The UK a decade after Brexit, with Rory Stewart

Summary

Podcast Summary: GZERO World with Ian Bremmer

Episode: The UK a Decade After Brexit, with Rory Stewart

Date: August 1, 2026
Host: Ian Bremmer
Guest: Rory Stewart

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Episode Overview

Ten years after the Brexit referendum, Ian Bremmer sits down with Rory Stewart—former British Cabinet minister, diplomat, and leading political commentator—to unpack the legacy of Brexit, the current state of British politics, and the implications for the United Kingdom's future. The conversation candidly analyzes how Britain’s post-Brexit hopes have fallen short, the shape of UK party politics, the rise and fall of populism, and the UK's shifting global position in a turbulent geopolitical order.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brexit’s Unfulfilled Promises and Unexpected Outcomes

Timestamp: 00:19 – 05:00

• Initial Expectations: Brexit was marketed as a route to greater sovereignty, economic revitalization, and controlled borders.
• Reality Check:
  • UK now controls its laws and borders, but economic analyses universally indicate Britain is poorer post-Brexit.
  • Political instability: The UK has seen seven prime ministers in a decade.
  • Public opinion has shifted: “Today, most Britons say that leaving the European Union was the wrong decision.” (Ian Bremmer, 01:23)
• Regional Impact: Contrary to the Brexiteers' visions, Britain’s departure did not spur a domino effect in Europe. The EU is more cohesive, especially post-Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The way that Brexit went most wrong was a way that people didn't fully predict 10 years ago.”
— Rory Stewart (03:19)

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2. Geopolitical Context: Britain and Europe’s Global Position

Timestamp: 03:13 – 08:02

• Timing Problem:
  • Brexit was predicated on a world becoming more open and globalized, but the global trend since has been toward protectionism and tariffs.
  • Brexiteers wanted Britain to be “Singapore on Thames”—an agile, deregulated trading nation.
• Europe’s Malaise:
  • Brexiteers correctly diagnosed Europe’s aging demographics, over-regulation, and slow tech adoption but failed to account for Britain’s similar instincts: “...The British, like the Europeans, are broadly speaking, very social democratic. They're not really that excited by ... deregulated US style capitalism.” (Rory Stewart, 07:14)

“The story over the last 10 years is not a world becoming more globalized ... but instead a world which has been defined by protectionism, by tariffs ...”
— Rory Stewart (04:31)

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3. The Mood at Home: Political Disillusionment and Party Fragmentation

Timestamp: 08:02 – 10:43

• High Expectations vs. National Limits:
  • Economic stagnation, an aging population, and low productivity have dashed public hopes.
  • Social media amplifies anger; policy successes take too long to be felt.
• Radical Solutions, Weak Centre:
  • Only the far right (represented by Nigel Farage) and the far left (Greens’ Zach Polanski) are offering bold alternatives.
  • “The old center ground ... is not people feel delivering.” (Rory Stewart, 09:55)

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4. Andy Burnham’s Ascendance: Hope & Limits of Decency Politics

Timestamp: 10:19 – 14:27

• Burnham's Platform:
  • Focuses on social care, homelessness, radical devolution, and vocational training—practical and “decent” rather than radical economic reforms.
  • Lacks clarity on how to fund ambitious proposals.
• Could Decency Be Enough?
  • “In politics, it isn’t all about delivery. It is partly about values and personality and optimism and communication ... In a world in which it's quite difficult to achieve really radical change ... surviving ... may be more about seeming to be in touch, seeming to listen to people.” (Rory Stewart, 12:34–14:12)

“Is this hospital where I would want to put my mother? Do I want to see homeless people on the streets? ... trying to raise standards, create a Britain that he's proud of.”
— Rory Stewart (11:31)

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5. Nigel Farage: From Brexit Architect to Scandal-Plagued Populist

Timestamp: 14:54 – 25:51

• Farage’s Reinvention:
  • Despite failure of Brexit, he rebranded as a populist tribune against the elite, turning Britain into a fractious five-party system.
  • “Many people who vote for Brexit have been convinced that the problem was not Brexit, but ... that it wasn't delivered right.” (Rory Stewart, 15:54)
• Downfall via Scandal:
  • £5 million questionable donation; links to “Posh George” (crypto gambling, money laundering past).
  • “If he's taking millions of pounds, hanging out with these kind of crypto gambling dudes ... the story that he's the ordinary man in the pub ... is beginning to look a bit flaky.” (Rory Stewart, 21:29)
• Political Farce:
  • After resigning to call a by-election, major parties refuse to stand, leaving Farage’s opponent as novelty candidate “Count Binface” (a trash can in a cloak). A potential PR disaster.

“Instead of Farage running against all the establishment parties ... he's now running against a trash can with a cloak, a sort of mixture between a trash can and Darth Vader ...”
— Rory Stewart (24:18)

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6. What’s Next: Two-Party Resurgence or Enduring Fragmentation?

Timestamp: 25:51 – 29:00

• Possibility of Two-Party "Normalization":
  • UK’s first-past-the-post system could facilitate a return to major party politics if Farage fades.
• Wider Implication:
  • Can UK and fellow “middle powers” (France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia) forge strategic autonomy between US and China? There is mounting frustration and talk of a “middle power alliance.”

“We effectively feel like an abused partner ... you may not like it, I may beat you up, but you're never going to leave because you can't afford to set up your own house ...”
— Rory Stewart (27:36)

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7. US-UK Relationship: The End of “Special”?

Timestamp: 29:00 – 32:45

• Trust Issues with the US:
  • Unpredictability under Trump has permanently eroded allied confidence—future US “reassurances” will likely be met with skepticism.
  • The idea of “special relationship” is declared dead:

“No more special. It's over. It's over. And you called it first for me.”
— Rory Stewart (32:25)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Brexit’s Missed Timing:
  • “Brexit happened at exactly the wrong time ... the story over the last 10 years is not a world becoming more globalized ... but instead a world which has been defined by protectionism, by tariffs.” (Rory Stewart, 04:25)
• On Farage’s Fall:
  • “Instead of Farage running against all the establishment parties ... he's now running against a trash can ... he's trying to portray the trash can as the elite establishment, but he's struggling ... to make Count Binface the deep state.” (Rory Stewart, 24:20)
• On Political Decency vs. Delivery:
  • “It isn't all about delivery ... In a world in which it's quite difficult to achieve really radical change ... seeming to care may count for a great deal.” (Rory Stewart, 14:06)
• On US-UK Relations:
  • “No more special. It's over. It's over. And you called it first for me.” (Rory Stewart, 32:25)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:13 – Rory Stewart begins breakdown of how Brexit went wrong
• 07:14 – Why the UK and Europe are temperamentally averse to “Singapore on Thames”
• 11:31 – Andy Burnham’s approach and values
• 14:54 – Start of conversation about Nigel Farage’s recent scandals
• 24:18 – Comic farce of facing Count Binface
• 27:36 – The UK’s “abused partner” analogy in relation to the US
• 32:25 – Declaration of the end of the US-UK “special relationship”

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Tone & Takeaway

The conversation is candid, occasionally wry, and unsparing in its evaluation of both British and international politics. Stewart’s analysis is rooted in pragmatism and British understatement, pointing to a country struggling with big changes, uncertain leadership, and lingering feelings of disappointment and lost opportunity—as well as flashes of absurdity amid the political drama.

For listeners looking to understand the lasting impact of Brexit and the evolving character of the UK in a volatile global context, this episode offers clear-eyed analysis, sharp anecdotes, and memorable insights.

Transcript

[Ian Bremmer]

Hello, and welcome to the Gzero World Podcast. This is where you can find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and this summer has already been dominated by headlines from Iran, Ukraine and Washington.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

But you may have missed another major political milestone.

[Ian Bremmer]

June marked the 10th anniversary of Brexit, Britain's historic vote to leave the European Union. The referendum transformed Britain's relationship with Europe and foreshadowed another political shock just a few months later, Donald Trump's election to the White House. Brexit promised a wealthier, more independent Britain, free from Brussels and back in control of its own national borders. Ten years later, that promise remains largely unfulfilled. If the goal was restoring British sovereignty, Brexit did succeed in that Britain now controls its own laws, its own trade policy, its own immigration system. But nearly every major, major economic analysis concludes that the country is poorer than it otherwise would have been. Political instability has produced seven prime ministers in a decade, and public opinion has shifted dramatically. Today, most Britons say that leaving the European Union was the wrong decision. At the same time, many pro Brexit predictions about Europe never materialized. There was no wave of countries following Britain out of the eu. Instead, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, not to mention watching Britain's own experience, pushed Europe closer together, strengthening cooperation on defense and sanctions and security. Now, British politics are shifting once again. Andy Burnham's rise has injected new energy into the center left, while Nigel Farage, the man who did more than most to bring about Brexit, faces political headwinds and corruption allegations. So, 10 years after Britain voted to leave, what is Brexit's real legacy? Joining me to answer that question, Rory Stewart, former British Cabinet minister, diplomat, and one of the United Kingdom's leading political commentators. Let's get to it.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Rory Stewart, great to have you back on the show.

[Rory Stewart]

Thank you very much, Ian.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

So, Rory, we want to start looking backwards. It's been 10 years since Brexit. My perception of these things is that it hasn't turned out particularly well, especially compared to all, all of the promises that seem to be made to the British people about how Brexit would be wonderful and a new independent Britain would be revitalized economically, stronger, would have all the People that you wanted inside your country and none of the people that you didn't. People don't seem happy about Brexit. Ten years on what happened.

[Rory Stewart]

No, you're completely right. I agree with you and what you say is music to my ears. But you've got to bear in mind that I was somebody who voted to remain in the European Union and then campaigned very hard when I was running to try to be Prime Minister against Boris Johnson, to try to stop his hard Brexit. So I'm not completely objective. I think one thing I would say though is that in some ways the way that Brexit went most wrong was a way that people didn't fully predict 10 years ago. Brexit happened in an environment where people still imagined a pretty stable world order. And the story was being driven by the Brexiteers at the time. We'll leave Europe, which they saw as a pretty stagnant economy, whose demographic growth, whose age profile was going wrong, whose economy was growing slowly. And we will connect ourselves more closely to the fast growing economies of Asia, the us. So there's a lot of talk about we'll bolt ourselves to the Indian economy, the Chinese economy. It was the sort of vision which at the time was called Singapore on Thames. The idea is that Britain would become this sort of deregulated, free market, buccaneering, free trading nation. And of course it happened at exactly the wrong time because in fact the story over the last 10 years is not a world becoming more globalized, more open, more free trade, but instead a world which has been defined by protectionism, by tariffs, and where national security threats means that the idea of completely opening your economy to China, or even perhaps for some people to the US at the moment doesn't seem as smart. And in fact, there are many arguments, particularly following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, for why you should be closer in every way to your European neighbors.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Now, on the one hand, it's a very strong argument to say when protectionism is making life much more difficult. Being a part of the world's largest common market. Very good idea, don't want to cut those ties. On the other hand, another story for the last 10 years has been Europe falling farther and farther behind, the United States in terms of productivity, falling farther behind in terms of the US and China on technology, even on defense, though they're starting, some are starting to turn that around of late. How do you respond to, to that thinking about the UK's position, Brexit or no Brexit, in today's world Order.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, well, you're completely right. And actually to be fair to the Brexiteers, and I don't really like being fair to the Brexiteers because I think they did huge damage to our country. But that was something that Brits have

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

this sense of fair play. Even when you lose, you do. That is something you're known for, right?

[Rory Stewart]

I try. But they, to be fair, identified this problem in 2016. What they were saying was Europe is not actually that dynamic. It's too regulated, it's too risk averse, it's not embracing of technology, it's getting old very quickly, its welfare state is too expensive, it's not spending enough on defense. All the kind of stuff that you would have heard made very powerfully in arguments by the Trump administration. They were saying 10 years ago, and that was one of the reasons why they wanted to separate themselves from Europe, because they thought that if Britain wanted to be more like the US, more deregulated, more innovative, more tech friendly, more open to trading with the world, it would be better off outside the European Union. Now the problem for Britain of course, is the problem for Europe, which is it turns out British citizens hadn't really signed up for being Singapore on Thames, and therefore they never managed to take advantage of what they thought were the benefits. Partly because the British, like the Europeans, are broadly speaking, in many of their instincts, very social democratic. They want quite a generous welfare state, they want a generous health system. They're not really that excited by the idea of signing up for a much more red in tooth and claw deregulated US style capitalism. So there are a lot of problems. One of those problems was for the Brexiteers. But another problem actually is for Europe in general, which is that if it's true that what you need to grow is letting rip on AI or letting these hyperscalers grow, or accepting the type of Social Security provision you have in the US or the kind of minimum wages that you have in the US Most European citizens are not really up for that. They still fantasize about the good old days where Sweden or Denmark or Germany seemed to represent relatively equal high wage economies.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Now, you've gone through a great many prime ministers since Brexit, both on the conservative side and now on labor too. Does the average Brit just see anyone, whether it's on the center right or the center left, as too far from their own sensibilities as representing a Britain whose time has passed?

[Rory Stewart]

Part of the problem is that people's expectations are completely out of whack with what the country is naturally delivering. Part of it is that social media helps to whip up real anger. Part of it is that even when good policy decisions are made, it takes a long time for people to feel the benefits. And the background story is an economy that's growing quite slowly, a population that's aging, increasing debt, not great productivity. So the question is, what do you do about this? And broadly speaking, the only people who've got radical answers to this are of course on the far right, populist far right or on the populist left. So on the populist left you've got more extreme versions, I guess, of Bernie Sanders in the form of Zach Polanski, the Green Party leader. And on the far right you've got got Nigel Farage. And you'd guess what their solutions are. The right, broadly speaking, thinks the answer is radical, thatchright, Reagan style, neoliberal, make it easier for business, get rid of all the regulations, give up on net zero, put your foot down, let business drive growth with low taxes. And on the far left it's wealth taxes, it's going after the rich, it's building a more equal society, it's centralized industrial policy. But what isn't delivering is the old center ground, which would be I suppose, the kind of center ground of the Democrats in the US the kind of third way consensus which we associated with Tony Blair or Bill Clinton. That kind of worldview, a kind of pragmatically regulated free market, is not people feel delivering.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

So we now have this fellow, Andy Burnham, who is certainly not talking about Singapore on Thames, he's talking about sort of Downing street up in Manchester, seems to be very different from what solutions the Brits had been offered by their leaders. And yet what I hear from you is that we shouldn't probably expect very much from his administration either.

[Rory Stewart]

I don't think you should expect anything startling in terms of unlocking British economic growth. I mean, one of the things is that he hasn't actually he talked very much about the economy or where the money's going to come from. What he has done is immediately begun by saying that he wants to do things for adult social care, in other words for the vulnerable elderly. He wants to address homelessness, he wants to do radical devolution. He wants to push power down to neglected areas of the north of England, for example. And finally he wants to do much better vocational training for the 10, 20% of society who really struggle academically and who maybe could be helped a lot by getting high quality skills training, not necessarily to go into Industry could be to go into hospitality sector or retail. So this is a man who is a Catholic whose guiding question often seems to be, is this decent? Is this hospital where I would want to put my mother? Do I want to see homeless people on the streets? So it's an idea of trying to raise standards, create a Britain that he's proud of. But we don't hear very much about where the money's going to come from to pay for those things.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

I mean, Starmer got into a lot of trouble in part because he was on the wrong side of trusts for Mandelson, the ambassador to the us and the Epstein case and all of the rest. I'm wondering if Burnham, even if he can't actually deliver, but he is seen as decent as an example of what a British person, a British citizen, a British leader should be. Can that be enough? Can that be enough to get the UK through an actual full term this time around or not?

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, it might be. You're right, Ian, in putting your finger on the fact that in politics it isn't all about delivery. It is partly about values and personality and optimism and communication. And he is a much, much better communicator. Keir Starmer was this very, very rigid wooden lawyer who found it very difficult to talk without sounding like he was reading from a script. Andy has been the mayor of Greater Manchester, which is a big, big city. I mean, it'd be like being, you know, the equivalent of being the mayor of Chicago or something.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Chicago, yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

And so he's coming into it with the spirit of a mayor. Much more used to executive power, much more used to dealing with other parties in a pretty non tribal. He's got deep political experience. Before that he was a cabinet minister and a member of Parliament and he got into Labour politics very young. I think there's a lot to be said for having a leader who is likable, communicates well, people like their values. And in a world in which it's quite difficult to achieve really radical change, I mean, for example, let's say he wanted to make the entire British education system more like the Swiss education system. In other words, 60% of people going into highly trained vocational training, that's a 15, 20 year project. That's not a one year, two year project. Same with housing. 15, 20 year project. Probably sorting out the National Health Service and adult social care is a multi year project. So getting reelected or even surviving to the next election may not be about delivering these generational changes. It may be more about seeming to be in touch, seeming to listen to people seeming to care may count for a great deal.

[Sponsor Announcer]

The Gzero World Podcast is brought to you by our lead sponsor, prologis. Prologis helps businesses across the globe scale their supply chains with an expansive portfolio of logistics, real estate and the only end to end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today. Learn [e-mail].

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

I want to move now to one of your favorite topics, which is Nigel. He does seem to have blown himself up a bit. I have to say I was surprised after someone who took such incredible identity with Brexit, given how badly it went, had been able to reformulate himself as such an incredibly popular force. So let's first talk about how he managed to do that. What is it that made Farage a success despite his track record?

[Rory Stewart]

Well, let's just begin with that. I mean, it is an extraordinary story. So Nigel Farage came out of the last election, which was only two years ago, with only six seats in Parliament compared to Labour, that got nearly 400 out of 650 seats. So he was not in a strong position. Over the last two years, he basically broke British politics, which had been a two party system, into a five party system. So traditionally labouring Conservatives right back in the day were getting 80, 90% of the vote. Suddenly now we're in a system where the Greens, Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage's populist far right party reform were on roughly a fifth of the vote each with Farage leading. And if you went back six, eight weeks, he was comfortably ahead in the polls and actually looked like the tricks of a first past the post system might have led him to get a staggering majority. Now that's an extraordinary story. This is somebody who failed to get elected to Parliament multiple times, who struggled to get one or two MPs in, suddenly turning himself around to look like he was going to end up with over 300 members of parliament and be in power. And as you say, given that he was with Boris Johnson, one of the big deliverers of Brex, how come he wasn't blamed for this? Well, the answer is that many people who vote for Brexit have been convinced that the problem was not Brexit, but as you can predict, that it wasn't delivered right. And his basic message is the best message of all for any populist, which is there is an out of touch establishment elite. I represent the real people. We're going to stop immigration, we're going to stop all this politically correct nonsense and put me in And I'm going to speak for the real British people. And it's not very different to the message of Giorgio Meloni in Italy or Donald Trump or Bolsonaro in Brazil. It's a classic right wing populist message. And what's gone wrong for him is now financial scandal.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Five million pounds, apparently, that he received, apparently illegally as a campaign contribution.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole thing is getting murkier and murkier. But there was a £5 million donation that he took, he claims personally, just as a gift from a friend about a year.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Who of us doesn't receive gifts like that?

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely. And then, you know, who of us would feel that when we were about to run for Parliament or became Member of Parliament, we might want to declare that we just received a 5 million pound gift from a friend. But, you know, he said it was a gift for his security. And then he said, well, maybe he hadn't spent it on his security, he could spend it on a Ferrari if he wanted. And then later on he said he hasn't spent it. But the thing that really got him in trouble, because there was a technicality around that he received the money before, before he was in Parliament. So he was trying to argue that he'd received it in a period of time when he was outside Parliament and therefore wasn't obliged to declare it. The real recent problems have come around. An extraordinary figure called Posh George. And this is a convicted criminal who traveled with Farage to meet Donald Trump 10 years ago.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

You said Posh George.

[Rory Stewart]

Posh George. His mother's an aristocrat, his mother is the daughter of a lord.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

But that title doesn't bequeath Posh, does it?

[Rory Stewart]

Doesn't bequeath. No, no. He's just called Posh George by his mates because most of the Farage's people are more kind of working class and feel. And this is a guy who has floppy hair and his mother's the daughter of a lord and went to school in Mustique, this Caribbean island.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

I've heard of it.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, yeah. And all this sort of stuff, Right. So this guy starts working for Farage when he's in his early 20s. They travel out to meet Donald Trump and in Vegas, and on their way back to Britain, he is suddenly arrested by American agents. And he is then charged with something like 22 counts because it's turned out that he has cheerfully been offering to money, launder drug money. And the drug lords that he's been meeting with turn out to be FBI agents in disguise. Very warm effort. And so, not surprisingly, he's arrested. Farage is a bit embarrassed because the man that he's going through passport control with has just been taken away by American agents. And eventually he does a plea deal where Posh George, George Cotterell, this guy and his age, I think about 23 at the time, says that he will teach American agents how to money launder in exchange for a reduced sentence. So I think he only serves about six or seven months. Now, you would have thought that was the moment at which Nigel Farage cuts links with this man, because Cottrell then goes on and he moves to Montenegro and he becomes. He starts gambling hard and he starts doing crypto gambling and shadow bets and he sets up sock puppets where you buy normal people's accounts to place bets that otherwise the gambling companies wouldn't allow. And all this stuff's happening online. And suddenly Cottrell's mother, who seems to live quite modestly in a cottage, starts giving very large donations to Farage.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

She's still a lord at this point, though.

[Rory Stewart]

She's a lord's daughter, exactly. As George said in his mother's defence, she's a very successful aristocrat, but she doesn't seem to have much money. She's sitting in a small cottage and she certainly didn't leave any money to her son. But her son appears to have accumulated maybe 100, 150 million in the Balkans, engaged in some very interesting business to do with moving money around and gambling. But it's the mother who starts making donations of quarter million, half a million, a million into Farage's bank accounts. And it's at that point people start saying, wait a sec, this is not the mother's money. It's not clear where the mother's money is coming from. Now, this is all part of police investigations, so people are being a bit cautious about the question of where exactly the mother got this money from. But there are a lot of profiles going on around Posh George, and the result is that Nigel Farage has finally done something where his base can no longer buy the story that he's the great anti elite, anti establishment campaigner. If he's taking millions of pounds, hanging out with these kind of crypto gambling dudes, flying on private jets to Montenegro. The story that he's the ordinary man in the pub with the pint of beer is beginning to look a bit flaky.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

So in order to avoid the continued negative attachment of him being perceived as this dodgy elite, he says, I am going to take this directly to the people, I am going to resign my seat and I will call a by election and the people will show that they still support me and I'm gonna have this election. And that does not appear to have been a very wise for Nigel.

[Rory Stewart]

No, you're right, Ian. It was amazing. So the vision was exactly as you say. And he thought that all the other parties, Conservative, Labour, et cetera, would run candidates against him and he would beat them and he would prove through this by election, the normal way it would be done would be exactly that. Instead of which all the party leaders immediately said, this is a stunt. We're not going to facilitate this. We're not running any candidates against you. You can run on your own. And. And suddenly the leading candidate who pops his head up against him is a man called Count Binface. And Count Binface is a dustbin, a trash can with a large cloak behind it and a dark suit. He is, in other words, a novelty comedy candidate whose major campaign province is to move the position of the hand dryer in the men's washroom in the

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Uxbridge pub to be less inconveniently located.

[Rory Stewart]

Right, exactly.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

But that's something. I mean, unlike health care, right? I mean, this is something that one can deliver on fairly expeditiously.

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely. When he ran against Andy Burnham, his promise was that if he was elected, he would build one affordable home, which is quite a good line because all the politicians have been promising to build 2 million affordable homes, and as far as we can see, they haven't managed to build any.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Well, look, we have in New York. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but Mamdani, who is the new mayor and he's quite popular in New York, he said he would build these new affordable supermarkets and he's doing three. Right. So I do think that starting small, especially when you're talking about sort of city politics, there's something to be said for that.

[Rory Stewart]

Yep. It's beautiful now. So the result, though, as you get, is that instead of Farage running against all the establishment parties and showing that he's the people's choice, he's now running against a trash can with a cloak, a sort of mixture between a trash can and Darth Vader, and therefore every husk things he does, every television interview he does, he's having to deal with a trash can. And he's trying to portray the trash can as the elite establishment, but he's struggling a little bit to make Count Ben face the deep state.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Now, are they going to have to have an actual debate or series.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, I mean, Farage may try to duck out of it and I guess his team will be trying to advise him on this. But yes, certainly the norm would be that he would go into TV debates and other kinds of debates against Count Benface.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

I like Ben Face. I say that as someone who likes Douglas Adams. I like, like Monty Python, I like Red Dwarf. I mean, there's something about that British humor that appeals to me. But does he actually have a chance of defeating Farage in this odd by election?

[Rory Stewart]

The polling suggests that he's an outsider, but I think he'll get many, many more votes than anyone can believe. I think it's unlikely at the moment that he'll make it into Parliament, but either way, as you can imagine, is a massive loss for Farage. You know, either Farage wins relatively narrowly against a trash can or he actually loses his seat to an alien trash can.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

To an alien trash can. So if we look forward to close, do we think on the back of all of this is the big story post Brexit, that the UK is just destined to become a messy multi party democracy with coalition governments coming together and falling apart, or having now seen the peak of Farage and reform, is there an opportunity for the major two centrist parties to come back and see post Brexit business as usual?

[Rory Stewart]

I think there is a real opportunity. I mean, we have like an American electoral system, a first past the post system which favors incumbent parties. And if these parties can consolidate enough and reform fall away, we would quite quickly. The electoral mathematics will return us back to something that looks like old fashioned two party politics. And populism in Britain has over the last 20 years tended never quite to peak in the normal European model. So that is a real possibility. I mean, I think there's a bigger issue though, for countries like Britain. And I'd say I put France and Germany and Japan and South Korea and Canada and Australia into this camp, which is the big geostrategic question is can they really create this alliance of middle powers which Mark Carney's talking about? Is it really feasible to imagine that they're not just going to get themselves stuck between the rock of the United States and the hard place of China? And the big change since 2016 has been that the default setting, which would be, of course, we're on the US side against China, has been shaken very, very dramatically shaken by Trump's threats against Greenland, threatened by his threats to withdraw from NATO, threatened by his disabling access to Frontier AI systems to the general humiliations and tariffs and attacks against what formerly would have been Western allies. So these are countries that are never going to trust the US structures and systems again in the way that they once did. The US will be betting, and you hear this from Vance and Marco Rubio, that these countries are too weak and too inept to be able to foster an alternative to the United States. So the narrative that we hear, I'm sort of pushing this to you because some of your listeners are American. We effectively feel like an abused partner. We feel like we've got some husband saying to us, yeah, you may not like it, I may beat you up, but you're never going to leave because you can't afford to set up your own house. So you just got to suck it up. And I think we're underestimating the sense of rage and political humiliation which may well actually drive Britain and these other middle powers and the European Union to do something which J.D. vance and Rubio thinks will never happen, which is to try to develop genuine strategic autonomy away from the United States. So I think the big story of the next two, three years from Britain is the question of sovereignty.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Yeah, I mean, what I would say is that the place where that analogy, and it's a very visceral one, falls down is you don't have to make a decision of all or nothing. You don't have to be a little bit pregnant with your abusive spouse's kid. You can hedge, you can build, you can do less with your formerly trusted ally and do more yourselves without actually breaking ties. And that's where I think everyone is expecting that this is going to end up.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, I think that that's right. But of course it's tricky because the hedging carries risks. I mean, let's say we become more dependent on open source Chinese AI models that carries risk. What kind of dependency or relationship do we have with the Gulf on energy? I mean, we've been through this extraordinary series of shocks where we couldn't be dependent on Russian gas anymore. We then were very dependent on LNG coming in from the Gulf and American lng. We are also having to deal with another threat, which is that if we start to develop more strategic autonomy, let's say we wanted to buy more chips, build more data centers, host more weights, have more control over the AI models, we are doing it with a US administration, which isn't necessarily going to make that easy. So it's not a hedging where your abusive spouse is going to cheerfully allow you to Play footsie with a neighbor. I think there's a real sense that from the Trump administration's point of view, American hegemony and domination of Europe is real. And they talk about us standing on our own two feet, but what they mean is they want us to spend more on defense and buy U.S. defense equipment or get American companies to manufacture in Europe.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Yeah, I mean, no one's making that decision. And if Trump was a XI figure or a Putin figure or even an MBS or an MBZ figure who you knew you were gonna have to deal with for generations, I might imagine that the hedging strategy would be much more dangerous than one where the Americans completely redecide what they're going to do every election cycle.

[Rory Stewart]

Yes, that's true, but there is a sort of small caveat on that, which is, of course, Trump will go, but having seen him twice, we can't unsee what happens when the US Begins to weaponize its choke points, weaponize our dependencies on the US in every single way, from the dollar through to AI and defense. So I think you're absolutely right that we may be able to rebuild relationships. The US we may avoid being punished for hedging a little bit, but it's still the case that the drive for sovereignty will feel very, very urgent, even with a new president. Because even I don't know if whichever Democratic president was lucky enough to get elected, however much they said to us, don't worry, forget everything that you've heard since 2016. You really are our allies. We love Western Europe. We will be thinking, yeah, but how long are you gonna be around?

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

So I haven't heard anyone on either side of the pond talk about the special relationship in years. Now, shall you and I formally kill it right now? I mean, not cheerfully perhaps, but nonetheless. I mean, someone needs to.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, I think, Ian, you're the man to do that. No more special. It's over. It's over. And you called it first for me.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Okay, it's over, Rory.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. But I hope our special relationship, Ian, will continue and that it will strengthen, not just continue some other exotic location where we can continue this conversation.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Yes, yes, absolutely. Maybe Scotland.

[Ian Bremmer]

You never know.

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Okay. Rory Stewart, thanks so much for joining

[Ian Bremmer]

again on the show. Good to see you.

[Rory Stewart]

Thank you, Ian, very much.

[Ian Bremmer]

That's it for today's edition of the Gzero World Podcast. Why not make it official?

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

Why don't you rate and review GZero World?

[Ian Bremmer]

5 stars only 5 stars. Otherwise, don't do it on Apple, Spotify,

[Ian Bremmer (Host)]

or wherever you get your podcasts, Tell your friends.

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