Sir John Major’s Interview on The World This Weekend – 16 February 2025
The text of the interview between James Naughtie and Sir John Major on BBC 4’s The World This Weekend on 16 February 2025.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
Sir John Major, who combines a razor sharp observation of the here and now, with his own experience as Prime Minister. Coming to power soon after the fall of the wall, deeply involved in the chaotic translation of the Soviet Union into the Russian Federation and a leader who found himself involved in armed conflict in the first Gulf War shoulder to shoulder with an American president, George H W Bush. So I asked Sir John to put these days, now, in Europe in perspective. How serious did they seem to him? What change did he think was afoot?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
There’s no doubt in my mind that the world is changing and that it’s reshaping, that it may not be reshaping in a way that’s congenial to the west and that it’s a very unsettled time indeed. Many of the gains we thought we’d made over recent years, for example, as you said, when the Soviet Union collapsed, are now being reversed and you see a very aggressive Russia again in Ukraine. If they were to succeed with their adventure in Ukraine, no doubt they would be elsewhere before too long. We see globalisation retreating and there’s no doubt in my mind that democracy is threatened. It’s been in modest decline for the last 18 years, there’s an ugly nationalism growing, mostly from the intolerant right. So it is, as I say, a very unsettled time. At this particular time, the big nations, America, China, Russia, are beginning to act unilaterally, where once they would have consulted. That is a concern, because it does presage the prospect of very great and rather unpleasant changes.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
You allude to what’s happening in the United States and it brings us to President Trump’s dealings with Vladimir Putin and indeed to JD Vance’s speech to the Munich Security Conference. This is a kind of administration, to be quite blunt about it, you’ve never seen in your lifetime before.
SIR JOHN MAJOR
No, that’s perfectly true. It’s a very different presidency from Kennedy, from Nixon, from Clinton, from Obama, from the two Bushes. In fact, it’s a form of presidency I haven’t previously seen. The President’s phone call to Putin, in which we learned that negotiations to end the war would start immediately. There had been no consultation with Ukraine or anyone else. He then made concessions to Russia, which I think is fairly unprecedented, having made perfectly clear that the US troops would not defend Ukraine, that Russia might be able to keep land that Putin had taken by force and that Ukraine would not be able to join NATO. These were all unilateral remarks from the present administration in the United States to the world. Yet consider what happens if Russia can claim a win. China is going to notice that, and so will the world, and so will every tin pot dictator around the world. If America is not to stand behind its allies in the way the world has previously seen, then we are moving into a wholly different and in my view, rather more dangerous world.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
From what you think you have read into Trump’s dealings with Putin, that is exactly what you expect to happen?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
That is what he appears to have been signalling, yes, and it’s extremely dangerous and it’s hard to understand why. The Vice President’s speech at the Munich conference, a rather unlikely venue for the speech he actually made, the political signal was obvious and misguided, I think, in the middle of an election in Germany. This is just an illustration of what is happening, but if you recall, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen died relieving Europe from the tyranny of fascism and the Vice President goes to Munich, ignores his host Chancellor Schulz, and arranges meetings with the leader of the most far right party. That is not what we expect from the foremost nation in the free world. It’s certainly not statesmanship, and it potentially gives off very dangerous signals.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
And he lectures Europe at the same time on the issue of free speech?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
Well, that is extremely odd. It’s extremely odd to lecture Europe on the subject of free speech and democracy at the same time as they’re cuddling Mr. Putin. In Mr. Putin’s Russia, people who disagree with him disappear, or die, or flee the country, or, on a statistically unlikely level, fall out of high windows somewhere in Moscow. To lecture the West about democracy seems to be rather odd. He really should be doing that in Moscow, or perhaps even in Beijing.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
Well, your view is plain, but I have to put it to you that Donald Trump is practicing what he preached. The voters, after all, a bare majority of those who did vote in the United States give a man a mandate to do this, and as a consequence, you might dislike it, but you can hardly complain that he’s doing something illegitimate.
SIR JOHN MAJOR
He certainly won a mandate. I don’t recall in his mandate a suggestion that he might take over Canada or Greenland or the Panama Canal, or any of the other things that are being suggested. I mean, let me say what I think Western governments will be unwilling to say publicly, but which I am sure they all feel. If America behaves in this fashion and retreats towards isolation, she leaves the door open to China and Russia to supplement her place in the world. The free world, I believe, now fears that America, with all her great power and prestige and all that she has done to keep the world safe in recent years, may now be turning her back on the international responsibilities she has previously taken. If she does so, there’s no other nation state that can replace them, other than China, and that is not something I think the West would certainly wish to see. If that happens, the world, including America, may regret what subsequently follows.
Now I understand President Trump’s desire to make America great again, though I would have thought, since she is the most powerful and richest nation in the world, she could already claim that, but he wishes to make her great again. It’s a very different tone from a former American tone of paying any price and bearing any burden for the freedom of mankind, and the world needs to take account of that and discover precisely what is meant by all this, and then, as necessary, take action to safeguard their own interests.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
So John, it’s unusual to hear a former Prime Minister talking, if I can use the word, so frankly. Because, you know, there are protocols and a sense of politeness that prohibit people who’ve been in high office from maybe always saying what they think. You clearly feel that you’ve got to let this go, you’ve got to tell people what you believe.
SIR JOHN MAJOR
I rarely these days appear on the media. I’d rather take the view that former Prime Ministers by and large should keep out of the way and leave it to the current generation. But sometimes there are things that need to be said that perhaps can’t be said so easily by the present Government or by politicians in office but that nonetheless need to be said.
Now let me say something personal about this. My father was brought up in the United States, he was brought up in Pennsylvania and he lived there throughout his youth. He taught me as a boy to love and respect the United States and its people, and I always have respected them. It seems to me that it would be a very great tragedy with very uncertain outcomes if this great Republic began to preside over the death of the rules based society that has kept the world safe over the last 50, 60, 70 years. Yet, I’m not alone among politicians who think that rules based society is now at risk.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
I’m bound to take you back a little bit at this juncture and say that George H W Bush, father of a president, as well as a president himself, of course, was the first American president that you came to know well in office. You fought together, as it were, in the Gulf, and you saw through some very tumultuous times together, but the contrast with the current incumbent is dramatic, isn’t it?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
I think it’s total, yes. George H W Bush was not only President of the United States, but from my point of view, during his presidency and for many years afterwards, he became a much cherished friend and he was an internationalist of a very remarkable kind. He understood the world, and he understood that for every action, there is a reaction. I make that point because if America stepped back from the responsibilities they have so generously and bravely taken over recent years, somebody else will step forward to replace them, and I think we have to realise that, and we have to prepare for that if it should prove to be necessary.
My preference would be for the United States and Europe to reach a great concordat again and to conduct negotiations in private and not by megaphone and not without consultation first. But if that can’t happen, then Europe, and I include the United Kingdom as well, even though we’re not in the European Union, then we need to look at our own future and begin to repair some of the gaps in our present position that would appear were America to retreat a little more behind American borders,
JAMES NAUGHTIE
Which must mean spending more on defence?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
Undoubtedly.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
So if you were Chancellor, which you once were, you’d break your own fiscal rule wouldn’t you, and say ‘come on, this is a moment that really demands action, whatever we said in an election campaign?’
SIR JOHN MAJOR
I sympathise with the present Chancellor with the position she’s got. It’s very, very easy to say, from outside the government, I’d just do this and I’d spend all this money. I would prefer to say, I would realise in my plans that we have to make a very material increase in the level of defence expenditure and do it as a priority as soon as it is credible to do so.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
In terms of the Ukraine negotiation itself bringing this war to an end, there are two issues that arise very obviously. When European leaders, including Keir Starmer at this occasion, meet in Paris tomorrow night, it will be on their minds. The first is the inclusion of Ukraine in conversations between Trump and Putin, which hasn’t happened yet as we know. And secondly, there is the question of NATO membership, on which the United States seems to be determined, or at least minded, to block Ukraine from its ambitions to join. How would you see your way through those two problems?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
We need to consider, because it is relevant to what we decide, what happens if Mr. Putin wins? I use wins in the sense of gains territory, the world will see that at the same time as they see Mr. Trump talking of annexing Canada and Greenland. Now contemplate those two events running together, and ask yourself this question, what do Mr. Putin and President Xi think? They are dancing with joy.
Mr. Putin will see that he has received some reward for seeking to invade and annex Ukraine, and Mr. Xi will feel, if that has happened, what restraint is there on China beginning to grab Taiwan back again in a few years time? So we have to look at what the world would look like if that happened and it wouldn’t look very attractive, and we would wish it not to happen. So I do think we have to speed as rapidly as we can defence expenditure. I can’t say I have focused particularly on the credibility of Ukraine joining NATO, but if it’s not credible for them to do so, now, I think we ought to assist them so that it becomes credible as soon as possible.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
From your point of view, as somebody who was engaged in serious international negotiations at a higher level, the centrality of Ukraine to a settlement which is going to decide the future, not least in terms of its own borders of the country, is surely an absolute fundamental principle that Europe has to defend?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
Yes, Ukraine should be a part of the negotiations. There is no justification for other nations and negotiating over Ukraine’s head, whether it is the United States alone, or indeed the United States and other allies, it is Ukrainians who have lost several 100,000 people in the battlefield. They have lost blood and treasure and a large part of their country, it would be intolerable were they not to be a significant part of the negotiations.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
And there will have to be some kind of security presence to safeguard their borders in the event of some kind of settlement?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
That was a notable absentee from the reports of what was said by the President to Mr. Putin. There was no mention of any concessions to be made by Mr. Putin. There was no mention of any security guarantees to be given to the Ukrainians and both of those are an important part of what must happen when there is proper negotiations.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
How difficult would it be for Europe and for NATO, dominated of course by the United States as a member, where some possible deal on Ukraine would be seen by them as a sellout to Russia?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
I think it would be immensely difficult, firstly, against the prestige of the United States. There are countries all around the world who rely on the power and strength and democratic power of the United States. If they believe the United States is no longer to be relied on, they will rethink their position. Many of them who are non aligned, might well realign behind China. Others may decide they’ll increase their own expenditure on defence. Some may decide, well, we had better get a nuclear weapon as well, because it seems as though it may be necessary to protect ourselves. Now, all of those things are speculation, but they’re not wild speculation. All of them are perfectly credible things that might follow from a belief that America had ceded its present role in the world as a whole simply to concentrate on the domestic greatness of the United States.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
You’re being very frank. You obviously feel very deeply about this.
SIR JOHN MAJOR
Well, I suppose I have a limited lease on what happens in this country. I’ve been in it for my eight decades, but my children haven’t, my grandchildren haven’t and millions of other people haven’t. The future lies ahead. I would like our political parties to stop looking back at past generations of politicians and look forward to what is going to happen in the 2030s and the 2040s and the 2050s, to begin to plan for it, to begin to act for it, to begin to understand the way the world is changing and prepare for it.
Those things seem to me to be extraordinarily important. Politicians today have a harder time, I think, than any of their predecessors, because of the advent of social media, the way in which the chequerboards of the world are changing shape at the present time and and the fact that our country has had 15 years without any noticeable increase in the living quality of most British people. in any part of the United Kingdom. That’s an extraordinarily difficult back loss for them to operate, but we do have to look forward. If we look forward, we can bring hope where there is none, and provide opportunity to a greater extent than there is at present. Those things need to be done. I hope Governments, this one and the next one are not too small ‘c’ conservative in what they think and what they do and what they believe can be achieved, because the world is moving and changing very rapidly. We have to move and change with it.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
If by some possibly divine intervention, you were given the opportunity to have a private conversation with President Trump, what would you say?
SIR JOHN MAJOR
I’ve always believed conversation should be private, and I’m absolutely sure Jim that our conversation would far better be left private than public.
JAMES NAUGHTIE
Sir John Major, and he writes our closing headline for us, because he has told this programme that democracy is under threat than it if the US retreats towards isolation, it will leave the door open for Russia and China to take its place in the world.