Sir John Major’s Interview on BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour – 26 February 2023
The text of Sir John Major’s interview on BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour on 26 February 2023. The interview was broadcast over the programme in two separate parts.
PART ONE
CAROLYN QUINN
[Asked Sir John Major for his views on the Northern Ireland deal]
SIR JOHN MAJOR
As far as trade is concerned, the deal that Mr. Johnson and Lord Frost did was pretty poor. It was a pretty poor negotiation and after having regarded it as a triumph and taking the plaudits for it, it was barely weeks before they were denouncing it, but of course blaming the European Union for it. So there is a need for some reform of the agreement. The European Union are offering a good deal of reform and the UK have made some helpful suggestions about red and green exit points for trade for example.
CAROLYN QUINN
[Commented that the DUP wanted the protocol rewritten]
SIR JOHN MAJOR
It depends exactly what they mean by that, it’s not at all clear to me what they mean. But what is actually turning out to be a particularly difficult point is the question of what happens with trade disputes. The European Union insists that the European Court of Justice should be involved and that is a neuralgic point for many Members of Parliament in the UK, particularly the European Research Group wing of the Tory party, and also for the DUP. This neuralgic situation has left Northern Ireland without an executive and without a power sharing assembly for well over a year, and it could be a good deal longer.
Trade isn’t the only problem in Northern Ireland, they’ve got real problems with health, with education, with all sorts of other things and they need that executive back in operation. The extent to which the European Court of Justice would be involved would be in determining disputes between companies, they’re not going to overturn the constitution. Their involvement would be tiny, partial and occasional. If we can get in a reform all the trade changes we need, for the easier access for trade into Northern Ireland, then the fact that there will be a minute occasional involvement of the European Court of Justice really ought not to stop an agreement being made. They talk of democracy, democracy is thrown away when that assembly is not sitting. We need them back.
———-
PART TWO
CAROLYN QUINN
[Commented that she had joined Westminster as a very junior reporter back in 1989, seeing the last moments of Margaret Thatcher’s administration, but it was John Major who was the first Prime Minister she interviewed and it was nice to interview him again. She put to him that back in the 1990s, there was still a generation in Parliament who had been shaped by the Second World War]
SIR JOHN MAJOR
Those politicians had served in a war and it had been the biggest scar on their lives, as it was for everybody who was alive at that time. They saw the importance of the United Kingdom ensuring, with its partners across Europe, that there would never again be a war like that. That was the great impetus to join the European Union at the time. Now as the years have gone by that impetus has faded and different arguments took hold about Europe about bureaucracy and all sorts of things which are important in themselves but they’re not as important as peace. The 1980s became quite an ideological age on both sides of the political fence and that carried through into the 90s with those who came into Parliament, and it’s followed on. So even today you have, in both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, an ideological fringe to those two parties that are unduly significant and that is something that has changed.
CAROLYN QUINN
[Commented that Sir John said Brexit was a mistake and asked is this a big difference in politics between now and then?]
SIR JOHN MAJOR
Beyond any shadow of doubt. It’s not just that we left Europe, it was the nature of the referendum, the divisions it created, the manner in which we left Europe and the way in which the public were fed promises which have proved to be wholly unfounded. I anxiously await for the benefits of Brexit as yet, except in small areas, been unable to find them. The land of milk and honey that was held out by the Brexiteers has so far proved to be sour vinegar, rather than milk and honey. I find it personally quite astonishing that those people who made so many promises about Brexit haven’t retreated in their corners and kept silent about it rather than boasting about the fact they got Brexit done.
CAROLYN QUINN
[Asked if they would be listening saying ‘there he goes again, things will get better’]
SIR JOHN MAJOR
I know, that’s their line. But how long, this life, the next life, my grandson’s life? Who knows? They cannot answer.
CAROLYN QUINN
[Asked about the current Conservative leader who is a Brexiteer and decided that Brexit would work]
SIR JOHN MAJOR
He did and we take a different view on that. But I think in other things he’s done a great deal to restore respect for our country and I think he is a serious politician. He seriously considers policy and policy is more important to him than publicity and that is a very welcome change. I think he’s honest and reliable, as indeed I think the Leader of the Opposition is and I think that is a very helpful development for Britain to recover.
CAROLYN QUINN
[Asked about public trust in politicians and whether there is a problem with integrity in politics]
SIR JOHN MAJOR
It’s an ongoing problem with integrity and politics. The public have always, and I think this is rather healthy, had a scepticism of politicians and authority generally, but not as seriously as we see it now. There is undoubtedly a real problem. I think it comes from two or three different things. Firstly, for 15 years people are disillusioned because since the 2007 financial crash, the vast majority of people have seen no increase in their net disposable income at all and that is unprecedented. At the same time, other people have made a great deal of money and that must really hurt to those who are now in work but having to go to food banks which is intolerable in a nation like ours.
Then there’s the question you touched on of trust and integrity. I think that has been damaged by actions over the past two or three years, I don’t think I need to enumerate them as I think all your listeners will know exactly what I’m talking about. But it is damaging, if trust is not exercised where people are elected to look after the interests of others, then it will have a very bad effect on the perception of Parliament. You mentioned the word sleaze, there’s a distinction between sleaze in terms of things like the government’s behaviour on patronage or on party political donations, and sleaze if it is the individual misdemeanour of individual Members of Parliament and I think that was the predominant problem we had in the 1990s.
Then there is one great gap in politics which I’m astonished nobody has pointed out. Many of the people on one wing of the Conservative Party argue very strongly for a low tax Singapore on Thames type economy and yet the Conservative Party are also fighting to keep hold of the red wall seats. The red wall seats want a vast amount of more public expenditure because that is the only thing that is going to cure grievances that have built up under governments of different parties and all parties over the last 40 or 50 years.
We have to make a choice. It is appalling that some of the deprived areas of the United Kingdom, the fifth or sixth richest nation in the world, that some people are living in worse conditions that you can find almost anywhere in Europe. That is not a success for governments, not just this government, that is not a success for governments over the last 50 years. And it is incumbent upon the government to take levelling up seriously. I think I will put it this way, dealing with the people left behind. Dealing with that particular problem by levelling up is as big an issue as setting up the National Health Service. It will take more than a decade, more than two decades. The party that really puts its shoulder to that wheel will learn a great deal of credit for itself, for politics generally, for the country and also for what is right.