Sir John Major’s Speech at the Sir Edward Heath Annual Lecture – 26 June 2025
The speech made by Sir John Major on 26 June 2025 at Salisbury Cathedral.
THE CHANGING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
AT HOME AND ABROAD: A REALITY CHECK
This occasion is intrinsically linked with Ted Heath and – with my memories of him – I am honoured to speak to you today.
Ted was not an easy man to know. He was a mass of contradictions ‒ and not always “user-friendly”. He could be brusque, wooden, charmless, and yet had the gift to make friends for life, and supporters who admire and sustain his legacy.
A complex man, he wasn’t born to privilege, but rose to prominence by sheer ability. His metier was policy, not presentation. Facts – and logic – were his political weapons of choice.
His priority was country first. Party came second. And he led, not followed public opinion.
Essentially an Englishman, his service during the Second World War forged his belief in the closest possible relationship between the United Kingdom and our neighbours in Europe.
A principled politician, he fought for this throughout his political life – and was right to do so. Europe is a cause, temporarily in obeyance, but not lost. It is still in play.
Ted had an active life beyond politics.
In his talent for sailing, classical music, the piano, and his love of conducting, he filled his life with passions far removed from the battleground of Westminster. He loved – as Yehudi Menuhin put it: “the wind, the land and the sea”.
There is a fascination about Ted’s career ‒ his rise, his rule, his fall ‒ that would have challenged even Shakespeare’s magical pen.
I’ve no doubt the discerning eye of history will treat him more generously than his contemporaries and – with that judgement – I concur.
Which is why it is such a pleasure to be with you this afternoon. Here, where Ted called home.
*****
Among the advantages of age is the experience of mistakes ‒ your own and those of others ‒ and the ability to learn from them.
Advancing years allow time for reflection, and eases us from the bonds of political correctness and Party self-interest.
In that spirit, I would like to conduct a reality check.
Imagine our world as a jigsaw, each piece in its place, laying before you, familiar and settled.
And then, of its own volition, the jigsaw begins to break up and take a new shape.
This is our world as it changes, and it has not yet assumed a shape we can rely on ‒ nor with which we can be comfortable. Nor can we be sure it will do so.
We Britons are a piece of that jigsaw puzzle. We fit where fate – and our own endeavours – take us.
For 80 years, we have been lucky to have lived under a rules-based system; been spared long and costly international wars; and – until recently – enjoyed a steady growth in national wellbeing.
Beyond any question America and China are the dominant forces in our modern world ‒ no other nation state comes close.
But neither of these two powerful nations offer the assurance of an ordered and peaceful future. They are rivals in trade. Opponents in politics.
What they are not are allies in building a better world.
The elevation of Presidents Xi and Trump to great power ‒ the first not a democrat, and the second not always behaving like one ‒ helps explain the uncertainties that now exist.
Of these, there are many. Moderate Parties of Left and Right are in crisis in France, where the extreme Right may win the next parliamentary and presidential elections.
The UK and Germany, too, face an insurgency from the intolerant Right.
Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has erased the global peace dividend the West enjoyed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
We – among others – are now to spend more on defence, and to finance that by cutting aid to the world’s most wretched and helpless.
Many people, with voices that will never be heard, will suffer and die because countries have made this change in budgetary priorities.
It is short-sighted and – to my mind – callous. And the fallout, over time, will be greater migrant demand to live in the richer countries.
The switch from care to conflict comes courtesy of Putin’s military ambitions. He was, is, and will continue to be a menace to European peace.
As a newly-minted super power, China seeks to dominate the international order and is using military and commercial muscle to expand her interests – and increase her influence.
China is not a democratic country ‒ indeed, she is an avowed opponent of democracy, being first amongst a rising number of nations that see democracy as an alien ‒ and inefficient ‒ form of government.
For a long time the United States has been our closest, most trusted ally. Twice, in the last century, her entry into a World War has been decisive.
The display of American power in Iran a few days ago was awesome, but the situation is so dynamic that – if required – this matter is best addressed over questions.
For over 80 years, history and shared interests have kept America and the UK in lockstep. But, we are on notice that we can no longer depend on that.
It is fanciful to believe the America of today is still the America we knew from Eisenhower to Obama. But, demonstrably, she is not.
After the Second World War, the hands that exercised power were working within a rules-based-system that is now being questioned and ‒ in part ‒ rejected, by voices within and beyond the Trump Administration.
President Trump believes that enhancing American power takes precedence over the wellbeing of the wider international community.
Under her current leadership, America will not “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend” if it conflicts with the President’s policy to “Make America Great Again.”
His Vice-President rammed the new priority home: “Europe is no longer a primary focus” for America. It was a harsh truth.
If that is a settled judgement ‒ it tells the British and Europeans that we can no longer rely absolutely on the support – in all circumstances – of the nation that, for so many years, has been our strongest ally.
Nor can we, with justice, simply blame America for this uncertainty. For decades, Europe – collectively – has under-performed on defence expenditure, and must now repair the shortfall.
The President’s new approach was evident when he negotiated directly with Russia over the Ukraine war. He did so without consulting NATO allies ‒ nor even Ukraine. It was as though allies were irrelevant.
It has been an unsettling time.
President Trump claimed the invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he had been President ‒ but did not explain why not ‒ nor how it would have been averted.
He promised to end the war on “Day One” of his Presidency. He did not.
He believed he could bring “his dear friend” Putin to a deal to end the war. He has not.
I accept President Trump wants peace. But on what terms? He demanded concessions from Ukraine – the attacked, and then proposed a settlement to aid Russia – the attacker.
Ukraine has been threatened, bullied, and had military and intelligence withdrawn as if she were the aggressor. It was as though America had her arms around Putin’s shoulders, and her hands at Zelensky’s throat.
This turns reason on its head. Such a posture may well encourage would-be aggressors everywhere, and bring fear to potential victims.
Shifts in established American policy continue to cause uncertainty and confusion.
No-one envisaged a President:
- threatening to take over nations like Canada or Greenland against their will;
- casting doubt on the US commitment to NATO;
- introducing tariffs that disrupt the world economy;
- withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement; or
- treating immigrants ‒ even if illegal ‒ like trash to be thrown away.
Whatever frustrations she may feel, does America realise how all this is viewed around the world?
Will uncertainty over future policy cause our allies in the East – Japan, South Korea, Philippines – to consider building their own nuclear capacity?
Will Saudi Arabia or Turkey? Or, perhaps, others?
The answer to those questions may unsettle our world. The unwelcome vision arises of a dramatic increase in nuclear States. The implications of that are truly terrifying.
President Trump may achieve extraordinary things. His very unpredictability promotes uncertainty – and sometimes fear – of what he might do next. In this fashion, he gains compliance with his wishes.
The timid may crumble, the cautious may appease, but I hope the President understands that agreement under duress is false and unreliable.
If someone has their foot on your neck, you may comply with their wishes ‒ but you will never forget the foot.
America is, by far, the most powerful nation in the world. What she does will be followed by others. Government by threat will create resentment and chaos. It will not create calm.
This is not America as I have known her. This is not democracy as I understand it.
For every action in life, there is a reaction.
When President Trump speaks publicly – to chide or to threaten, he does not do so in a vacuum.
His voice echoes around the world, and what people hear has consequences to how they behave.
What does Mr Putin think? He is delighted. So is President Xi. Autocrats are thrilled to see the democratic world at odds with itself.
After all, if President Trump threatens to seize Canada, why should not Putin seize Ukraine? Or Xi take over Taiwan?
Why should not other autocrats judge that world opinion will no longer react to a coup or a land grab?
How many countries does that imperil? How many lives does that sentence to a hopeless and miserable future?
Much of the world accommodates America and China, hoping not to become victims to superpower malevolence.
Is this the rules-based world we have known? Or is it to become Kipling’s Law of the Jungle?
Politics is about people, their hopes, their fears, their lives ‒ it is not just about deals or money or mineral wealth.
Perhaps I am too old and out of time, but should not politics – at its heart – be about high moral purpose? Is the concept of “MAGA” – of widespread national self-interest – going to poison the well of decency in international relations?
How did you feel when Elon Musk – the richest man in the world – removed aid from the poorest people on the planet?
And how far does this negligence stretch?
No-one lifted a finger a few months ago when the Venezuelan election was stolen. Is democracy so shrivelled it no longer objects to the theft of a nation?
In Gaza, is Israel solving a problem – or creating one?
How will the dis-possessed, the injured, the bereaved see Israel when the present fighting is done?
Will not today’s death and destruction boost recruitment for tomorrow’s terror?
I do not believe it is possible to totally eliminate Hamas: it is an “idea” – a “doctrine” – as well as a terror group.
But every Palestinian ‒ man, woman and child ‒ is not a Hamas terrorist. What compassion and help will be given to those whose homes and lives have been wrecked?
What of the crises in Syria and Sudan and the Congo? Or the plight of the Afghan women? Are they simply to be forgotten?
Is starvation now a legitimate weapon of war? If so, to whom can the helpless turn?
Who will lead the world in helping those who cannot help themselves? Will our modern world cynically walk by on the other side?
Is barbarianism now acceptable if the barbarian is strong enough – or the victim without friends.
Can it be that our world is so exhausted, politics so tainted, self-interest so predominant that it has abandoned compassion? Is might now right? Has the law, human decency, and political morality been cast aside?
Or is it, perhaps, as simple as this: that our world is now beginning to elect leaders concerned only about national self-interest?
If so, if politics leads countries to hunker down in their own little trenches of interest, ignore reason, by-pass diplomacy, forego enlightened self-interest –
then heaven help us all.
I daresay the questions I have asked will be thought to be unworldly. If so, I despair ‒ because political action and political morality should be allies, not strangers.
And, if we are not concerned for ourselves, is this really the world we wish to hand on to the next generation?
I think not – and am encouraged by the aid given to Ukraine: for Ukraine is also fighting for our own future.
It is evident that we must enhance our own defence capability.
A welcome increase in defence expenditure has been announced but, I fear, it is only the first instalment of what will be required.
My guess is that, over the next few years, core military expenditure will have to rise way above 3½ % of GDP. That is a significant burden, requiring a reassessment of priorities.
We will not be alone: other European countries face a similar dilemma if Europe is to rebuild her own defences with weapons appropriate to tomorrow’s challenges. If they do not ‒ they will be culpable.
I admit to a concern about this. Will countries maintain higher defence expenditure if the current crisis eases? History suggests some may not. Self-protection tells us they must.
UNITED KINGDOM
Let me turn to our own country.
Britain is at a low ebb. Our economy has been near stagnant for almost two decades, and relatively weakening since the Second World War. The Pound Sterling is worth one-third of its post-war value against the mighty American Dollar.
Countries with large populations have risen in economic influence simply because of their size. That continues – and is inexorable.
Growth at home has been feeble since the 2008 sub-prime crisis. Productivity is half the level of the 1990s. We are deeply in debt. Taxes are too high, and confidence and investment too low.
Our military capacity has fallen steadily. Our Armed Forces are inadequately funded, ill-equipped for present risks, and diminished in manpower.
Our great institutions ‒ Parliament, Politics, The Church, Police, Press, Public Services no longer have the respect they once enjoyed.
This is a sad litany, but a sobering reality.
Is our position recoverable? Of course, it is ‒ but the task will require a supreme national effort.
Our country needs a climate of hope and help ‒ not hindrance.
The past can offer us some comfort. I grew up in the 1940s/50s when our country was all-but-bankrupt, and facing an even more challenging future than now.
It was the mid-1950s before food rationing ended.
A new house then was less expensive than a second-hand car is today but ‒ to put that in perspective ‒ my weekly salary, in 1959, would not now buy two cups of coffee at Pret.
So it has not been 80 years of failure. We have come a long way.
Living standards are immeasurably improved. So is healthcare and life expectancy.
I hope past success can encourage policy makers to believe that the problems before us can be overcome ‒ but with the caveat that yesterday’s solutions will not meet tomorrow’s challenges.
To hear modern politicians channelling their inner Attlee or Thatcher is not leadership: it is nostalgia.
The lessons of Attlee and Thatcher are that acute difficulties can be overcome ‒ but not by looking backwards: that is for historians. Politicians must look forward.
Governments have a duty to convey reality to the electorate. Promises that are undeliverable will only add to national disillusion.
We cannot recover without growth. We cannot have growth without public and private investment. And we cannot have that, without incentive and reward. We know this, but appear to ignore it.
The UK has many attractions ‒ an open economy; an incorruptible legal system; some worldclass universities; high-level capability in dispute resolution; life sciences; finance; the service sector; AI; space technology, and much else.
More can be done: lighter touch regulation; much more skill training; a closer relationship with Europe; and ‒ please ‒ a reformed tax system that does not penalise success.
We have to make an attractive offer to investors and traders, and offer hope and opportunity to our disillusioned young.
We need to applaud success and innovation. We need to encourage entrepreneurs to enter our country, and not leave it taking their ideas and their money elsewhere.
If we crush ambition and initiative we will sink into long years of slow growth or no growth. To avoid sclerosis we must open our mind to every path to wellbeing.
And so I come to Europe.
EUROPE
Here lies a difficulty. One whiff of collaboration with Europe and voices cry out we are “betraying the cause”, “surrendering”, throwing away Brexit “freedoms”.
What nonsense this is. The only Brexit “freedom” I’ve yet seen is the freedom to be poorer. And we’ve not only seen that: we’re experiencing it.
I don’t seek controversy ‒ merely reasoned debate. One obvious contribution to higher growth is to improve our trading relations with our nearest neighbours.
My views on leaving Europe are no secret.
Our exit was a gift to countries that wish us ill, and a shock to those that wish us well. It has scarred the body politic, and may yet be written on the tomb of the Conservative Party.
I am no longer in politics. No more at the centre of events. But it breaks my heart that the Brexit saga has so poisoned our politics, damaged our economy, and undermined our national standing in the world.
I continue to search for the “benefits of Brexit” but they are as elusive as Lord Lucan. Some politicians talk of them ‒ but are unable to tell us what they are, or where they may be found.
What is ever-present are the dis-benefits of Brexit. Any overall assessment of them is a damning indictment of the policy.
Eminent economists – the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Office of Budget Responsibility, Bloomberg and Goldman Sachs among them – have on average estimated the long-term loss to our GDP to be about 4%, resulting from a fall in trade volumes.
The loss builds up to that percentage over time. But, even if our national income didn’t rise at all between now and the mid-2030s, a loss of 4% would amount to over £100 billion pounds.
Consider that for a moment. One hundred billion pounds less of each year’s national income. Say it quietly and it’s just a statistic. But it isn’t – it’s real.
One hundred billion of our future income that we threw away when we left Europe.
That GDP loss leads to a fall in government income.
So, Government’s share of this loss – at present tax rates – would be nearly
£40 billion pounds.
That’s £40 billion of more taxes, or less spending, or most probably more borrowing.
Of course, as members of the EU we paid a contribution to Brussels – just under £10 billion pounds a year when we left. And, to be sure, that might have risen. But it would still leave us with a very big fiscal loss.
Indeed, if you allow for the spiral of loss – extra interest payments to finance the extra borrowing, and so on – you quickly get to some very big numbers indeed.
In 2018 – after we had decided to leave – the Treasury estimated the extra borrowing at £72 billion by 2035, if we didn’t do a deal that gave us market access.
That same Treasury report suggests that – if we had negotiated a European Economic Area scenario – with UK membership of the Single Market – the long-term loss would fall to £22.5 billion.
And, if the Government had managed to meet the negotiating ambitions of its own White Paper, the loss would be a mere £1 billion.
But these ambitions were simply tossed aside to “Get Brexit Done” and a “hard” Brexit was rushed through at great future cost.
Bad choices won. The British people lost.
I am glad to see that Keir Starmer is slowly and painfully beginning to work his way back into a better trading relationship with the EU.
Anything that helps to bring that £72 billion threat down is welcome – especially at a time when other tariff barriers are rising.
But the Prime Minister’s unwise pre-election disavowal of the Single Market means we are still suffering a substantial fiscal penalty – far bigger than the controversial claim that the Government “inherited a £22 billion “black hole””.
That claim is arguably illusory – and certainly exaggerated: the Single Market “black hole” is very real.
And that’s not all.
Before we left the EU, we received loans from the European Investment Bank for capital investment. We did well.
In our final years, we received about £6.8 billion a year. For comparison, France – despite her bigger economy – received some £6.6 billion.
Brexiteers claimed we’d fill the gap from our own replacement public investment institutions.
But we haven’t. So far, these institutions have been lending about £2.3 billion a year.
The effect is clear: if we had not left the EU, our annual public sector investment could have been far higher.
But it wasn’t ‒ so we lost tens of billions in investment ‒ amid a deteriorating infrastructure in pothole Britain.
I will not bother to cost the employment of tens of thousands of additional civil servants to handle Brexit – nor the exit costs of leaving the Union.
In response, Brexit supporters may say: “Ah! But we have new trade deals”. That is true ‒ but to offset the loss? Hardly.
The new trade deals are welcome, but modest, and nowhere close to compensating for the loss of European trade.
In the last five years, our trade grew at a miserly 0.3% a year ‒ one-fifteenth of the growth between 1980-2008. Is Brexit the problem? In part, yes.
In one respect, the Brexit agreement was unique: it is the first ever trade deal to erect new trade barriers rather than eliminate them.
Ted Health would never have been deflected from the importance of European trade. Nor would Margaret Thatcher: it is why she entered the Single Market.
That is the distinction between statesmanship and showmanship.
Even in retrospect, it is hard to comprehend what we have done.
We – the UK – are a trading nation ‒ more so than any of our competitors.
International trade contributes one-fifth of our economy – more than China or America – or the EU. Yet we, the world’s pre-eminent trader, walked away from the richest free trade area the world has ever seen when it was on our very doorstep.
No wonder our competitors thought we had taken leave of our senses.
We lost more than money. In diplomatic terms, Brexit achieved an outcome that our governments had sought to avoid for centuries: it united Continental opinion against us, making it hostile to British interests, and less open to British persuasion.
We still face a choice. One day, we will either have to accept change ‒ or offer our country a lower standard of living ‒ perhaps permanently.
What should we do?
I am not emotionally a European ‒ I am too British for that.
I do not advocate re-joining the EU as a full Member. This is politically unrealistic at present, and will be a decision for a later generation.
But, for now, we can recover lost trade by moving towards re-entering the Customs Union and the Single Market. I know for some this is a big and contentious decision. But ‒ if we think small we will be small.
As I look forward, I see good, practical reasons for building up our relationship again. We British are a mere 70 million people in a world of nine thousand million.
I believe, in every way, our four nations will be better off, more secure, safer and richer, as part of a much larger and more powerful bloc. That is true now – and will become even more so in the lifetime of our children and grandchildren.
Of course we will survive economically on our own: perhaps, in due time, we will even thrive. But my fear is wider.
In a world dominated by the United States and China, a dis-united, weak Europe will forever be a subordinate demandeur; an on-looker of great events; a follower not a leader.
And Britain, France, Germany, Italy and all Europe will no longer have the confidence, the security, the achievements that should be our legacy to our successors.
My affection for Europe is not for what it was, or is, but what it can be.
The world is changing, and we must change with it.
I don’t wish to see our world dominated by two self-interested super-powers.
All of Europe ‒ with the UK as an ally ‒ can be a counter-weight. Events are pushing us towards greater self-dependency, and we must embrace that.
I do not underestimate the difficulties of enhancing our relationship with Europe.
But – as we look ahead – Europe will need us as we will need them. We are not supplicants, we are partners. And a joint partnership will strengthen the whole of Europe.
When we left the EU, the Europeans – feeling unwanted – left the UK, only to be replaced by a far greater number of migrants from around the world.
Of course we must reassure our nation about freedom of movement and migration. But note this: the Brexit promise was that ‒ by leaving the EU ‒ we could control our borders: we have not. The situation has worsened not improved.
This migrant problem is wider than our own country. It is most likely to be solved with European-wide co-operation, not British isolation.
But all our ills did not originate with domestic errors.
Brexit was certainly self-inflicted. But the financial collapse in 2007/8 over sub-prime mortgages was not. Nor was Covid. Nor was the Ukraine war. Nor was the shifting relationship with America.
* * * * *
Let me close as I opened – with the image of that jigsaw puzzle.
A puzzle which – through the ages – has been broken up, rearranged, refashioned – and then re-moulded all over again.
For 80 years, that puzzle was familiar. We knew where the pieces fell. There was order.
It is now breaking up again, and where the pieces will fall is uncertain.
But no jigsaw can be completed by looking at each piece in isolation. They must all fit together to create the desired tableau.
Each one of us – from my generation down – needs to understand where the world is now, and where each piece of that new jigsaw needs to fall to secure harmony and economic security.
That is the reality. It is work in progress.
And, for all our sakes, that endeavour must not fail.