Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Kirst Armer has been very vocal about his mission to reset Britain's relationship with Europe and to put the UK back on the global stage. Two weeks into the job, he got a chance to make some headway when he hosted more than forty of the continent's leaders at Winston Churchill's ancestral home. Just before that, he had traveled to Washington for the NATO Summit. But
what's his best strategy for fostering global relationships? In this episode, we speak with someone who is arguably the best place to answer that question. Welcome to the City of London, The City of the City, The City of London.
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Welcome to in the City, Then clear of the dows Peace.
Welcome to in the City. A podcast from Bloomberg about the stories important to the City of London. I'm an Augus Stratton and my co host Francine laquer and I spoke with Baroness Ashton of up Holland, also known as Kathy Ashton, currently a Labor member of the House of Lords. Previously, Kathy Ashton served as the first ever High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security from twenty oh nine to twenty fourteen. It's a role that even she admits took some time to cultivate and understand.
I recall going to Moscow to have a first proper sit down meeting with then Foreign Minister love Rof and I could see that they were all quizzically looking at what on earth this was. And sometimes it's useful to be able to explain that you also understand that were
at the beginning of a process, not the end. And so I told a joke that the then Slovenian Prime Minister had told me, which was very simply that the American President is told by his Secretary of State that there is good news that the Kissinger question, if I want to talk to Europe, who do I call had been answered and the answer was me. And so, with great gusto, the American President says, well, why don't we
call Kathy's number. See what happens. They called my number and they get my voicemail, and my voicemail says, welcome to Europe. For the French position, Press one, the Italian position Press two, and so on, And as I recall, Lavrov laughed. My message I think got through that I was under no illusion that we were starting a process, not finishing it.
Kathy was one of the world's most powerful women at the time, immersed in some of the most complicated problems, many quite similar to the problems the UK faces today. So we spoke to her about what she sees as Labour's priorities regarding trade deals, their relationship with the US, and their strategy for rehabilitating a European relationship soured by Brexit.
You're one of the great diplomatic minds that the UK has. What will diplomacy and foreign affairs look like? Hendrik Kearstarmer.
It's great to be on the podcast, and I think the first thing to say is that there is an understanding of the importance of ensuring that Britain plays its part in world affairs, and that translates into a number of things. First of all, the importance of the relationship with Europe not to look backwards, not to go backwards, but to go forwards, to develop a stronger foreign policy, security defense relationship with the like minded countries of the
European Union. It means looking across to the Transatlantic relationship regardless of who's in the White House, and ensuring that the depths and strength of that continues. Britain was always known as the bridge between the European Union and the United States. Well that bridge isn't quite there now, but
there's still to be done in that relationship too. And then I think some of the big foreign policy questions that we're facing, the war in Ukraine, the crisis in the Middle East, the strength of our relationship with countries we've known a long time and countries we're trying to develop new relationships with, and of course the challenge of China, so very clear, big issues to be dealt with, but I think a determination that Britain will be more present than it's been in recent years.
If you look at European countries, they're all grappling with the same issue of an increase in migration. I'm really wondering how the Labor government manage to get from the French and the Germans and others agreement on handling migrants, just purely from the perspective, which is they also have their domestic electurates that are very volatile, like the UK electurate. What's the way through is it possible.
I think you have to start further back in a way, which is why people are moving. And one of the things that is always a challenge in foreign policy is the short cycle of governments and the fact that we are dealing with always more than one crisis at any given moment. So it tends to be a bit like the game Whack Them All, where you kind of whack the crisis back down and then move on to the next cool right, and I hope that it won't pop
up again. But so many of the issues that we face in the world have taken decades, if not centuries to erupt. So why we think two years is going to solve it? I don't know. So the first thing to say is that there's a collaboration to be done that is more than just Europe, which is about saying, why is it that these people are coming, what's happening, How do we inject some ways of sort of solving the problem or at least alleviating the problem that we're
not doing already that maybe could help. And also looking on the horizon, scanning for places that are likely to erupt, And that may seem sort of easy to say and very long term, But actually you do need to think in ten twenty thirty years time what will be the challenges that we face. And I've mentioned climate change is a good example. If people are living without a you know, at the infrastructure and the social blanket if you like that will support them. Then what happens when they can't
grow the crops? What happens when the village is flooded for the fourth time. They have to move somewhere, and they may choose to move internally, or they may choose to move further afield. And that's going to be one of the things that we have to deal with, regardless of how effective we are in solving some of the problems that we have on climate change. So number one, start much further back in the process, and then number two,
we're in it together. We're all trying to tackle this in the best way, recognizing that people come for different reasons, recognizing that you have to make choices and they're hard and difficult, and then trying to be more collaborative. And I think that at least is a good place to start. How they're able to do this, what the agivements will look like is not for me to say but I think it's important to at least begin that process and
to really think about what could make a difference. And I think actually smashing the gangs that create the misery that we see would be a really, really effective tool.
So it's interesting I gro that you bring up immigration because for me, if you look at some of the challenges right in twenty twenty four, it's probably like US and Trump, who wants to put terrorfs some and then you don't really know how to deal with China. But I guess there's a disconnect between these bigger foreign policy issues and what citizens vote for, right, I mean foreign policy. People don't vote for governments on foreign policy. Is that a mistake, Well, they don't.
But again because it's actually domestic. They are voting on domestic issues which actually have a foreign policy element to them, sometimes bigger than others. So and issues of migration, immigration, there are bigger domestic and bigger foreign policy issues buried within that. Then there would be when people think about, you know, the cost of things, or whether their small business is going to be effective and so on, those
two have a foreign policy implication. If you're no longer able to trade in Europe the way you did because of the way things have worked out. That has a direct impact on you and your family, and your community, and your customers and so on, and your workforce in particular. If we can sort of solve some of those problems, which is foreign policy, then it has a direct impact
on the domestics. So although people rightly vote on the issues that concern them, that's not to say that foreign policy doesn't play its part in helping them get what they need.
So you've dealt with what's called them tricky characters, You've negotiated with there on, You've negotiated with Russia and Lavra. What was your secret tool in trying to get them to the table and actually sign something.
Well, if you take the around talks, I had two jobs. One was to help hold the six countries together because this was China, Russia, United States, France, and the UK, the P five the permanent five members of the Security Council, plus Germany because they'd been an original negotiator with Iran. It's the only negotiation in history where the P five
worked together and stuck together and voted together. And it's a great loss, amongst many other things, that that possibility no longer exists, at least for now, and getting them to have a common position when they needed and wanted different things from the negotiation, they'd have settled for less or needed more was one of the jobs that we
had to ensure happened. Because what you have to have in a negotiation as complicated and as technically complex as iruand negotiations was absolute clarity that we are all on this position and we're sticking to it, with the maneuverability you also need in a negotiation, because what would have been disastrous would have been if either Iran had felt able to pick off a couple of countries or equally
that they would have been completely confused. If the messages they were getting were different, it would be impossible for them to be able to develop their own positions. So that was number one on The second job then was to take that and to negotiate with the Iranians. The US did a lot of the heavy lifting. I'm not
going to pretend otherwise, because that's absolutely true. But it was a six country negotiation with the EU chairing and leading it, and we shouldn't underestimate the role of any country because there were moments in that five years, four and a half years of my negotiation, when each country did something that actually held the talks together, and that's something we shouldn't forget. But getting that negotiation to work was about those two things coming together.
Did you realize things about yourself through that process? Sorry to go all it can't lytical, but it's so hard to keep all those six countries going. Is it a very personal job or is it something you know you go on to autopilot and it's actually you know, you've got a briefing and you stick to it and so on. What's the balance between the personal and the state craft of the Foreign Office?
Well, of course I've never been in the Foreign Office, and I was creating a brand new foreign service, and I'd never been a diplomat. But I'd been an negotiator, as it turned out, and you sort of recognize the skill set as leader of the House of Laws or as a minister in the Laws. I never had more than twenty two percent of the vault guaranteed, so everything I did was an negotiation. I'd shared a health authority,
which meant merging hospitals. That was a negotiation. You sort of understand in yourself that there are skills that you've got that you recognize in yourself, that you use in that context. So I suppose the thing I discovered about me was that this was something I knew how to do. It was very challenging to carry the weight sometimes of the Iran negotiations. I didn't carry it along, but I
carried it. You felt it. You'd be in a hotel for sometimes weeks on end, trying to work through very technical issues, trying to get an agreement that would hold, and knowing the consequences of not doing it could be extreme, and you felt that a lot. But there was a part of me that also thought, but I know how to have these conversations and how to maneuver my way,
how to listen for the nuance. I often say to young diplomats, the first thing you do is listen to what they're saying between the words, because when people read out their speech or they give you their first line of attack, they're often saying things that you've just got to understand. And the more you can get underneath that, the more you can work out who you're dealing with and how to establish the kind of relationship that might get you there that really matters.
But it's hard when you have nothing in common I guess in terms of values with someone on the other side.
It's of course hard, but almost inevitably in a negotiation, you're not negotiating with your mates. You're negotiating with people who you're trying to change their behavior and who may have very little in common with you. But of course we're all human beings. And one of the things that is again I think is so important is that you should always find a way to do what I call the warm up. So in all the negotiations I do, I always spent time with people before we sat in
the formal chairs, finding out what was happening. So in the Iran talks, I had dinner with the chief negotiator the night before the talks. Every single time we met with the Serbia and Kosovo dialogue, I met the two prime ministers separately for a cup of coffee beforehand, so you can pick up a lot of the new and just more generally, if you sit in this big room with loads of press photography going on in this big negotiation, it's much easier to begin the conversation as I always could,
with thank you for dinner. It's really important to always keep a sense of yourself and also a sense of humor. There are some extraordinary moments in diplomacy and in negotiation where people do laugh, and often when you explain that people sort of say, how can you possibly share a joke with ofver? But funny things happen, weird things happen,
and you have to be able to do that. It's a human thing and above everything, whatever you're doing in diplomacy, you're dealing with human beings who look at the world in a completely different way to you, look at you in a completely different way to the way you see yourself. But they are people and somewhere along the way, if you can find ways to connect, not to cross over to their side, but to connect, probably got better chance of getting to a solution.
We're recording this before cures. Darmer actually hosts European leaders at Blenham Palace. This was basically a forum that was set up by Roshisunac. So is that awkward for the Prime Minister? What will he try and achieve from Europe? Which is I have to say quite distracted with political matters?
Well, I mean it's a forum that Richie Snac was shairing, but it's set, of course, an original idea by President Macron, and the Foreign Office is very good working out how to manage transitions from one group of people to another, not least because actually in the previous few years we'd had a number of changes both in the Foreign Office and actually in Prime ministers, so they're kind of used to a bit of that. But the fundamentals so are already set anyway, because it's not just about what the
British want out of that agenda. It is also a more collaborative discussion. I think what probably happens in the differences where things come up on the agenda and how they're dealt with, of course shows that things have changed. So we shall see how that translates into what happens afterwards. But there'll be a lot of curiosity, I'm sure as well.
You know, who is the new Prime Minister, what's he like and so on, and a lot of countries wanting to see him visit them, wanting to see how far they can have, you know, real dialogue with him by laterals and so on. So it's going to be quite a busy time, I think.
Kathy, how much will the EU say to the UK and return for collaboration on security and defense. That orcus and some of that Pacific tilt needs to go or may not be feasible for it to go. But how much do they see the UK's attempt to build relations around the world and in the Pacific as at odds with more collaboration.
It was a problem in the past. I tared the Defense Minister's meetings for five years, and within that there was a desire to sort of try and collaborate effectively. It wasn't about creating something European in the sense that people sort of try and put this as a negative. It was about how do we best use the resources we've got, bearing in mind we effectively share the same concerns and have the same issues. So within that Britain already had lots of relationships other countries the same. I
don't think it will really affect it. What they'll want to see is that there is a genuine desire to collaborate better than we've seen in recent years, and also to ensure that that fits well with NATO the EU through the for example, the European Defense Agency did some great work certainly that I remember on improvised explosive devices, on mid air refueling, on helicopter training, all of which benefited EU countries but also of course benefited NATO as well.
So getting that collaboration so that everyone benefits will be really important. I think they'll be more interested in that than trying to stop Britain doing things.
Kathy.
I mean, there's quite a lot of fury over Trump's you know, vice presidential running mate Jdvans claimed that the UK is an Islamist country with nuclear weapons. How should the Prime minister deal with with comments like that?
Well, as I understand it, David Lammy has already established some connections with the potential vice president, and I take the view I've had so much rhetoric from so many leaders over so many years that is about what I call a campaign rhetoric. You know, people say things. They say things because they're watching how the news covers issues.
And as you'll know in America, you can get a story that you recognize as a brit but it has a particular spin or a particular angle, such that if you didn't know what was really going on in Britain, you might take a particular view. And what I don't know is of course why he thinks of where he's got this from. You know, what are the news outlers saying,
what are the things he's reading? And so on. The most important thing is that the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary and others continue to work and build a relationships with both camps, both potential presidents, in order that the relationship that Britain has with the US, which is much much deeper and much more sort of strong than
any individual president or Prime minister. But really try and work at that and not get sidetracked him much by what people say in the rhetoric, because as I say, over the years, I've some extraordinary things being said by leaders all over the place which you understand in their own context, they're not talking to you, They're actually talking to their own domestic audience in some particular way. Doesn't make it easier, but it makes it at least comprehensible from that point of view.
But Kathy, what is undoubted is jd Vance and others. We interviewed Elbert Colby, who potentially will be a potential Trump the Second's national security advisor and the pivot away from Ukraine towards the Pacific or to China. How difficult is that going to be for the UK and others who want to support Ukraine.
I think it's really important to understand that the war in Ukraine is a war on the European mainland. In other words, this is something that we have to see from our perspective. We don't necessarily always share the same perspective that they do across the Atlantic. For them, because of their pacific reach, they have different priorities. Doesn't mean these are not priorities for us, but maybe they're a little bit lower down. But Ukraine is really really important.
It's really important because of the consequences of what might happen in the future if Ukraine is not able to protect its sovereignty, not able to continue as a fully functioning state. Now, having said that, we know how important the US is to the capability in the capacity of Ukraine to pursue its objectives and to operate in this war. So it will be important to try and make sure that support happens. But as you know, well, it's not
just about the President, it's also about Congress. And you know, I was up on the hill only a few weeks ago. It's really important to understand it may not be as simple as whatever the President or some of his advisors say. It's going to be about worthy American Congress, where the people are and so on. So there's an opportunity I think that we can take whoever's in the White House in November and beyond into January when they take office, to be able to try and influence what happens.
Kathy, what made you go into diplomacy? Would you stand ready to serve if you were called to be UK ambassador to the US?
Well, those who've read the book now I found myself going into diplomacy per se, almost as a kind of will certainly go into Brussels. I think the media knew long before I did, because I watched it on the television, going around on the chicker tape, thinking that's interesting, I wonder if it's real. And by the end of the day I was in Brussels, what I didn't know was it would be six years before I came home. So I believe in public service, let's put it that way.
And if you believe in public service, if there's something you can usefully do, then of course you do it. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a fantastic team. They certainly don't need me, so let's see what happens. Katy Ashton, thank you so much, Thank you thanks for listening to this week's In the City from Bloomberg. This episode was hosted by Meat Frantz in Laque with a Legro Stratton. It was produced by Summersati production support and
sound designed by Most sus Adam Brandon. Francis Newman is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Head of Podcasts Special thanks to Kathy Ashton. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts.