Mark Carney in London to strategise Western response to Iran and Trump’s demands for help

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Monocle Daily

Episode: Mark Carney in London to strategise Western response to Iran and Trump’s demands for help
Date: March 16, 2026
Host: Andrew Muller
Guests: Anand Menon (Professor of European Politics, King’s College London), Rainbow Murray (Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of London), Rebecca Lubo (author)

Overview:

This episode of The Monocle Daily delves into major geopolitical and domestic developments, with a primary focus on Western responses to Middle East tensions, the shifting role of Canada in global diplomacy, Europe’s struggles with migration and internal politics, and concerns about U.S. nuclear command. Notably, the show features analysis on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s foreign policy, President Trump’s escalating demands for allied support, European debates over Russia and Ukraine, French and Swiss politics, and ends with an interview about the instability of U.S. presidential nuclear authority.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Mark Carney, Canada, and the New Transatlantic Dynamic

[04:17–06:43]

• Guest Interview Clip: Mark Carney (Prime Minister of Canada) discusses Canada’s efforts to re-engage with Asian economies (China, India, ASEAN nations) and deepen strategic ties with Europe (CETA, defense procurement).
  • Quote – Mark Carney [05:20]:
    “We have deep ties with Europe…we’re basically treated as a domestic producer as part of their defense, the European defense procurement process.”
• Analysis:
  • Anand Menon calls Carney’s foreign policy “pragmatic,” noting his willingness to diversify alliances, especially after heightened U.S. unpredictability under Trump.
  • Rainbow Murray underscores Canada's strengthening of Europe ties in direct response to Trump’s derogatory treatment, framing it as an effective domestic political strategy.
    • Quote – Rainbow Murray [07:50]:
      “Playing against Donald Trump and standing up to him is a domestic electoral strategy…showing resistance rather than capitulation.”

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2. Trump’s Demands and the Western Response to Iran

[08:45–11:40]

• President Trump requests allied military involvement in reopening the Strait of Hormuz but declines to name supporting countries.
• Panel Analysis:
  • Menon warns that Trump’s unpredictability is a genuine cause for concern but says that NATO's defensive mandate precludes its involvement in offensive Middle East operations.
    • Quote – Anand Menon [09:30]:
      “Who knows how he will respond if we don’t do what he wants us to do…But using NATO for this kind of operation is wildly, sort of, ultra vires for the organization itself.”
  • Rainbow Murray emphasizes European public resistance to what is widely seen as a campaign of aggression, not defense, and highlights the political impossibility of garnering voter support for such ventures.

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3. Belgium’s Shift on Russia–Ukraine and European Unity

[11:40–17:55]

• Belgium's PM Bart De Wever calls for normalizing relations with Russia, citing energy concerns, and claims private agreement from other EU leaders.
  • Quote – Anand Menon [12:47]:
    “Bart De Wever has historically been a Russophile…But a bigger issue is whether European support for Ukraine can survive domestic costs, like higher energy prices.”
• Rainbow Murray is skeptical about alleged private support from other leaders but notes rising European pessimism about long-term success in Ukraine, especially after U.S. moves to ease sanctions on Russian oil due to Middle East instability.
• The concept of a Korea- or Germany-style “frozen conflict” is debated:
  • Menon: European leaders have overpromised on Ukraine, unwilling to enable a true victory or face the embarrassment of a Ukrainian defeat.
  • Murray: Ukraine distrusts any ceasefire that partitions territory, fearing future renewed Russian aggression.

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4. Rise of the Far Right in France and Europe’s Political Fragmentation

[18:27–23:16]

• France faces upcoming municipal and national elections that could see the rise of the far right (National Rally).
  • Rainbow Murray voices concern, noting a potential weakening of France’s traditional anti-far-right “cordon sanitaire” due to party fragmentation.
    • Quote – Rainbow Murray [19:11]:
      “Every time I’ve said with high confidence, ‘No,’ this is the first time…there is an element of doubt.”
  • Anand Menon highlights Paris as a moderate outlier, but warns that fragmentation and anti-politics sentiment might pave the way for a far-right breakthrough.

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5. Swiss Referendum: Population Cap and Immigration Fears

[23:16–29:33]

• Switzerland to hold a referendum on capping the population at 10 million, likely at the expense of free movement with the EU.
  • Rainbow Murray points out the intergenerational risk and the underlying xenophobia driving such proposals.
    • Quote – Rainbow Murray [24:02]:
      “Be careful what you wish for, Switzerland. If you try to get rid of your younger population and find yourself unable to support your older one…”
  • Menon dismisses the plan as “administratively nightmarish” and economically harmful, especially during weak growth periods across Europe.
  • Both panelists agree this reflects a wider European trend: centrist/left parties struggle to address fears about migration without embracing right-wing talking points.

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6. U.S. Nuclear Command and Presidential Incapacity

[29:33–38:23]

• Interview with Rebecca Lubo, author of “Keeping a Finger on the Presidential Continuity and the Nuclear Age”
  • Explores the origins and limits of the 25th Amendment, focusing on Section 4's mechanism for removing a president and its real-world feasibility.
• Quote – Rebecca Lubo [33:25]:
  “Everything circles around this image of strength and power. And the cabinet is really dependent on the president for their power…and has hesitated to invoke that amendment.”
• Lubo expresses doubt about the political viability of Section 4, stressing reliance on informal “guardrails” and the urgent need for reforms—especially as sole nuclear authority remains with the president.
• She proposes international agreements to ban AI decision-making in nuclear command, recognizing this as a new source of concern.

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Notable Quotes

• “He [Carney] is willing to be friends with anyone who’s willing to be friends with him because they need to diversify their foreign relations, particularly their trade, because President Trump has spooked them…”
  — Anand Menon [06:43]
• “Claims that can’t be substantiated can’t necessarily be believed either. But it is possible that this is a symptom of a growing sense of pessimism about Europe’s capacity to win a conflict against Russia.”
  — Rainbow Murray [14:29]
• “One of the reasons why proposed ceasefires based on, ‘okay, you get this, you get that,’ doesn’t work is that…Ukraine does not trust Russia to respect the agreed borders in the future.”
  — Rainbow Murray [17:55]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:17–06:43] – Mark Carney’s foreign policy, Canada-EU ties
• [08:45–11:40] – Trump’s demands for help with Iran, NATO’s limits
• [11:40–17:55] – Belgium’s call for normalizing relations with Russia, Ukraine war pessimism
• [18:27–23:16] – French municipal elections, far right prospects
• [23:16–29:33] – Swiss referendum on population cap, migration politics
• [29:33–38:23] – U.S. presidential nuclear authority, 25th Amendment explained

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Tone & Closing

The episode features sharp, sometimes sardonic exchanges, and balances expert gravitas with dry wit. It invites listeners to question official narratives, recognize the limitations of current political systems, and reflect on the resilience (or lack thereof) of both democratic guardrails and international alliances in an era of populist disruption and uncertainty.

Transcript

[Rainbow Murray]

You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 16th March 2026 on Monacle Radio.

[Andrew Muller]

The United States Former best friends discuss the United States present Middle east adventure. Another European leader goes wobbly on Russia and the Swiss people who think there are too many Swiss people. I'm Andrew Muller, the Monocle Daily Start. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Anand Menon and Rainbow Murray will discuss the day's big stories. And we'll hear from Rebecca Lubo about her depressingly timely new book, Keeping a Finger on the Button, contemplating the frailties of the United States nuclear command and control. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. Foreign. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign affairs at King's College London and Director of UK in a Changing Europe, and by Rainbow Murray, professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London. Hello to you both. Hello, Anand. Your first time here for a while and in that time since you were last here, you've acquired another job on top of the ones you already had?

[Anand Menon]

Well, I've acquired a part time job and gone part time. I'm working part time at a firm called Public first who basically do social science, but they do it commercially. So there's a lot of opinion polling, a lot of economic modelling and I'm just finding my feet at the moment. It's a long time since I started a new job.

[Andrew Muller]

What have you been polling of late?

[Anand Menon]

Well, they've done some really interesting polling on attitudes towards security, for instance, across European states, trying to figure out the sense of threat about Russia. And I suppose the findings were quite predictable in the sense that the further east you go, the more that people are concerned about Russia. You go all the way west and you see that a significant majority of Canadians don't think Russia is the biggest threat they face. But I think it's the United States, which is quite interesting.

[Andrew Muller]

Well, that is germane, funnily enough, to a couple of stories we do have coming up in this show. Rainbow, you are observing a particular anniversary?

[Rainbow Murray]

Yes, it's my 35th veganiversary. To put it another way, I've now

[Andrew Muller]

been vegan for 35 years, which is quite a stretch. And thinking back to when you embarked upon this course, I'm assuming that was a lot more difficult then than it now is.

[Rainbow Murray]

Yes, it was. We're going back to the era of shell suits and emerging from the Cold War, and people in 1991 didn't know what a vegan was. It sometimes got pronounced vegan. So people almost literally thought I was from another planet. And they certainly weren't sympathetic to the concept. There's been a real shift in mindsets in the past 35 years.

[Andrew Muller]

Is there a sense of feeling somewhat vindicated, as in, ha ha, I was white all along.

[Rainbow Murray]

I'm not one of those smug vegans that likes to think I'm morally superior to anybody else. There's certainly a sense of gratitude that it's much easier to be vegan in the contemporary world and there's a lot more understanding of it and there's a much wider availability of nice things to

[Andrew Muller]

e. Well, on that upbeat note, we will start here in the United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Sakir Starmer has been hosting his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, by some distance, the most stress free transatlantic summit presently available. To Starmer Carney being both a former governor of the bank of England and broadly sane. The conversation was inevitably dominated by events in the Middle east where the latest idea of US President Donald Trump appears to be demanding help from the Allies. He has spent the last year and a bit demeaning and indeed deriding. More from our panel on this shortly. But while we're up this way, a cross promotional plug for the recent interview with Mark Carney by Monocle editorial director Tyler Brulee in Canada's embassy in Tokyo. Here Carney is speaking about deepening relations in the Pacific before his overseas jaunt took him to right here in London.

[Mark Carney]

It started with repairing relations that were deeply damaged, for good reason, but damaged. And we needed to have the engagement re establish the engagement with China, with India. We've accomplished that. And you see the differences in the level of engagement with China and with India. There is a bigger overlap in terms of shared interests, shared values between two democracies in the case of Canada and India, of course, than there is with Canada and China. The Chinese understand that. In fact, it was an element of the early discussions I had with President Xi about where are the guardrails on this relationship where we agree to disagree and so we start there. But then more broadly, a host of deep relationships. Korea, roughly similar sized economies. So that's one of many examples. I'm going to throw a few others, if I may. We're negotiating a free trade agreement with Philippines. We've launched negotiations with Thailand. The ASEAN Group of countries were in, we hope this year will be the final stages of that free trade negotiation. Of course, I'm just coming here from Australia where we really stepped up the relationship. We have a great relationship, Canada and Australia, but it could be far, far deeper. I think that's something we, Prime Minister Albanese and myself, our cabinets agreed. And then also India deepening. So we have deep ties with Europe. We have deep institutional ties. CETA is one example. The free trade agreement with the European Union, we're taking that to another level through a very broad strategic partnership arrangement. We're basically treated as a domestic producer as part of their defence, the European defence procurement process. So all of that's there. That gets deepened. But I think you sense maybe from my list the importance of this region in relative terms.

[Andrew Muller]

Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, speaking to Monocle's editorial director, Tyler Brulee. You can hear that full interview in a special episode of the Foreign Desk, which you can find on our website, or you can see it and hear it on Monocle Films, also on our website, also on YouTube. Anand first of all, for all that Carney is talking there about the importance of the Pacific, and that's obviously going to be important to Canada as a Pacific nation. Has he found himself seeming more like a European leader than a North American one?

[Anand Menon]

I mean, to some extent, yes. Though, as you say, the geography of Canada means that they do have these links with Asia and Asian Pacific countries. But it is noticeable that Carney has gone out of his way to strengthen relations with the European Union. There was a slight flurry of interest, bizarrely straight after Trump came to power and started making his comments about Canada, about Canada joining the European Union. So I think at this moment, Carney is willing to be friends with anyone who's willing to be friends with him because they need to diversify their foreign relations and particularly their trade because President Trump has spooked them to such a significant extent.

[Andrew Muller]

But nevertheless, Rainbow Is Mark Carney not perhaps an example to European leaders of both the means and the benefits of standing up to Donald Trump? Because it was arguably the fact of his standing up to Donald Trump that got him elected in the first place. When Carney became leader of the Liberal Party, they looked like they were going absolutely nowhere. Then Trump starts talking about the 51st state and addressing Justin Trudeau as governor. Mark Carney responds to that. And look at him now.

[Rainbow Murray]

Yes, he's absolutely, in that sense been a beneficiary of the shift in tone from Donald Trump towards Canada, from an ally to almost seeing Canada as a sort of A colony of the usa. And their backlash against that has forced them to look elsewhere for allies, which is why we see the strengthening of relations with Europe. And I mean, this isn't a new thing. It's not like Canada have suddenly become friends with Europe. You know, there's a long standing relationship there, not least a linguistic one. You know, if you think about francophone Canada, they have strong relations with francophone countries in Europe as well. But we see that in some respects, playing against Donald Trump and standing up to him is a domestic electoral strategy in the sense that it's showing strength and it's showing resistance rather than capitulation.

[Andrew Muller]

I mean, on the inevitable subject of President Trump, Anand, he has been speaking within the last couple of hours, suggesting that some vast armada will shortly be coming to assist the United States in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, possibly significantly. He declined to mention any of the countries involved, almost as if there aren't any. But he was very grumpy about the lack of assistance being offered by America's traditional allies. Should anybody be worried about that? I mean, can we imagine Trump throwing a tantrum of the extent of blowing up NATO? Perhaps I should say even further, if no one comes to help the United States out of this.

[Anand Menon]

I mean, absolutely, we should be worried about it because President Trump is so unpredictable and mercurial. So in that sense, who knows how we will respond if we don't do what he wants us to do. That isn't a reason for doing what he's asked, though, as European leaders have queued up to say today as they finally managed to coordinate their position, A, it's not clear what Europe could add, B, NATO is a defensive alliance. So using NATO for this kind of operation is wildly sort of ultra vires for the organization itself. And C, most European Europeans don't want anything to do with this conflict. So I think we don't know how Trump will respond. And I think Europeans will be trying to figure out ways to say yes while meaning no, which has been a strategy all along with Donald Trump. In a way, I think on this occasion it might prove slightly harder because either you send your ships or you don't.

[Andrew Muller]

But that right there, just finally on this rainbow, is the key point, isn't it? Even if any European leader was minded to go along with this endeavour, perhaps thinking, more significantly, if it got to the point where they started thinking, whether we like it or not, it is in our national interest that the Strait of Hormuz be reopened by force if necessary, they would struggle to find voters willing to go along with it, wouldn't they?

[Rainbow Murray]

I think it's difficult to persuade voters to get involved in a campaign of aggression. I think what Annan said about NATO being a defensive force is critical here, that NATO members are obliged to defend each other. They're not necessarily obliged to get involved in other NATO states acts of aggression. And Europe very clearly sees this as an act of aggression, whereas Donald Trump's argument is, we're there for you, why aren't you there for us? And seems to have missed the point about defence. But Europe has enough concerns of its own defending against Russia. It doesn't want to get involved in a voluntary campaign that it didn't instigate, didn't want and is now suffering the consequences of.

[Andrew Muller]

Well, on a related note, to Belgium and to the two means Belgium has available for making itself seen or heard on the world stage from its usual position amid the extras at the back. One is to come up with something absolutely brilliant and credit where due. We do owe them for the saxophone and roller skates, though combining the two should only be attempted by qualified professionals. The other is to say something really quite dumbfoundingly odd and such. The choice made by Belgium's Prime Minister, Bart de Weva, who has suggested normalising relations with Russia and leaning on Ukraine to make a deal, not least so Europe, quote, regains access to cheap energy. I don't think he's going to be invited to Kyiv in a big hurry, Anand, but what do we make of this? Is this just the Belgian manifestation of that extremely odd trend of conservatives in Europe and the United states, people whom 30 years ago, 40 years ago, you would have been expecting to be right behind a European democracy struggling to resist Russian aggression and who yet are not keen on this one.

[Anand Menon]

I think there are two things at play here. The first is that Bart Dova has historically been a Russophile. He's known as one. And if any European leader were to come out and say something like this, one would have put him quite close to the top of the list. The second thing is the issue about how deep European support for Ukraine goes, and specifically whether it goes deep enough to weather domestic costs from that support. We've already seen that with some member states. We saw it in the early stages of the war when Poland was blocking imports of Ukrainian agricultural products because they were hitting Polish farmers. And European states are vastly affected by what's going on in the Gulf. They need access to energy. And so part of this is simply saying, look, this goes beyond us offering moral support or even some cash for weapons for Ukraine. This goes to the heart of our politics because energy bills are going up, and at that point it becomes electorally significant. So I think a combination of those things explain why Belgium has acted the way it has or the Belgian prime minister has acted the way he has.

[Andrew Muller]

Do Wevva has also said rainbow, and I quote in private. European leaders tell me I'm right, but no one dares say it out loud. I mean, this has definite echoes of one of those Trump anecdotes which always begin with someone unnamed addressing him as sir, which I do think is one of his more obvious tells. Do we believe that? Do we think that Bart do wever is importuned regularly by other European leaders saying, God, Bart, if only we had your courage.

[Rainbow Murray]

We never know for certain what people say in private. Claims that can't be substantiated can't necessarily be believed either. But it is possible that this is a symptom of a growing sense of pessimism about Europe's capacity to win a conflict against Russia. And I think the contemporary events with the conflict in Iran, which has prompted the US to soften the sanctions on Russian oil, which is, you know, an absolute win for Putin, win for the Russian economy, and leaves Europe floundering, because if it can't get its energy from Russia and it can't get it from the Middle east, where is it going to get it from? That does lead people to question, well, this conflict's been going on for more than four years. There is still no end in sight. It is costing us deeply. Perhaps we stand a better chance of future prosperity if we capitulate to a certain extent and try to draw a line under it, rather than trying to keep going on forever in a war that we're not confident we can win. But I don't think anyone can actually say that out loud because that's defeatist. That plays straight into Putin's hands. So even if people are thinking this privately, I think the official line is still going to be we stand united beside Ukraine and we are not going to capitulate to Russia.

[Andrew Muller]

I mean, this rainbow is sort of what he has said. He has pitched the idea of a Korea, like, freezing along front line to be decided. But is that really, at this point, though, Anand still the only option? Because you were talking earlier about, you know, the levels of support that Europe has allowed Ukraine, and you will be familiar as well with that line. I've heard from many, many Ukrainians that we're given enough to survive, but not enough to win. Deveva's Another one of his quotes is what's the point of prolonging this war without being able to achieve a clear and decisive victory? I mean, is the answer to that question not therefore achieve a clear and decisive victory?

[Anand Menon]

It is one answer to that question. It seems an answer that European leaders are unwilling to give. And I do think, you know, go back to what Rainbow was saying that in terms of that gap between what European leaders say and what Europeans think. I do think that a number of European leaders have allowed their rhetoric to get ahead of reality. So you'll hear people saying things like Ukraine's security is our security. Well, that's clearly nonsense, otherwise we'd be fighting alongside them in Ukraine. If it really was our security, we'd be involved in this war far more than we already are. The question is to what extent are our security interests overlapping? I think European leaders have got themselves in a weird situation now where, as you say, they're not willing to go all out to help Ukraine win. On the other hand, it would be politically embarrassing if we were to see Ukraine lose.

[Andrew Muller]

I mean, just going finally on this one Rainbow, that thing he has pitched of a career like freezing, I mean it's. Is that necessarily a bad outcome? If we think of it less like Korea and more perhaps like Germany after World War II, that is okay. This bit which we can keep is ensconced in the free world, the European Union, NATO, etc. The other bit we can kind of assume we'll get back in a few decades when everybody gets sick of living under Russian rule, as literally always happens.

[Rainbow Murray]

One of the reasons why proposed ceasefires based on, okay, you get this, you get that with the conflict ends. One of the reasons why that doesn't work is that with very good reason, Ukraine does not trust Russia to respect the agreed borders in the future. And if those territories are agreed and then Russia regroups for a few years and then says, right, I want that land back and I'm going to go back in for another round. That leaves Ukraine extremely vulnerable and exposed. And that is the scenario that they're not willing to accept. And that is one of the reasons why this conflict rumbles on.

[Andrew Muller]

Well, to France now, which next year will hold a presidential election which will almost certainly and once again invite Europe to contemplate the prospect of one of the continent's most economically, culturally, scientifically and militarily powerful nations being helmed by a sentinel of the swivel eyed nationalist tendency. That being the case, unusual attention is being paid to municipal elections underway across France this week, not merely as indicators of a national mood, but for a verdict on how the far right has governed at a local level. Rainbow, first of all, how excited are you to see indications that France is poised to elect a fascist adjacent president?

[Rainbow Murray]

You may have overestimated my enthusiasm about this prospect, Andrew. I've been asked about this for the last three or four elections. Is France about to elect a far right president? And every time I've said with a high degree of confidence, no, this is the first time, I think, where there is an element of doubt. The issue that has always been the case is that whilst there is a certain and growing electorate for the far right, there is also a large residual percentage of the population that not only will not vote for the far right, but will actively go out of their way to prevent that outcome. So the real question is how large that population remains and what extent, what lengths they are still willing to go to to prevent it. Given the growing fracture between the other parties and their reduced willingness to work together as an anti far right bloc.

[Andrew Muller]

Just to follow that up quickly before we look at the local elections in a bit more detail, Rainbow, is it just a question of. Because this dynamic, as you suggest, is becoming somewhat wearily familiar, either the left or the center eventually finds a prospective Le Pen buster and beats whichever the Le Pen of the moment is in the round. Does an amount of clarity emerge here when that Le Pen buster is identified?

[Rainbow Murray]

It's becoming more and more complex because there are bigger and bigger partisan divides in France now. And we are seeing, for example, on the mainstream right, the conflict between uniting with an increasingly unpopular centre or dissolving the cordon sanitaire and uniting with with the far right in order to stay relevant. But an example of how fractured French politics is at the moment is that no fewer than five candidates have qualified for the second round to become the next mayor of Paris. And normally we would see the also Rands desist in favour of the leading candidates. And I'm not sure we're even going to see that this time. And that's the problem. It's getting harder for other parties to form alliances and those alliances are crucial for defeating the far right.

[Andrew Muller]

Anand, what do you think? Because the National Rally, which is of course the party we're talking about, has so far at least posted its best ever first round results in municipal elections. They're hoping to win in Toulon, Marseille and Nice, among others. If bastions of that size start to fall, does a national rally presidency start to look somewhat inevitable.

[Anand Menon]

It certainly doesn't look inevitable. As Rainbow was saying, what we don't know is how strong the anti far right movement will be. And remember, of course, the French have an electoral system that is designed to allow you to vote for the person you want in the first round and against the person you don't want in the second round. And it's always worked quite well. So I don't think you can say this is inevitable for a variety of reasons. There's a significant amount of time still to go before the presidential election. We don't know who the centrist candidate will be, and I think that will make a huge amount of difference. We don't know who's leading the National Rally into that election yet. But what we do know is certainly Marine Le Pen and quite possibly Jordan Bardella are going to struggle in the conditions of a presidential election debate in the way that Marine Le Pen has the last couple of times. So there's all to play for. I mean, the interesting thing for me is just what you see in France mirrors so much of what you see across the rest of the developed world, including the United Kingdom, which is a strong anti politics mood, a complete sort of sense of general disillusionment with the center ground of politics and this intense fragmentation. The other really interesting thing about the French results I see that I saw is just the degree to which Paris remains a sort of relatively moderate island in this sea of fragmentation around it, which poses some interesting questions. Were the National Rally to win an election that they'd take power in a city that really doesn't like them very much at all.

[Andrew Muller]

Well, to Switzerland, the government of which, doubtless not for the first time, is ruing the local tradition of asking the general public what they think, an almost invariably foolhardy undertaking. On June 14, in one of those referendums with which the Swiss pass the time between boring holes in cheese, citizens will be invited to vote on a proposal to cap the country's population at 10 million and also withdraw possibly from its freedom of movement agreement with the eu. The government is asking people to vote no, perhaps mindful that Switzerland's population is currently circa 9 million. So a yes vote might incite awkwardness pretty imminently. Rainbow, cards on the table here. Do you think 10 million Swiss people would be about enough?

[Rainbow Murray]

Well, one thing that hasn't been mentioned much in this story is about generations, that if you cap the population size, quite apart from, you know, the xenophobic dimensions and the whole preposterous silliness of it, if you, if you cap the population, then you're, you're blocking potentially two groups, which is immigrants and babies. And those are both part of generational renewal. And one of the crises that, that countries around the world are facing is an aging population and not enough young people to support the economic needs of those entering retirement. So be careful what you wish for Switzerland, if you try to get rid of your younger population and find yourself unable to support your older one.

[Andrew Muller]

Yeah, the plan here, Anand, and this is being pushed by the Swiss People's Party, a conservative party not massively keen on foreigners. The idea is that the drawbidge is the drawbridge rather will be raised at nine and a half million people. At 10 million people, free movement ends is the idea. Aside from anything else, does this sound vaguely feasible?

[Anand Menon]

I mean, it's administratively nightmarish at the first level. So let's leave freedom of movement to one side because that comes with immediate economic costs. For Switzerland, do they have an annual census? How do they keep track of the size of the population? Trying to govern population administratively will be slow, will be clunky, will lead to economic costs, because of course, if the economy starts growing, you might actually need more people in to work in that economy and you will stymie your prospects for growth.

[Andrew Muller]

So I think you might have to hire people to monitor the number of

[Anand Menon]

people you might have to do. You certainly might have to hire some more census people to keep track of the population. I just think the practicalities are very, very problematic indeed.

[Andrew Muller]

But this is, is it not, Rainbow, at the risk of asking an extremely obvious question to which the answer is yes, this is a barely disguised way of saying the question they're really asking here is, would you like to throw all the foreigners out?

[Rainbow Murray]

Yes.

[Andrew Muller]

So you would like to throw all the foreigners out?

[Rainbow Murray]

No. Yes, I agree. Out of Switzerland. No, no, I'm agreeing that the premise of this is xenophobia, pure and simple, that it is not an anti natalist policy. Clearly this is an anti immigrant policy. But all attempts to block immigrants from a country are met with failure for many of the reasons that Anant has already said.

[Andrew Muller]

But just finally on this, Anand, because we see echoes of this or have seen echoes of this across Europe for at least the last decade. I mean, it's always been my own view that that is basically what the Brexit referendum, the question that most leave voters saw on the paper, not, you know, do you want to leave or remain in the eu. It what they saw was, are there too many foreigners but have centrist parties leftist parties yet? Has anyone found a way to engage actually usefully and electorally successfully with the fact that, whether you agree with it or not, there is a thing where voters do not like either the fact or the appearance of large scale ungoverned migration?

[Anand Menon]

Well, I mean, I think people don't like large scale migration, particularly when the economic conditions aren't particularly good. And I think in the context of Europe at the moment, you're looking at a decade, decade and a half of sclerotic growth where you haven't seen proper investment in public services, where there's pressure on housing, none of which is caused by immigration, but they're a very, very easy scapegoat for all those problems, as you've seen across Europe. We are going to have a very interesting test case in this country, I think, because when the annual figures for immigration come out in May, we're going to see a massive reduction, even conceivably net emigration, though I'm not sure about that. The numbers will be very, very low. At which point I imagine the Labour government will do a victory lap and open the champagne and then we'll start to see the implications bleed through in terms of, oh my God, who's going to work in social care? Where are all the people? Where are all those nurses that we used to be recruiting? There are trade offs to this. Now that isn't to say that you can't put in place public policies that obviate the need for higher immigration down the line, but doing it at the moment without proper planning, I think is going to have significant economic consequences.

[Andrew Muller]

And a final, final thought, Rainbow, is there a problem there though for centrist and leftist parties that even if they do accomplish such a result and, and is quite right, the Labour Party will make a massive thing of it. Nobody's going to vote for them because of that. Like the, the people who don't vote for them anyway aren't going to thank them. And quite a lot of the people who do vote for them are going to be annoyed with them.

[Rainbow Murray]

Yes, there's a phenomenon in the study of politics called issue ownership. The basic concept is that some parties are positively associated with certain policies and you cannot win by straying onto your opponent's turf. Because if you talk about something that people see as a strength of your opponent, then all that will do is make them think that that particular topic is important and that your opponent is better at it than you are. So the only way you can ever really win in politics is by playing to your own strengths.

[Andrew Muller]

Rainbow Murray and Anand Menon, thank you both for joining us. Finally, on today's show, recent events happen, have or should have refocused global attention on a couple of eternally pertinent facts. One is that the President of the United States has sole authority over a nuclear arsenal designed to launch within minutes of receiving the order. The other is that there is a means of removing a President of the United States in between elections. Section 4 of the 25th Amendment of the U.S. constitution allows the Vice President and a majority of cabinet to declare the President disabled and therefore disbarred. As a new book by Rebecca Lubo demonstrates, these two facts are related. Keeping a Finger on the Presidential Continuity and the Nuclear Age explains how anxiety over nuclear command and control helped usher the 25th Amendment onto the books. I spoke to Rebecca earlier and began by asking about events before the Cold War and John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 that had prompted such intense discussions about the American succession.

[Rebecca Lubo]

Well, succession and inability issues had been debated throughout U.S. history. Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution just iterates that the Vice President becomes President, but the Vice Presidency then remained vacant. The Constitution didn't make any provisions as to which officers were next in line for presidential succession past the Vice President and did not offer any direction in cases of presidential inability. And so there were successive additions by statute, not by amendments. In 1792, there was a law that stated that there would be legislative succession. Then in 1886, the Order of succession was changed to a cabinet succession and provided a little bit for inability. And then it was really Truman. And where you see activity really take off right after Truman dropped the bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. And then you see in 1947 a presidential succession act pushed through by Truman. And he argued that a cabinet line of succession after the Vice President was undemocratic. He also had a personal relationship, a good one, with the speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn. So for, for those reasons, succession went back to a legislative line of succession. And then you see activity pick up. The nuclear anxiety builds before JFK's assassination. You can see that throughout the 50s, and I can give you some examples, but there was a. An Eisenhower and Nixon letter agreement draft by the Attorney General, Herbert Brunel, and Kennedy and Johnson signed a similar letter. And then after the Kennedy assassination, you see activity in earnest in Congress thanks to the author of the amendment, Birch Bay, who as you may know, has more amendments to his name than anyone since framer James Madison.

[Andrew Muller]

The section of the 25th Amendment, which I think is most discussed these days for one reason or another. Section 4, under which the president can be removed against his will. We've seen Section three invoked a few times when presidents know, for example, they're going into surgery. Which is why, if memory serves, Vice President Kamala Harris was entrusted with the duties of the presidency for about an hour and a half at one point. But is Section four, though the mechanics of it are reasonably straightforward. Do you see that it's actually politically imaginable that a vice president and the cabinet would actually remove a sitting president?

[Rebecca Lubo]

That's a great question. So section four states that whenever the vice president and a majority of the cabinet or another body that Congress creates by law but has not created yet decide that the president's enabled or incapacitated, the vice president will assume presidential powers until the president submits a communication to the contrary. We have not seen section four used, so. So you're correct in that section one has been used once, Section two twice within a decade of the amendment's ratification, and Section 3 several times, including the Kamala Harris reference that you mentioned. But when you get to section four, the patterns that I've uncovered show that the president is not willing to give up power. And really, politically, everything circles around this image of strength and power. And the cabinet is really dependent on the president for their power, and there's no telling that the vice president would give them similar authority. So they have hesitated to invoke that amendment. And it seems like it may not

[Andrew Muller]

be feasible to bring it back to the question posed by your title about the finger on the button. If in extremists, and this is obviously the absolute nightmare scenario, you had a commander in chief who was quite clearly incapable psychologically of doing the job anymore and was possibly a danger to himself and to others. How quickly could people move on this? Like, is it. Could it actually be invoked in time to thwart a palpably deranged president?

[Rebecca Lubo]

One of the misconceptions about the 25th Amendment is that it can remove the president permanently. And the framers of the 25th Amendment never designed the amendment to remove the president permanently. It was only in cases of inability, and it was only to be temporary. And everything really hinged around the decisions of the vice president. And it was designed for the president to have the power to take back the presidency, the powers and duties when he declared in a written declaration that he was able. So the only time it should be used, the 25th Amendment, is if there's real cases of incapacity. So it was not designed to be used for policy or political disagreements, for cases of perceived unfitness, or even if the presidential temperament was not. Was disliked. But it's possible, I argue, in cases of irreparable catastrophe, that perhaps it would. It could be used, and I guess it would either be a policy disagreement. If the President's finger was on the nuclear button and he was threatening to use it, you could consider it a policy disagreement or you could consider the President absolutely mad in that case, because there is then a chance of a nuclear apocalypse. So either way, the President could potentially, the cabinets and the Vice President could potentially remove the President, I argue, in cases of irreparable catastrophe, and then the President would be removed temporarily, immediately upon a written declaration to the speaker of the House and the Senate President pro tempore declaring the President enabled. And that would give the President his hot head time to cool down and maybe cooler heads would prevail. But the President could take back those powers by a written declaration.

[Andrew Muller]

So all that taken into account, do we have to assume that we will be, or perhaps in the past have been, there have always been these stories about guardrails erected around Richard Nixon during the closing months of his presidency. Are we reliant on informal arrangements being made by people trying to protect the rest of us?

[Rebecca Lubo]

I would argue that, and one of the reasons I wrote the book is that we do need to come up with some solutions for the gaps and vagaries in the amendment and also solutions to the issue that the President has the sole finger on the nuclear button. So I argue that we need to rethink sole authority. And there's also the newer fear of AI in decision making as well. So I have some suggestions for solutions around that, including potentially an international agreement that suggests that there'd be no AI in decision making and to really air gap it or physically and wirelessly separate it from command and control.

[Andrew Muller]

That was Rebecca Lubo speaking to me earlier. Her book is called Keeping a Finger on the Presidential Continuity and the Nuclear Age. That's all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Anand Menon and Rainbow Murray. The show was produced by Chris Chermack and researched by Annelize Maynard. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield with editing assistance from Steph Chungu. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.