John Major 1993

On 16 February 2025, Sir John Major who was British Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997 gave an interview on BBC Radio 4 in which he told James Naughtie:

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.

[Trump’s] is 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.

The [US] 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.

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.

I don’t recall in [Donald Trump’s] 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.

Read the full text of the interview on the John Major archive.