards nationalism. But also when Tom says, was the evolution always going to lead to nationalism, it hasn't led to the breakup of the UK. Now, it still might one day, and this could be, I don't know what your view is, I sort of feel that even though John Swinney's trying to make this election in Scotland, May the 7th, a kind of, you know, a quasi-referendum to have another referendum, I don't really feel that that's,

got legs. I think it's a tactic for the election, not a strategy. It's an amazing lesson in how difficult it is to call these things. I mean, I remember many people who were right at the heart of Scottish politics in 2016 after the Brexit referendum saying that's the end of the UK. You know, this Brexit referendum is going to drive Scotland to vote for independence and Northern Ireland will ally with the Republic and you'll be left. with England and possibly Wales. And when Boris Johnson refused to allow a referendum in 2019, 2020, again, I had a lot of people, including members of the Scottish Tory Party,

who were fervent unionists saying Boris is wrong. There's no alternative he's got to offer a referendum. Because they're not going to put up with Boris. You know, I very rarely say this about Boris Johnson, but he seems to be vindicated that his gamble that he could say no. And I guess his argument was we had a referendum. quite recently. We're not going to have another one. Now it's meant to be once a generation sort of worked, at least in the short term. I mean, if I had to put you on the spot,

what do you think the chances are of Scotland going independent in the next 10 years? More than 50%, less than 50%. I mean, obviously there's no certainty, but what's your instinct? I think less than 50%, but I think we're in very, very, very volatile times. And don't forget, We've got these elections on May the 7th, and if the polls are right, we're going to end up with essentially we will have three parts of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, led in part and in some, it's impossible circumstances, in whole by governments which want to break up the United Kingdom in different directions. So that could be quite a moment for this whole debate. We talked in the main podcast about Labour and Kirstama. I actually felt when they were blocking Andy Burnham that one of the things that maybe Kirstehm might have done

was to say, let's get Andy Burnham in, and let's put him in the cabinet and put him in charge of the next steps, the next stages of devolution. Because I do think there's something that a lot of people, not just in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but in England as well, that people feel the current structures of government are not very effective. I think it's the most exciting potential really in British politics.

We're clearly so much isn't working, and a lot of it is to do with a very overly centralized state. We're so one of the most centralized countries on earth. I mean, I'm really struck just coming back from the US, but how much depends on the state government in Connecticut or Texas or Oregon or wherever. But even France, which is pretty centralized, has these very interesting structure of local mayors who you can see in the local supermarket and challenge and talk to. And we really felt, I think, both of us that when we interviewed Andy Street and Andy Burnham, that it was really moving and interesting hearing them talk about what they were doing in Birmingham and Manchester, and particularly on the economy and industrial policy and the sense of industrial policy needs to be local. that Manchester's industrial policy has to be different from Newcastles or Edinburgh. So, yeah, I'm with you.

I think that's the most exciting direction to go in. But oddly that, a little bit like civil service reform, which is another thing that will be vital for the next 20 years, isn't sexy, is it? I mean, you know, you were teasing me about, you know, what do we want, more adjectives, when do we want them now? If I was to go into a campaign and say, you know, what do I really want?

I want more devolution and more. civil service reform. Everyone would kind of yawn, and give up and go back to bang. Yeah, what about if you said to them? What about if you said to them, you all know that our politics is broken, you are the key to fixing it. We've got to bring power down to you, more local. And the French mayor example is

a good one. And the smaller the unit, the bigger a figure the mayor is. But because the institution of the mayor in France is so well established, they all want to know who it is. They want to have relationships with them. And they have real power. And they

use that power. And if they use it, bad, did they get kicked out? It's just a... And a lot of it is about tax and budgets. I mean, the frustrating thing about being Mayor of London is that, yes, theoretically, you're in charge of transport, policing and housing. But every time you actually challenge Sidic Khan and say, well, what's happening on transport, what's happening in housing, what's happening in policing, he actually relatively reasonably often says, well, I really have a budget on that. I don't have the control on that. I really do that. And to really draw the kind of Mamdani's and all the Bloomberg's on the other side of the political spectrum into being Mayor of London,

you'd really need to have a sense that it's not a ceremonial role. I mean, I remember when I was campaigning, saying to a group of students in London University, how many of you think transport, housing and policing in London as broken, they all thought it was, how many of you think that Sadiq Khan's fault, none of them? Because they basically saw it as a kind of almost ceremonial role. Now, here's a question that really appeals to me because as really focused listeners will remember, I had this amazing experience being on a stage with Jane Goodall, where she did an impression of an amazing chimpanzee. Yeah, go on, do it. Do it. No, no, no, I can't. I can't, I listen. I can do my gibbon. You did do it before. You can do it again. You did it. I do my gibbon. My gibbon goes like this.

Do you gibbon anyway. Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo. Anyway, that's my gibbon. If you can do a gibbon, why can't you do a chapman? She was so good at it. I mean, she is much, much. Anyway, she was the first person to record what seemed to be a chimpanzee civil war in the 1970s. And at the time, people thought these things occurred only once every 500 years. In fact, chimpanzees seem to live surprisingly well together, despite their quite aggressive natures. But at this particular case, we've suddenly seen in Uganda a closely related chimpanzee group, so these people are cousins.

what seems to have happened is that the elders who held them together died, and then the Western group took on the central group in the most horrendous way, murdering, killing infants, adults in a terrible kind of ferocious battle of extermination. Well, I mean, you know a lot more about this than I do, but are we looking here as a metaphor? Is that why this story has become something that so many people have talked about? Yeah, that's right. We're all supposed to stroke our chins and think, this is an insight into humanity and human warfare and tribalism.

Well, the sort of thing that interests is, we'll get on to this in a second, the question you want to do on nationalism and devolution. But traditionally, we've always imagined that civil wars are often the products of human culture. And by human culture, we mean human imaginations and ideas, you know, the idea of a nation, the idea of a flag, the idea. the idea of us and them, these quite sort of strange arbitrary mental structures that we create, the US against Iran. But the odd thing is the chimpanzees who don't seem to have those kinds of mental models, certainly don't have flags, don't have JCPOAs, appear to be engaging in murderous into Nissan warfare,

which I think is raising some questions around that. For those who are really interested in animal life, do check out an interview we did a couple of years ago now with Robert Sapolsky who goes and lives with them. I guess this has been observed by a human being,

presumably who has been living in this community while there's civil wars going on like kind of animal war correspondent. Absolutely, exactly like like Sapolsky, yeah, watching the thing because chimpanzees, as you know, are enormous I mean, they're much stronger than we are.

They'll rip your arm off. And there's these great comments that come out. So the chief scientist has observed that the Eastern group seems to basically side with the central group, but be sitting it out, maybe a little bit like Russia and China with Iran. Good. Well, listen, let's call it a day there, and see you, well, I'll see you in Belgrade very shortly. See you in Belgrade. It's a great line. See you there. Bye-bye.