Can Europe help repair the invisible scars of war?

Summary

Brussels Playbook Podcast – “Can Europe Help Repair the Invisible Scars of War?”

Date: June 26, 2026
Host: Sarah Wheaton (POLITICO)
Guests:

• David Miliband (President & CEO, International Rescue Committee; former British Foreign Secretary)
• Anne McElvoy (POLITICO columnist and podcast regular)

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Episode Overview

This week’s episode dives deep into the humanitarian and psychological toll of the war in Ukraine, focusing particularly on the “invisible scars” of trauma, displacement, and long-term disruption to civilian life. Host Sarah Wheaton interviews David Miliband, who has just returned from southern Ukraine, and they discuss the challenges of recovery amid ongoing conflict, Europe’s increasing responsibility as the US retreats from global leadership, and the evolving “new world disorder.” The second segment, with Anne McElvoy, explores how Brexit ten years on has destabilized UK politics and the prospects for an EU–UK “reset.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Human and Psychological Scars of Ukraine’s War

Guest: David Miliband
[03:15] – [13:58]

• Visible vs. Invisible Damage:
  • Miliband recounts recent visits to war-ravaged villages where "some communities have lost half their population" ([00:26]).
  • The “division” is not only evident in shattered infrastructure, but also in fragmented families and depleted human resources:

    “The visible and invisible scars of war are just in your face every moment of the day.” — David Miliband [03:41]

• Isolation and Support in Shelled Villages:
  • Many villages have dwindled from thousands to a few hundred inhabitants.
  • Describes community centers as “the one place people can go” with intermittent electricity and no internet ([04:35]).
  • A moving anecdote:

    “A group of 30 women… the only time of the week, or sometimes the month, they’re able to forget that there’s a war going on around them.” — David Miliband [04:55]

• Children's Interrupted Education:
  • Children, already affected by COVID school closures, now face years of virtual learning or none at all ([05:30]).

  • “If you’re 10 years old in Ukraine… you had COVID when you were four or six… and now the war means you’re probably learning online… These are young people who’ve really been robbed of their education.” — David Miliband [05:36]

The Centrality of Mental Health Support

[06:01] – [08:21]

• Changing Stigma on Mental Health:
  • Pre-war, “the idea of mental ill health was totally taboo” ([06:58]).
  • Psychological trauma now rivals physical injuries in importance.
• Impacts and Strategies:
  • Both group and individual support provided. Hybrid models (in-person followed by online) are most effective but require at least one face-to-face meeting to build trust and rapport ([07:28]).
  • The scope of need is staggering:

    “Some of the estimates are 15 million people in mental health need. I mean, I don’t know how you live through the war without having a mental health [issue].” — David Miliband [07:10]

Rebuilding While War Rages

[08:21] – [11:15]

• Prioritizing Resilience Over Rebuilding:
  • Russia continues to target civilian infrastructure, so resilience—keeping utilities and services running through attacks—is the top priority ([08:42]).
  • European support, including a €90 billion emergency loan, is crucial:

    “Europe is now stepping up in a serious way… 99% of the financial support for Ukraine now comes from Europe.” — David Miliband [09:32]

• Limits of “Recovery” Conversation:
  • “It’s very raw to start talking about recovery,” notes Miliband, as most people are still focused on “sustenance and the trying to renew hope” ([10:07]).
  • The national trauma is profound and ongoing.

The “New World Disorder” and Europe’s Leadership

[12:42] – [20:53]

• Deliberate Targeting of Civilians and Infrastructure Globally:
  • Ukraine’s suffering is part of a global pattern, with similar humanitarian crises in Sudan, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and the DRC.

  • “The guardrails against the abuse of civilians… are being broken every day.” — David Miliband [14:15]

• US Retreat and Europe’s New Role:
  • The US “is not playing that [anchor] role anymore.” Europe’s stability, predictability, and long-term budgets are increasingly important ([15:42]).
  • But Europe still spends proportionally less on “fragile and conflict-affected states.”
• Aid Budgets & Public Sentiment:
  • Rising cost-of-living crises fuel skepticism about aid:

    “Acknowledge the reality…but the pinch is not going to be released by targeting support for the poorest people...that’s an absolute fraction of… budgets.” — David Miliband [18:50]

  • Stresses reform and impact:

    “We’ve delivered 36 million vaccine doses to under-five kids in war-torn countries for $2 a shot… People say, well, okay, that sounds like impact.” — David Miliband [19:24]

• Why Global Problems Affect Europe Too:
  • “People and problems move… The neglect of health facilities in eastern DRC leads to an Ebola outbreak… It’s a connected world… risks are globally connected as well.” — David Miliband [20:03]

Brexit’s Lingering Shadow and Prospects for EU–UK Reset

With Anne McElvoy | [24:37] – [40:05]

• Assessing Brexit’s Impact:
  • Not the sole cause of UK political chaos, but “it definitely made things worse.”

    “You just added trade frictions with the largest trading block on your doorstep. What’s been gained? You’ve had a lot of years of a very bad mood.” — Anne McElvoy [25:06]

• Summit Postponement:
  • The planned EU–UK summit, meant to cement closer ties, was called off due to the UK’s leadership change:

    “The EU pulled the plug. There was no way that London would have pulled the plug on this.” — Anne McElvoy [26:52]

  • Skepticism and negotiation fatigue complicate meaningful progress—even though both sides favor a reset.
• Andy Burnham’s Domestic “Vibes”:
  • Burnham expected to maintain Starmer’s pro-European stance, but with more focus on domestic issues and less personal engagement with international affairs ([29:22]).

  • “He probably will leave a bit more than Keir Starmer, who loved the international stage…” — Anne McElvoy [29:41]

• The Far Right and “Reform” Party:
  • Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick (ex-Conservative) drive the anti-establishment narrative.

    “If you had to have a football beer with one of them, [Jenrick] said, of course I’d have it with Andy Burnham.” — Anne McElvoy [32:44]

  • Populist momentum remains high, challenging Labour and mainstream parties.
• Lessons for EU from Brexit:
  • The EU may need to reconsider “ever-closer union” as an electoral pitch, especially with plans to enlarge.
  • Anne counters polling about UK “rejoin” sentiment:

    “This is like asking people… would you like to go to a really free restaurant… but we’re not going to tell you what the bill would be.” — Anne McElvoy [37:04]

  • A paradox: Rejoin sentiment is high, but so is Farage’s popularity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Humanitarian Needs

  “Until the war’s over, it’s very, very hard to broach that you can have that discussion [about recovery] at a policy level. It’s very, very hard… at ground level.”
  — David Miliband [10:43]

• On the Global Aid Shift

  “We lost about $400 million of US government funding. We were a $1.5 billion NGO, so immediately we’ve got to cut our cloth. That was really an overnight change.”
  — David Miliband [15:52]

• On Post-Brexit Political Instability

  “You just added trade frictions with the largest trading block on your doorstep. What’s been gained? You’ve had a lot of years of a very bad mood, not least in Brussels…”
  — Anne McElvoy [25:06]

• On EU–UK Negotiations

  “The EU pulled the plug. There was no way that London would have pulled the plug on this.”
  — Anne McElvoy [26:52]

• On Popular Sentiment About Rejoining the EU

  “This is like asking people…would you like to go to a really free restaurant...but we’re not going to tell you what the bill would be.”
  — Anne McElvoy [37:04]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:26] – Introduction to the week’s topics and David Miliband’s visit to Ukraine
• [03:15] – Miliband describes the “brutality of war and how long it lasts”
• [04:23] – Stories of isolated, war-damaged villages
• [06:01] – The importance and stigma of mental health support
• [08:41] – Rebuilding vs. resilience while war continues
• [12:42] – The “new world disorder” and deliberate targeting of civilians
• [15:42] – US funding withdrawal and Europe’s role in humanitarian crises
• [18:50] – Public skepticism about aid and making the case for impact
• [20:03] – The consequences for Europe if it fails to step up
• [21:30] – Brexit’s legacy and possibility of EU–UK reset
• [24:37] – Anne McElvoy on the EU–UK summit, UK politics, and Brexit fallout
• [29:22] – Andy Burnham’s “vibes” and future EU–UK relations
• [32:44] – Reform’s challenge to mainstream politics
• [34:29] – Will the EU need to moderate its integration agenda?
• [37:04] – Anne McElvoy dismantles the “rejoin” polling
• [40:05] – Wrap up and preview of next week

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Tone and Language

The conversation throughout is candid, analytical, and rich in detail. David Miliband brings first-hand humanitarian urgency, while Anne McElvoy provides seasoned, slightly wry political analysis. The hosts and guests use clear, accessible language enlivened by vivid reportage and personal perspectives.

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This summary covers the episode’s substantive segments and omits any ads, introductions, or outros.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

After four and a half years of war, a lot of the damage to Ukraine is pretty obvious. Shattered towns, ravaged roads, a population depleted by displacement and death. But there are also the scars you cannot see the psychological traumas building inside the people living through violence, occupation and loss. Our guest, David Miliband, is president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Foreign Secretary. He's just returned from southern Ukraine and he argues that this human recovery must be a much bigger priority. He visited heavily damaged villages once occupied by Russian forces, where some communities have lost half their population. Families have been split apart and basic services remain scarce. People there depend on humanitarian aid, mobile clinics and psychologists traveling to isolated areas. Children are still unable to return to schools that were destroyed. Recovery then means more than restoring homes, hospitals and energy systems. It also means helping people rebuild their lives. And Miliband sees this damage as part of a much wider pattern where civilians and civilian infrastructure are being deliberately targeted in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Iran, in Sudan and in Congo. He calls it a growing, quote, new world disorder made worse by America's retreat from global solidarity under Donald Trump. With European political and business leaders in Poland this week for an annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine, we ask, what does real recovery look like while the war is still going on? Can Europe fill the gap left by the United States? And what happens if it doesn't? I'm Sarah Wheaton, host of the Brussels Playbook Weekender. Later in the show, I'll be joined by my colleague Anne McAvoy. As this week also marks a decade since British voters chose to leave the European Union, that decision unsettled the UK's relationship with the continent and also helped fue years of political instability. Keir Starmer is now the sixth British prime Minister since that vote to announce his departure. So what happens to his attempted reset with Brussels? And how much further might his likely successor, Andy Burnham, be prepared to take it? But first, David Miliband. David, you've just returned from Ukraine. What did you see there that has stayed with you?

[A]

What I saw was the brutality of war and how long it lasts Obviously, the macro political commentary is that the last six to nine months have been bad for Russia on the battlefield and been, quote, unquote, good for Ukraine, the Ukrainian resilience. But what you see the minute you talk to a Ukrainian is that the loss, the division, the division in the sense of family members who fled to Europe and beyond, and also the destruction is there. You can see with your own eyes. I was in Odessa in my. And then into Kherson Oblast. I didn't make it to Kherson City, which is really the front line. I was visiting International Rescue Committee programs. But the. The visible and invisible scars of war are just in your face every moment of the day. And I think that it's really important at this time when there is this more hopeful, if you like, narrative about the war and its direction and what it represents, that we don't forget the sheer brutality and abnormality that exists for every single Ukrainian, whether they're in the country or beyond.

[B]

Can you take us to one of these places that you visited and just kind of paint a picture?

[A]

Yeah. One of the things that we really focus on at the International Rescue Committee is going to the places that other people don't go. We go the extra mile. So I focus my visit not just on meeting internally displaced people in places like Mykolaiv, where there are a lot of them and rents are up and there's a real sense of hubbub. I went into villages now of 300, previously of 700 people, villages of 1,000 people, previously of 3,000 people. So quite isolated beyond the reach of government. What I want to conjure up for you is 3/4 of the buildings destroyed, because these are villages that were previously occupied in 2022 villages where the cultural center, quote, unquote, is the community centre, is the one place that people can go, but where there isn't Internet and where the electricity is sporadic at best. I want to put in your mind a group of 30 women who've come together to support each other, suffering from loss and division, and talking about how the time they have together is the only time of the week, or sometimes the month, that they're able to forget that there's a war going on around them. Also a group of kids, if you're 10 years old in or 12 years old in Ukraine, you had Covid when you were four or six, so you were online. And now the war means you're probably learning online if you're in an isolated community as well. So these are young people who've really had been robbed of their education. And so I think it's the invisible scars that are as present in my mind as the very, very visible destruction that you can see.

[B]

And yeah, speaking of those invisible scars, I know that mental health and kind of the psychological trauma aspect was a big focus of your visit.

[A]

Yeah, I think it's really important. Obviously in many, in almost all societies, mental is a sort of poor cousin of physical health. When it comes to the operation of health services in a war, the trauma is as present as the physical losses that are suffered on the battlefield. It's very striking to me that the psychological support, the mental health support that we were offering in these remote places was so valued. I asked women and smaller number of men, how important was this to you? They said, look, it's a lifeline. Translated. I said, could you have talked about this before the war? I said, no, it's totally taboo to have the idea of ill, mental, ill health. And I think if you're thinking about the medium term, both in terms of the resilience of the country through the war and any kind of rebuild afterwards, the human side of this is, is almost as important as the military side. And one of the contributions we make, we do quite a lot of mobile health work, we do quite a lot of support for kids who've been traumatized, but the mental health side for the adults, I mean, some of the estimates are 15 million people in mental health need. I mean, I don't know how you live through the war without having a mental health.

[B]

And, and so what does this, is it sort of group support groups?

[A]

I mean we do both individual psychological support. So you, you go and meet one of our doctors, one of our psychologists or, and group work. It was quite interesting to me to talk about how, how does a hybrid form of psychological support work. The doctor said to me on Saturday morning, look, once I've met the person, then the online becomes possible if that person has Internet at their home or has other way of being. If you've never met the person, it's very, very hard to make the, the online work. Obviously we're always trying to scale. The difficulty of some humanitarian programs is that they have high impact for a small number of people, but you can't scale them. We're always looking. I mean it's a country of 40 million people after all, so you've got to think big. And one of the things that I think has to happen in response to the real crisis of global aid is that we really target the most impactful, most evidence based, most scalable most cost effective programs. And there's no question in my mind that this mental health support qualifies as that.

[B]

And going back to a point that you made about rebuilding, actually this week, political leaders and businesses are gathering in Poland for a major conference on rebuilding Ukraine. Russia is still, though, destroying homes, an essential infrastructure. So how do you rebuild while the destruction is still happening?

[A]

Well, I think it's first of all important to recognize that resilience of the Ukrainian infrastructure is absolutely critical when you've got an opponent in Russia which is avowedly targeting civilian infrastructure. I mean, that's contrary to all international law, but that is what's happening. So before we get to rebuild, we've got to talk about resilience. Water systems, electricity systems, energy systems, especially in a country where the temperatures get so low in the winter. So I think the first priority is that now, in that context, the unblocking of European support for the Ukrainian economy is very, very significant. This 90 billion euro loan that's now been agreed with Prime Minister Orban having been defeated, there's now full agency, really for the European Union to support the Ukrainian economy. The Ukrainians are the prime authors of their own defense. But Europe is now stepping up in a serious way. However, I think it's also important to recognize that in significant parts of Ukraine, you've got thriving business just in the defense sector, but in other sectors as well. European investors, European markets are absolutely key to that. So the fact that Europe is now the prime supporter, I think 99% of the financial support for Ukraine now comes from Europe because of the changes that have happened in America under President Trump, for the European private sector to be mobilized, I mean, certainly in the west of the country, that's something that's really important.

[B]

And what are you hearing from Ukrainians themselves about what recovery should look like?

[A]

I think that it's very raw to start talking about recovery. I found it very hard to really open a conversation in a sensitive way about what happens post war when the war is so present now. I think someone, one of the Council on Foreign Relations experts in New York said Ukraine is a bright spot in the geopolitical landscape. You can't speak or that kind of language to people who are still with drones going overhead every day, who are going to bed not knowing whether they're going to be woke or not up by an air raid siren. I felt it premature to be talking about recovery. What people are talking about is sustenance and the trying to renew hope. It's longer than the First World War. This Thing we can't say this often enough that this national and continental trauma occasioned by this full scale invasion in 2022 is really ruptured the society. And I think that until the war's over, it's very, very hard to broach that you can have that discussion at a policy level. It's very, very hard to have that conversation, I think, at ground level.

[B]

And yeah, just personally going on the ground to these places near the front line, meeting people who've been living through a long war, talking to them about their trauma. And then, you know, now you've been in Brussels here, you know, we're very preoccupied by a heat wave. It's uncomfortable because, you know, the air conditioner doesn't really work that well in our office. We're stressed out trying to finish a bunch of legislative files before summer vacation. But just the sense of what's a problem and what's stressful and what life is like must just be so different. And how do you kind of switch back and forth?

[A]

I think what I would say to you is that that exists in Ukraine. I mean, if you're in Mykolaiv or you're in Odessa on Saturday night, there's this real weirdness of a thriving, cosmopolitan, effectively European, even global city where there's a war going on and you may have an air raid siren. So the, the split screen exists very strongly. If anything, it's a more stark split screen. If you go as I did to Sudan last September, that's the world's largest humanitarian crisis there, the dissonance is even greater because there's no normality within Sudan. What's so striking about the Ukraine war is that there's this extreme abnormality of a brutal war being fought and the same people are living out a life that you or I would understand at other times of the day.

[B]

Really interesting. And you describe Ukraine as one example of a much wider, quote, unquote, new world disorder in which deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are becoming the norm. What connects what you saw there with, as you said, Sudan also Gaza, Lebanon, elsewhere?

[A]

Well, I think the breakdown of diplomacy, the resort to hard power, the fact that civilian, you're more likely to be killed in a war if you're a civilian than if you're a soldier. The impunity that exists in conflict.

[B]

Is that true? I mean, has that been documented?

[A]

Yeah, there's 100,000 civilians were killed last year in 2025. I mean, people often say to me, what's the difference between being a foreign minister and Being the leader of a non governmental organization. And one of the things I say is that if you're in government, you see the big picture, but the danger is you lose sight of the people. If you're in an ngo, you're confronted by the people. The danger is that you lose sight of the picture. And the new World disorder that we referred to is our attempt to make sure that we're seeing the bigger picture as well as the clients that we're seeing in Sudan or in Ukraine or in Gaza. That new World disorder is about the breakdown of the stabilizers that previously existed. The United States was a big anchor of the global system. It's not playing that role anymore. The buoys, the buoys that you need to put out around the boat to stabilize things are having to be built as these conflicts are going on. And it's running up a downhill, a down escalator because the guardrails against the abuse of civilians, the guardrails against the targeting of civilian infrastructure, the guardrails against the blockage of aid flows, which is something that we face. Those guardrails are being broken every day. And so I think it's really important that as well as being an agency that stands for efficient, effective, impactful, innovative, cost effective aid, we're also drawing attention to these broader geopolitical factors. Because as sure as night follows day, what starts in Ukraine or in Sudan or in Iran doesn't stay in Sudan, Ukraine or Iran. We've, we've seen that with the Iran war, we say that it couldn't have happened at a worse time. I mean, 27th of February, 2026, there were already 300 million people hungry, 122 million refugees and displaced people, 800 million people living on less than $3 a day. And the Iran war has only added to that, not just because of the immediate impact on Iranians and Lebanese, but because of the global impact of the blockage of the Straits of Hormuz.

[B]

You know, as you mentioned, the decision to dismantle usaid, I imagine has, you know, transformed the way that you have to do your job first. I mean, can you tell me a little, help us understand how that has affected your work? But then also, I'm curious to know, you mentioned that Europe is stepping up to help Ukraine, at least militarily, in the place of the US but are there any signs that Europe is stepping up to fill the gaps left by the US in the humanitarian department?

[A]

We're a US headquartered global humanitarian agency. We're just focused on people whose lives are shattered by conflict and disaster. We lost about $400 million of US government funding. We were a one and a half billion dollar NGO, so immediately we've got to cut our cloth. That was really an overnight change. But we're still 12,000 humanitarian aid workers in 300 field sites around the world helping over 20 million people. So we've weathered that particular storm. I've tried not to think about it just in terms of gaps, because that's a real deficit model. We end up just plugging holes in a way that conforms to previous American preferences. We have our own agenda led by Sudan. We have a data based approach to the world's humanitarian crises. And we are now in a situation where Europe, certainly Europe plus the European countries, the largest aid donors. The EU is a principled aid donor. It wants aid to follow need. It's a predictable aid donor. I mean, I know the European Union gets a lot of flak for being sometimes slow, but seven year budgets are a godsend. I mean, I know they're a hell to negotiate, but the fact that ECHO and inpa, the two critical directorates, have seven year budgets means that we've got a planning horizon that is significant. I also think it's significant that Europe wants to increase its global presence. Obviously there's an argument going on about the global Europe and should it be 200 billion euro and how does that play out? We're very focused on the fact that the humanitarian element, 25 billion euro, needs to be a flaw. We're very focused that Europe actually spends less on the fragile states as a proportion of its total aid budget than most other aid donors. So we're saying, look, the Sudans, the Gaza's of this world, if you take out Ukraine, the latest figures, I think from 2023, only 8% of Europe's aid programs goes to fragile and conflict affected states. So we're saying focus on that. We're also focused on use civil society as a delivery modality because on something like vaccination or malnutrition, there's innovation and also cost efficiency from civil society non governmental actors. So we're, we're very proud of our relationship with different parts of the European system. The big challenge for Europe is to combine aid with the other instruments of diplomacy and trade that it has available. And that's the ambition and that's one we want to see fulfilled.

[B]

The challenge though is that we're also seeing European countries cut their humanitarian and development aid budgets.

[A]

Some.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

In Germany. The alternative for Germany has put forward a proposal to basically DOGE GERMAN FOREIGN AID and we can say this is a far right thing, but you know, FRIEDRICH KHMER it's also considered a similar move. You know, as much as I was sort of trivializing challenges here in Western Europe right now, people are facing a cost of living crisis. People perceive that their own children are not going to do as well as they will. How do you fight back against this sort of political, human level feeling that we, quote, unquote, rich countries can't afford to help poor ones anymore?

[A]

I think first of all, by not denying the reality that Europeans are feeling their pinch in the same way that Americans are feeling the pinch. So acknowledge the reality, but then make the argument that the pinch is not going to be released by targeting support for the poorest people in the world, because that's an absolute fraction of, of the national or European budgets that exist. I think the second part is also to show that aid is impactfully and effectively delivered. When I say to people, we've delivered 36 million vaccine doses to under five kids in war torn countries for $2 a shot, how does that sound? You people say, well, okay, that sounds like how much of the aid budget goes on those things? Not enough. And so I think the aid budget has been spread too thin. So that's the third part of this. Reforming the way in which the aid budget works so that it's more impactful in effective is good. There's a final point, of course, which is that European societies, American societies, they are rich, but the wealth and the income is very unequally distributed. And that's something that is a domestic political issue to be addressed across the Western world.

[B]

If Europe doesn't ultimately take on this larger role, you know, what does the next stage of this new world disorder look like?

[A]

I think more disorder. I mean, the point is that we can't live in a world where we think that something that's happening in the Straits of Hormuz or in Sudan doesn't affect us, because in the end it does. People and problems move. The neglect of health facilities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo leads to an Ebola outbreak. It's pretty simple. If you don't have water and sanitation, if you don't have latrines, if you don't have basic health services, if you're not able to diagnose, because the Ebola that's emerged as being confused with malaria, if you don't have proper systems, you're inviting trouble. And the trouble doesn't just stay in the Eastern drc. So it's a connected world. And I think one of the biggest challenges we've got is to understand that a globally connected world means that the risks are globally connected as well. That's a big argument to make, but it's one that I think has to be made.

[B]

And one last question, just to bring you back into the politics of this part of the world, but still connected to this idea of new world disorder. You know, looking back, you could argue that The Brexit vote 10 years ago was one of the early signs of that, a public choosing to step away from an international system. Since then, Keir Starmer has become the sixth British Prime Minister to leave office. The EU UK summit has been postponed and Andy Burnham is the favorite to succeed him. Is there still a chance of meaning a full reset between Britain and the European Union, or is this chaos in London just it just pushing that prospect even further away?

[A]

Well, I certainly think that the deficiencies of Brexit are still being played out. Brexit's been bad for Britain, but I would argue it's also been bad for the rest of Europe. It's been bad for the eu. I think that the ambition of a reset that was set by the Starmer administration was right, but the dosage was too low. It didn't have the momentum or the heft or the coherence or the ambition sufficiently behind it. And I'm very hopeful that Andy Burnham recognizes that. I think he'll be very, very clear that British prosperity and security depends on engagement with Europe rather than separation from the rest of Europe. The Russian invasion, the full scale invasion of Ukraine six years after Brexit showed the folly of Brexit, because it's set us back in terms of the way in which we forge a coordinated European response to its number one security threat. I do think, though, that the Starmer administration can rightly claim credit for the way in which the UK has been a central player with other European players in supporting Ukraine and forging a pan European effort inside the eu, but also beyond to include the UK and Norway in being an effective partner for Ukraine in this life or death fight that's going on. So I think that the ambition of a reset doesn't go away with the fact that the administration changes.

[B]

Okay, David Miliband, thank you so much.

[A]

Thank you so much.

[B]

We need to take a break, but when we come back, I'll be joined by my colleague and regular contributor to this podcast, Anne McAvoy, to talk about an EU UK reset that has just been thrown off course by political chaos in London. But might still have a future stay with us. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with epglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema after an initial four month or longer dosing phase. About 4 in 10 people taking EBGLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.

[A]

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[B]

Ask your doctor about evglis and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979. And it's a pleasure to have you on and I have to confess I'm a little intimidated because like, you are the best interviewer in the newsroom and I feel like I'm in the wrong chair a bit here. But thank you so much for joining us, Sarah Wheaton.

[C]

I will take that. Sarah's going to look after my performance review this year. Yeah.

[B]

It is the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum this week and almost exactly to the day, Keir Starmer became the sixth Prime Minister of that decade to announce his departure. So to what extent can we blame all of Britain's political instability since 2016 on that vote? Or, you know, would this have all happened anyway?

[C]

I don't think it would have all happened anyway, Sarah, but I do think that whichever side you were on in 2016, whether you were hoping that Brexit and remember that many people did, I know that can can seem quite odd, you know, sometimes to audiences in Europe. There was a bit of a feeling that maybe this could work, could reboot the UK and then there Were those who said, who would say they'd been proved right, that it didn't work out like that. You just added trade frictions with the largest trading a block on your doorstep. What's been gained? You've had a lot of years of very bad mood, not least in Brussels, I think we could fairly say towards the uk and it was hard for the Starmer government even coming in saying, I really want to reset. Can we please be friends again? You know, it was a very bitter divorce. Certainly it's not the whole problem for the uk. We had Covid, as did a lot of other countries, a lot of economic pain. You can see that across the EU and beyond. We had a lot of homemade problems. You know, we couldn't really decide if we were going to be this outward looking Atlantic global nation or did we see our future in Europe. And sometimes we fell in the middle. So I think it is a mixture. But Brexit has certainly played a role and I think you can see concrete harm to the economy if you look over this decade.

[B]

The big loss now for Europe, at least temporarily, is that this EU UK summit was supposed to be planned for late July, but it was postponed in the wake of Starmer's resignation. It was meant to finalize like deals to ease food trade, connect the British and EU carbon markets and let more young people live, work and study across the Channel. You know what, what went down over, over the last few days that led to this postponement?

[C]

Well, the first thing that went down frankly is that the EU pulled the plug.

[B]

The EU pulled the plug?

[C]

Okay, yeah, absolutely, the EU pulled the plug. There was no way that London would have pulled the plug on this. I think the original idea, and I've followed this closely, was you had a minister, very assiduous minister, very, called Nick Thomas Simmons. He had made a good relationship with Maros Shefkovic, the chief negotiator on the EU side. You will know. Well, Sarah, and it was going okay. I mean, there were still bumps in the road. And my last story about this, I was pointing out that Germany and others were holding out a bit on the youth mobility side because they want some relief on tuition fees. If students go back to being able to go back and forth, do they still basically get cheaper tuition fees? That's really difficult for the British uni sector. And it's the kind of thing where people would say, well, hang on a minute, we're not in the EU and there's lots of things we're not getting. Why should we give cheaper fees Our universities are relatively quite good vis a vis some of our European competitors. But, you know, that was the sort of thing. It was tricky and you were seeing member states saying, well, I might not want so many baristas, you know, maybe my service sector isn't liking this. That said, it was, I think, fond of the line, was very keen it should stay on track. There it was. And then suddenly, change of Prime Minister. And I think on the EU side, the killer point is that constitutionally, as a UK official put it to me on the record, the EU side said it's going to be difficult to have a negotiation signed off by British Prime Minister, handed over to a new Prime Minister, likely Andy Burnham, as a successor to Keir Starmer, now pretty much nailed on. They weren't content with that, even though I think the UK had made the case. Look, no one wants to undo this. Whatever Andy Burnham wants to do, he's pro European anyway, this, you know, he'd have this sort of arrival present. Well, it turns out Brussels saw that rather different and said, no, we want to meet the new guy first and take a look at him. So now we have an indefinite postponement. And I think that's, you know, for people who've worked pretty hard on this at the London end and doubtless also in Brussels, you know, feel a bit frustrated about that. But there it is. You know, if we keep changing our Prime Ministers and offering you guys such variety, occasionally, there's going to be a problem.

[B]

I mean, is this really variety that is coming about? You know, as you said, Andy Burnham is now the frontrunner to succeed Starmer. He is also from the Labour Party. We were remarking in the newsroom that he actually just physically resembles Starmer. So what even is going to be different?

[C]

I think he'd be very put out by that because he thinks he's got vibes.

[B]

What are the vibes in Westminster under Andy Burnham?

[C]

I think the vibes are, I mean, still pro European, right? If anything, he went a bit further out there when he had the freedom to speak more and said at one point, said that he could envisage the UK rejoining. Of course, that got such a massive backlash that he has peddled backwards on that in midair. But you get a vibe from that. He has in the past been quite outspoken, is pro European. His wife's Dutch, by the way, but he's quite a domestic politician. His briefs have tended to in the past. When he was in government, he was in health, he was in culture. He doesn't sort of come across as someone who spends all of his time reading deeply on international affairs. And I think he probably will leave a bit more than Keir Starmer, who loved the international stage. We saw him everywhere, didn't he? You know, he turned up at Munich security conference. I saw him last week at G7 in Evian. I think a foreign Secretary, whoever he or she may be, new one, probably will probably represent the UK more than him doing it himself. He wants to focus on the domestic agenda, but there's no danger, I would say, from the EU's point of view, of backsliding. The problem for the UK is once you give. These are tough negotiations, you know, nothing is given away. And now we're slightly on the back foot because we did have. We're getting towards a deal now we've gone backwards. So a lot of it, I think, you know, there will be a lot more pressure on him and there's only so much he can give because he has to show, particularly in these circumstances, that he's not just Keir Starmer too. He is going to stand up for the uk. He is going to take the fight to reform UK and that, you know, that he's in it to win it. And I think that means he can't just say, you know, I'm a lovely pro European, I sign whatever you give me. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, I have to almost wonder if it was a strategic mistake for the EU to cancel that and kind of roll the dice with Burnham. You know, he did defeat Nigel Farage's Reform UK party in this local election that Burnham needed to win in order to make himself eligible to be Prime Minister. But ultimately, Farage's party is still very strong. So how else might we see this sort of fight between Burnham and the far right play out?

[C]

Oh, well, I have an interview for that. I interviewed Robert Jenrick. He is the Finance treasury spokesman for reform. He crossed the floor from the Conservatives, which makes him quite an interesting catch for Nigel Farage's party. And, you know, anyone cares to listen to this on Westminster Insider interview I did. He's, you know, he's someone who can make a strong case. And he was mocking Andy Burnham and both of them are actually quite witty. And he was mocking Andy Burnham as basically a continuation of Keir Starmer in a dodgy polo shirt. Because Andy Burnham likes his sportswear. He likes to shave a bit. Down with the kids, you know, he likes his rock music.

[B]

The vibes, you said?

[C]

Yeah, vibes, vibes and that. I think there is a sense that reform will now have to choose. Do they say, he's a mad lefty, he's a bit to the left of Kirstan? Which they could say on previous record. Or do they say now, it's just the same old, same old parties. They're all the uniparty. And as Robert Jenrick said to me, no, you need the radicalism of reform, and then went off on his sort of policy trip. But it was quite interesting there. He said, did acknowledge that I said, if you had to have a football beer with one of them, he said, of course I'd have it with Andy Burnham, you know, So I think for reform, there is a bit of respect for Andy Burnham, the reform slayer. Reputation from the Makerfield by election. Really confident reform win at the big local elections in May. When it came down to putting Andy Burnham into the mix, it turned out very differently. Can he bring that to the national stage? That's what Labour needs. You know, whatever you think of Nigel Farage, who kicked off the referendum for Brexit, he is the change maker in British politics. And a lot of what we're talking about is, you know, at the foot of the not entirely beloved in Brussels, Nigel Farage. So, yeah, trying to stop him. That's the ask.

[B]

Yeah. And I actually want to pick up on another interview that you did, the one that we played on this podcast last week. I was really struck. You spoke to the UK's Jeremy Hunt, who was not in favor of Brexit at the time of the vote, as well as former Merkel adviser Peter Altmeyer. And Hunt made this point that, look, maybe we could have avoided Brexit in the first place if the rest of the EU countries had kind of eased the pressure on the UK as far as further integration. And on the one hand, that struck me as a little bit of a petulant point, and I think that was probably how it was received in a lot of Europe. But it was also, if you take the emotion out of it, politically pragmatic. I mean, right now we're seeing in the remaining EU27, a lot of formerly hardcore Eurosceptic parties drop the stance of officially trying to leave the eu. But they're saying, we want less Europe, we want to stay in, but make more decisions on the national level. And let's be honest, that pitch seems to be working in a lot of places. So 10 years out, is Brussels going to have to kind of accept that an ever closer union is not really a winner at the ballot box?

[C]

Especially if you're trying to enlarge the EU in the light of the challenge in Ukraine, or even possibly find some quite messy way to get Ukraine into or towards EU membership. Yes, I do think that's true and I think Jeremy Hunt has a point. I think what he's saying is he was in a government that he feels didn't get that much help. I think Peter Altmeyer, speaking from the Angela Merkel memory bank, saw it rather differently. But I do remember, because I covered that at the time and I followed Merkel for a lot of years, there was a bit of a tinier, and I think it was probably especially so in Germany, which was like the pleas of David Cameron to Angela Merkel to just loosen up a bit this idea, freedom of movement, that we cannot ever do anything about that. And I think Britain felt it was not treated as a key member state, that immigration clearly was going to drive at least a great part of the Brexit result, because some people very irritated by the eu, but most people didn't have very much to do with it to that extent. We do feel like we're just further away. Just does feel a little more disconnected, even if you can take the fast train. And I think that's what Hunt was trying to say, that if the EU went on in this way, it would get the same bitter lesson again and again. The other view has always been, well, Brexit. I don't know what you make of this, Sarah, would be interesting what your view is that Brexit sort of inoculated Euroscepticism to an extent. Don't do that. You'll end up like the Brits and no one will talk to you for years.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, exactly. These Eurosceptic parties, the le pens of the world, even Geert Wilders, even Viktor Orban, before he lost, said, look, we're not going to try to leave the eu, but instead we're going to occupy Brussels. And indeed, in 2024, we saw these parties do very well in the European Parliament elections. They're now the third biggest political grouping in the European Parliament. And we are seeing a real change to the way legisl is happening. And, you know, people always say that the UK was really holding back integration when it was a member. And now we're seeing that there are plenty of new players who are willing to fulfill that role. But the irony, I think, is in the UK we're seeing a really different phenomenon, which is that the idea of rejoining the EU is very popular. YouGov polling puts the idea of rejoining ahead by 55% to 34% demographic change suggests that there would be an 8.1 million majority for rejoining. So we seem to have.

[C]

Have you seen my face? It's nonsense.

[B]

You think it's nonsense.

[C]

This is like asking people like, would you like to go to a really free restaurant? And what would you like to choose from this amazing menu? And by the way, you know, we're not going to tell you what the bill would be. I mean, I literally mean the bill, but also figuratively what the trade offs would be. It's a bit like, you know, if you go to a colloquium, it's quite academic. I'm not saying this would be you, but that kind of research I think skews the fact that people haven't thought about it. They're not confronted with a choice in a sense, they're not being given two things to compare. What would Europe want back? What would be the price? What would the price be even to join the Customs Union? Once you then start to say, oh, would we have to join the Eurozone? So I do, I'm afraid I am a bit of a pinch of salt person on regret. I think there is disappointment quite deep in the UK that it hasn't delivered. I think that young people, we talk about, you know, young people as if they were a block, but in fact, you know, a lot of young non educated or non university educated voters either didn't vote or did vote for Brexit. I know lots of families in my native northeast where the kids all voted for Brexit. It's just, you know, people don't talk to them when they interview people around London in the university cities. So sorry, I have injected a note of Euroscepticism to this conversation, but that

[B]

does maybe a bit explain the phenomenon that we're seeing, which is, you know, on the one hand you have this polling academic and maybe fantastical as it might be that a majority want to rejoin the eu. But at the same time, the architect of that departure, Nigel Farage, or the rhetorical force behind that departure is, as we've been discussing, very popular. How do these two political realities exist at once?

[C]

Well, the practical reality is just follow Nigel Farage's successes and sometimes failures. He's had a few in by elections because. Because people then don't like reform or Farage. But at the moment I think the people who are allying against him are not doing it because of Europe. They're probably thinking more, they don't like some of the harsher tone on immigration. So I think the reality is that that is now, as in would you like to maybe rejoin the EU at some point? Is by definition a different case. And you're right, it is paradoxical. There is, however, I think, a real challenge to reform, which is can it govern? Does it move more and more to the right towards almost, you know, something on the journey to the Bardellas bit AFD direction in order to keep going, because it needs to keep dynamism on the right, otherwise it ends up the same problem Labour's got. You start, you know, being exciting and you end up boring. If it does that, then the Progressive alliance builds up against it and you get slightly French circumstances where you the right is on the march and then there's suddenly a, you know, a roadblock and they don't get into power. And of course, we don't do easy coalitions in this country. And a lot of parties wouldn't want to go with reform. So I don't think they have a clear road. But, you know, if you say, who is filling stadiums, rallies, who do people want to rush up to on the street? When they see a politician, it's probably still Nigel Farage. Sometimes they want to shout at him, but that's fine because he's, he's okay with that. You know, he's a populist.

[B]

All right, Ann McAvoy, we'll leave it there. It's a pleasure to get your insight directly and next week you'll be in the driver's seat for this podcast. So thank you so much.

[C]

Sarah's making me do the work next week, get out in the sun.

[B]

I've got to have a break sometime.

[C]

Thanks so much for having me.

[B]

Okay, that's it from us this week. Make sure you subscribe to the Weekender by going to the Brussels Playbook podcast Feedback. That's where this podcast lives. And do get in touch. We'd love to hear your ideas for future guests and topics or your thoughts on anything you heard in this episode. You can leave us a comment or send us a message or voice note on WhatsApp. You'll find the link and number in the show notes. You can also email us at podcastolitico EU thanks as always to our audio producer, Saga Ringmar and to our supervising producer, Deanna Sturridge Paris. I'm Sarah Wheaton. See you next week.