NATO's dilemma: how Zelenskiy can attend summit without provoking Trump
BRUSSELS, June 6 (Reuters) - Officials organising a NATO summit in The Hague this month are expected to keep it short, restrict discussion of Ukraine, and choreograph meetings so that Volodymyr Zelenskiy can somehow be in town without provoking Donald Trump.
Though the Ukrainian president is widely expected to attend the summit in some form, NATO has yet to confirm whether he is actually invited. Diplomats say he may attend a pre-summit dinner but be kept away from the main summit meeting.
Whether the brief summit statement will even identify Russia as a threat or express support for Ukraine is still up in the air.
The careful steps are all being taken to avoid angering Washington, much less provoking any repeat of February's White House blow-up between Trump and Zelenskiy that almost torpedoed the international coalition supporting Kyiv.
NATO's European members, who see Russia as an existential threat and NATO as the principal means of countering it, want to signal their continued strong support for Ukraine. But they are also desperate to avoid upsetting a volatile Trump, who stunned them at a summit seven years ago by threatening to quit the alliance altogether.
If Zelenskiy does not attend in some form, it would be "at least a PR disaster", acknowledged a senior NATO diplomat.
Since Russia's invasion three years ago, Zelenskiy has regularly attended NATO summits as the guest of honour, where alliance members pledged billions in weapons and condemned Russia for an illegal war of conquest. Leaders repeatedly promised that Ukraine would one day join NATO.
But since Washington's shift under Trump towards partly accepting Russia's justifications for the war and disparaging Zelenskiy, the 32-member alliance no longer speaks with a single voice about Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. Trump has taken Ukraine's NATO membership off the table, unilaterally granting Moscow one of its main demands.
After dressing down Zelenskiy in the Oval Office in February, Trump cut vital U.S. military and intelligence support for Ukraine for days.
Since then, the two men publicly mended fences in a meeting in St Peter's Basilica for the funeral of Pope Francis. But mostly they have spoken remotely, with Zelenskiy twice phoning the White House on speakerphone while surrounded by four friendly Europeans -- Britain's Keir Starmer, France's Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Friedrich Merz and Poland's Donald Tusk.
Trump is expected to come away from The Hague with a big diplomatic victory as NATO members heed his longstanding complaints that they do not spend enough on defence and agree a much higher target.
They are expected to boost their goal for traditional military spending to 3.5% of economic output from 2%. A further pledge to spend 1.5% on related expenses such as infrastructure and cyber defence would raise the total to 5% demanded by Trump.
But the summit itself and its accompanying written statement are expected to be unusually short, minimising the chances of flare-ups or disagreements. A pledge to develop recommendations for a new Russia strategy has been kicked into the long grass.
Meanwhile, Zelenskiy may have to be content with an invitation to a pre-summit dinner, hosted by Dutch King Willem-Alexander, diplomats say.
Unlike at NATO's previous two annual summits, the leaders do not plan to hold a formal meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, the official venue for talks between the alliance and Kyiv. The senior NATO diplomat said a working dinner with either foreign ministers or defence ministers could instead serve as an NUC.
On Wednesday, NATO boss Mark Rutte said he had invited Ukraine to the summit, but sidestepped a question on whether the invitation included Zelenskiy himself.
After meeting Rutte on Monday, Zelenskiy said on X that it was "important that Ukraine is properly represented" at the summit. "That would send the right signal to Russia," he said.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials did not reply to questions about the nature of any invitation to Ukraine.
Some European countries are still willing to say in public that they hope to see Zelenskiy invited as the head of the Ukrainian delegation.
Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said he would like to see a "delegation led by President Zelenskiy". Asked about an invitation for Zelenskiy, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said "I, for my part, strongly welcome the invitation" without giving further details.
But diplomats have tried to play down the importance of the formal status of Zelenskiy's role: "Many allies want to have Zelenskiy at the summit, but there is flexibility on the precise format that would allow his presence," said a second senior NATO diplomat.
A senior European diplomat said: "We should not get stuck on 'NUC or no NUC'. If he comes to the leaders' dinner, that would be the minimum."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
The Trump and Musk spat is turning them both into billion-dollar losers in every way
The boys are going at it. Like two heavies in the playground, the once richest man on Earth and one who thinks he is the most powerful are locked in a scrap. It's a bloke thing. Not long ago, the former bros used to spark off each other, rib each other while jointly belittling everyone else. Now the jocks, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, are grappling and so closely entwined were they and the organisations they lead, there can be no winner. It's possible that peace may prevail, but for how long? They've repeatedly raised the ante, which in male lore means backing down and letting bygones be bygones will be difficult. The fallout will hit them both. Trump says that Musk and his companies receive 'billions and billions of dollars' in government subsidies and contracts. He could cut them. 'I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it,' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. One estimate puts the total that Musk's two main businesses, SpaceX and Tesla, receive in public benefits at $38bn (£28bn). SpaceX president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, has said its tally alone is $22bn. The exact combined figure may never be known because many of the deals between Musk's firms and Washington are classified. For his part, Musk is the heaviest donor to the Republicans, giving $200m to the GOP. There was more. Musk said he would support Maga candidates in local primaries, to the tune of $10m a pop, against sitting Republicans, should they dare to oppose Trump. Meanwhile, Musk's space rockets fly Nasa astronauts to the orbiting shuttle – without that service, the Americans would have to do the diplomatically unthinkable and seek the wholesale assistance of Russia and its Soyuz vehicles. It's likely the love-in was always destined to fail. Trump demands complete adulation, any dissenters are quickly shown the door. Musk, for all his admiration of the president, disagreed with him profoundly on a number of key issues. In order for his companies to stay ahead and to keep reinventing and innovating, Musk must attract the best brains. Whatever Trump alleges, they do not all exist in America, Musk needs to draw talent from overseas. That ran up against Trump's anti-immigration policy. Musk is a renewable energy evangelist, he made his name with the high-performance Tesla electric car. Trump is anything but, clinging to the belief that fossil fuels still rule and have a future. Likewise, Musk's products rely on imported parts and materials. Trump has kiboshed global supply lines and delivered large-scale uncertainty with his adherence to new tariffs. Musk's position on these was well known. He said so, and Trump tolerated him. After all, he was doing the White House 's bidding on Doge, slashing perceived governmental waste. Trump was happy for him to take the rap, to be the fall guy or poster boy, depending on how it was viewed. Musk's Maga popularity may have soared, but among his investors and consumers, it plummeted. Both men are characterised by a stubborn refusal to climb down and a belief in their own might. Musk pressed on, regardless. They also speak their minds, as they find, again, convinced of their own brilliance. There was so much that Trump was prepared to forgive, but it was when Musk openly criticised Trump's central tax bill that the gloves finally came off. It is a priority of Trump's second term, and the measure requires congressional Republican backing to get through. By hailing it a 'disgusting abomination', Musk was sowing doubt among possible GOP waverers, and that simply would not do. The new distance between them was noticed, and the rot set in. Musk was exiting the building. The president exhibited his usual pettiness, so what sent Musk ballistic was when an ally had his nomination to run Nasa withdrawn. That pal, Jared Isaacman, came out and said he was a victim of revenge – his nomination was revoked on the very day that the 'first buddy' was saying his White House goodbyes. Far from damping down the speculation as to why his appointment was suddenly off, Isaacman raised it. 'I mean, people can draw their own conclusions, but I think the directions people are going in seems to check out to me,' he said. Isaacman was not any other candidate – the billionaire had been a close collaborator with Musk ever since he led the first chartered passenger flight on SpaceX in 2021. Musk, understandably, was riled. Now it was personal. Since then, we've been treated to the spectacle of gladiatorial combat, albeit resorting to childish insults as weapons. But each man has plenty to lose. Trump is a brooder; he does not forget easily, and Musk may have overstepped a mark by alerting the world's media and social media to something that might or might not be contained in confidential files regarding Epstein and Trump. That may just prove unforgivable. Certainly, in the absence of an explanation, the accusation could return to haunt Trump. There may be one. It could be trivial and of little consequence. Musk may merely have been having fun, being provocative, and he hasn't presented anything to substantiate the allegation. But until we know, we cannot be sure, and the gossip will continue. Meanwhile, Trump's longtime ally Steve Bannon suggested that the president 'should sign an executive order calling for the Defense Production Act and seize SpaceX'. And the President himself was said to be planning on dispensing with all traces of Elon Musk, including the Tesla he bought at full price in March. It's perverse that they should be reduced to this. But two large, bristling personalities, possessors of machismo in abundance, were probably always going to find sharing the same small classroom an enormous challenge. Despite deploying all the cynical disregarding and showboating they could muster, it was insurmountable and could come at an enormous cost.
Telegraph
27 minutes ago
- Telegraph
How Europe could go ‘Mega' by 2027
Poland's new president is a Trump-inspired nationalist. The government in the Netherlands has just been felled by an anti-migrant firebrand. Right-wing parties are already in government in Hungary and Italy, and in Berlin, the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the main opposition after it was endorsed by JD Vance and Elon Musk in the February elections. As Europe begins a cycle of crucial elections over the next two and a half years, the radical insurgent Right has the momentum. By 2027, there could be eight nationalist prime ministers in the 27-member-strong European Union, which has already swung to the Right. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's White House is determined to 'Make Europe Great Again'. Allies in the right places could prove very useful to Mr Trump, who accuses the EU of trying to 'screw' the US on trade and through the regulation of American technology firms. If 2027 is the year Europe does indeed go 'Mega', there will be serious ramifications for EU policies on migration, Ukraine and net zero, as well as a push to assert national leadership over Brussels. Experts believe this week's win in Poland and ructions in the Netherlands will bolster the 'Mega' wing in Europe with proof of concept. 'I don't believe in domino effects, but I do believe in a demonstration effect,' said Pawel Zerka, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. In other words, people in other countries are aware of and influenced by politics elsewhere. 'The biggest demonstration effect is coming not from other European countries, but from the US,' he said. 'The election of Donald Trump gives a legitimacy boost and a confidence boost to plenty of the far-Right parties across Europe and their electorates.' Many of the parties had 'ever tighter links to the Maga movement' and 'practical support' to get better results, he said. The Netherlands Geert Wilders led his Party for Freedom (PVV) to the hard-Right's first-ever general election win in November 2023. But the 'Dutch Trump' was forced to sacrifice his dream of being prime minister in coalition talks after his shock victory on a platform of 'zero asylum'. This time, he would become prime minister, he told reporters in The Hague, as he vowed to once again defeat the establishment conservative and Left-wing parties in October. The shock-headed populist may struggle to repeat the trick, or to find willing coalition partners, after toppling the government for not backing his hardline migration plans. Current polls have him with a narrow lead of one percentage point over the Left-wing GroenLinks-PvdA. But Mr Wilders was enjoying highs of 50 per cent before forming a coalition government that struggled to implement its strictest ever asylum policy. He is banking on those numbers recovering, and White House officials have already made clear he has Mr Trump's backing. With enough vote share, he could form a new conservative coalition with the pro-business VVD, provided it also posts strong results. Tellingly, its leader has not yet ruled out a second alliance with Mr Wilders. Poland Mr Trump hosted Karol Nawrocki at the White House before the Law and Justice-backed former historian won a knife-edge victory on June 1. The role of president is largely ceremonial in Poland, but it comes armed with the power of veto over new legislation. Law and Justice (PiS) won the popular vote (35.4 per cent), but fell short of a majority at the last general election in Poland. Donald Tusk, who won 30.7 per cent of the vote, cobbled together a large and unwieldy centrist coalition to take power. Since then, prime minister Tusk has sought to steer Poland back to the European mainstream. His reforms, including the liberalisation of some of Europe's strictest abortion laws, are set to be frustrated by Mr Nawrocki's vetoes. Mr Tusk has called for a vote of confidence on June 11 to shore up his restive coalition, which is trailing PiS in the polls. Even if that passes, it looks very unlikely his government will survive to the end of its term in 2027, and while it is unclear who the PiS's candidate could be in the next general election, a hard-Right prime minister is not unlikely. Czech Republic Businessman turned politician Andrej Babis is leading in the surveys – consistently polling about 30 per cent – ahead of October's general election in the Czech Republic. The last election saw him lose to a Conservative-Liberal coalition by just a handful of votes. Babis's party, ANO, obtained 27.13 per cent of the vote, while Spolu, which leads the coalition of the current government, won 27.79 per cent of the vote. If he scrapes together a few more votes, the populist will become prime minister for the second time. During his first spell in office, he donned a Trump-style red baseball cap. A Babis victory would mean that he, and potentially Mr Wilders, would join the highly influential European Council, which meets regularly in Brussels to give the EU institutions political direction. At present, the hard-Right have Italy's Giorgia Meloni and Hungary's Viktor Orban in the room, but their numbers could double by the end of the year to include Mr Babis and Mr Wilders. Hungary (2026) Mr Orban nailed his colours to Mr Trump's mast a long time ago and is a darling of American conservatives. The EU's longest-serving prime minister is looking to win a fifth consecutive term in office in elections in 2026. In 2022, his party obtained 54.13 per cent of the vote – the highest vote share obtained by any party in Hungary since the fall of Communism in 1989. His policies, such as laws insisting Hungary only legally recognises two genders, have drawn praise and emulation from Maga supporters. But he has angered Western EU member states by opposing sanctions on the Kremlin and banning gay pride marches. Mr Orban is currently the most vocal nationalist leader in calling for pan-European alliances of hard-Right parties to radically reform the EU. His party is in a European Parliament alliance with the parties led by Mr Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Ms Meloni's coalition partner Matteo Salvini, and Spain's Vox. Sweden (2026) Prime minister Ulf Kristersson's coalition is propped up by the hard-Right Sweden Democrats, which remains formally outside of government despite coming second in a 2022 election dominated by fears over immigration and crime. The far-Right nearly doubled their vote share between 2014 and 2022, from 12.86 per cent to 20.54 per cent, which is largely down to the Sweden Democrats. The Sweden Democrats have exerted considerable influence over the government and its agenda. The question is whether voters will give Jimmie Akesson enough of a mandate to finally bust the taboo that has so far kept a party partially founded by Nazi sympathisers from being formally in government. Italy (2027) Giorgia Meloni has emerged as a genuine stateswoman since she took power in 2022, and experts believe her example of government has made the hard-Right in Europe more credible. She has kept her Right-wing coalition together, which is no easy task in Italy. She positioned herself as a mediator between the EU and Mr Trump while successfully spearheading a drive to get Brussels' tacit backing for offshore migrant detention camps. Thanks to her, the Italian hard-Right's vote share has risen from just 1.97 per cent in 2013 to 27.2 per cent in 2022, and she will be optimistic of another victory in 2027's general election. She has much in common politically with Mr Orban, but they are divided over Ukraine, which has split the European hard-Right. She shares a European political party with Poland's Law and Justice, which is hawkish on Russia and will be contesting the general election in 2027 if Mr Tusk's vote of confidence passes next week. Spain (2027) Spain's conservatives won the popular vote – 33.1 per cent – in the last general election, but fell short of a majority. Their potential coalition allies, Vox, the far-Right and Trump allied nationalists, underperformed, obtaining just 12.4 per cent of the vote. That opened the door for socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez to assemble an extremely broad coalition of the centre-Left, communists and Catalan and Basque separatists. Polarised Spain's culture wars have only got worse in the years since the 2023 election and the start of the divisive Mr Sanchez's second term. The pardoning of Catalan separatists and political discussions with former terrorists, as well as corruption allegations about his wife and allies, could cost him in 2027. France (2027) Emmanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections, effectively daring the French to hand over power to the hard-Right, after Marine Le Pen's National Rally defeated him in the European Parliament elections last summer. National Rally did not get a majority, after a group of different parties united to keep out the hard-Right. But Mr Macron's party lost its majority in the National Assembly and has been a lame duck domestically ever since. Head of the largest single party in France, Ms Le Pen is well positioned for presidential elections in 2027, in which Mr Macron cannot stand. But Ms Le Pen was banned from running for the presidency in March after being found guilty of embezzlement. It drew immediate comparisons to the 'lawfare' waged on Mr Trump, who offered his support. She is appealing, but her protege Jordan Bardella will run in her stead if necessary. Polls are showing that either could win against Gabriel Attal, a contender to succeed Mr Macron as candidate – if they were to run. Ms Le Pen would beat him 53 per cent to 47 per cent, Bardella by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. The question is whether the 'front republican' will once again emerge in the second round of the presidential elections to keep the National Rally from power. Or, as it did this week in Poland, fall just short. The election of a Eurosceptic leader to the presidency of France, the EU's most influential member state alongside Germany, would be a political earthquake that would shake Brussels to its core. Why now? Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said the populist parties in Europe were comparing notes as they plotted their routes to power. He said: 'They use the success and failure of other parties to learn from and use in campaigns. You see a lot of copying of strategies, such as victim playing or attacking so-called elites.' In general, traditional parties had an advantage in their experience and ability to govern, he added. Mr Wilders' decision to pull the plug on his coalition was an example that proved populists were 'good at saying things, not doing them.' The parties were also 'super-unstable' and given to infighting. For Prof Krouwel, the rise of the populist Right across Europe has its roots in economic anxiety as well as fears over immigration. 'There was always an expectation that your children will do better than you. You can't say that now,' he said, adding that Dutch children were staying home far longer because they can't afford to move out. 'We are all becoming southern Europe and that is an explanation for the populist surge,' he said. Maria Skora, visiting researcher at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels, said there were certain broad trends common to many EU countries where the hard Right was on the rise. There have been 15 years of difficulties, including the eurozone and migrant crises. The pandemic was followed by the war in Ukraine and the resulting cost of living crisis. That all contributed to the sense that traditional parties were not delivering. Meanwhile, parties like the AfD were extremely effective at using social media and digital campaigning. 'It's a digital revolution, as big a revolution as you know, radio back in the day,' Ms Skora said. 'I think this feeds into this tribalism and polarisation, which we see in more countries.'
Telegraph
27 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Jeremy Hunt vs Allister Heath: ‘Starmer's EU sell-out is Gordon Brown's gold scandal on steroids'
I've visited plenty of poky parliamentary offices in my time, some little larger than cubby holes and designed without any interest in ergonomics. Jeremy Hunt's digs are something else. They are palatial, as befits a former holder of two of the greatest offices of state, and a runner-up in the contest to become Tory leader. A Spectator magazine cover takes pride of place on the wall. I can't avoid doing a double take. The cartoon depicts a triumphant Hunt and a defeated Boris Johnson, with the headline marvelling at the political upset of the century. Hunt notes my surprise at this extraordinary historical revisionism. He explains that it was an unpublished draft produced just in case and gifted to him by the Speccie's former editor Fraser Nelson, following his defeat in the 2019 Conservative leadership contest. I like Hunt, even though we have jousted over the years and despite his conviction that I'm an incorrigible purveyor of declinism. A former chancellor, foreign secretary and health secretary, he is now on a mission to convince Britain not only that our country can be great again, but that we retain far more power, wealth and influence than we realise. He believes the world needs us to be successful and engaged, fighting for free trade, defence, the environment and human rights. I wanted to read Hunt's new book to find out which kind of optimist he is. The good news is that he is no Panglossian, convinced, like Candide's glib tutor in Voltaire's masterpiece, that all is already for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Centrist dad types often fall into that delusional category, citing long-run GDP figures or life-expectancy data to lecture us that we have no right to moan about anything. Instead, Hunt can best be described as a rational optimist, to adapt a phrase coined by British writer Matt Ridley, somebody who accepts that the world is in a bad place but who is aware of what is still going right and believes that what has gone wrong can be repaired. His book, Can We Be Great Again? Why a Dangerous World Needs Britain, is extremely readable, and an excellent, nuanced contribution to what the UK's role should be in today's multipolar world. 'Because I put up taxes, there was this view that I was happy for taxes to go up' Given that title, I point out, if Britain isn't great today, that must in part be the fault of his government. 'If I was going to look back over 14 years, were we as transformative as Margaret Thatcher?' Hunt responds. 'No, but in our defence, we had to deal with three global shocks: the financial crisis, Covid and a 1970s-style energy shock. We did the one thing everyone expects from Conservative governments, which is to take the tough decisions to right the economic ship,' he says. As a result, 'There were lots of other things that we didn't do.' He is proud that, during his tenure as Chancellor, inflation fell back dramatically, and that he managed to increase defence spending. He also has regrets: 'My biggest disappointment was that we didn't go further, faster on welfare reform and getting taxes down. My biggest personal failure was not getting a message across that the Conservatives really did want to bring down the tax burden. Because I put up taxes, there was this view that I was happy for taxes to go up.' That is to profoundly misunderstand his belief system, Hunt maintains. He highlights his reductions to National Insurance, and his introduction of full expensing for corporate capital spending. 'I am a small-state conservative for principled reasons to do with the fact that governments should expropriate the minimum possible for its citizens, but also because of the practical reason that the fastest-growing economies are the ones with the lowest tax rates.' The language is noteworthy: many of his colleagues aren't interested in political philosophy, and have become unused to talking about economics, preferring to focus exclusively on culture wars. Unlike many Tories, Hunt isn't scared to argue that the better off should be levied less too. 'I would like to bring down all levels of tax. I'm very worried about the flight of millionaires,' he says. He highlights the absurdity caused by the tapering of the personal allowance on incomes between £100,000 and £125,000 a year, an unfashionable cause but one that is hammering the incentives of professionals. 'There are lots of anomalies in the tax system, such as having [an effective] marginal rate of tax of 62 per cent over £100,000 a year. People on lower incomes also need to see that their tax bill is going down. Nigel Lawson brought down everyone's taxes.' Many on the Right – Tories, as well as, increasingly, Reform – are scared to discuss cutting spending, partly because of the realignment that has sent so many lower-income voters their way. Not so Hunt: 'Welfare reform and lower taxes are the only way that we are going to change this country, culturally, economically and fiscally.' Spending could be cut drastically. 'There were lots of problems in the benefits system in 2019, but even if we just turn the clock back five years for working-age adults, getting the benefits bill to where it was before the pandemic, we would save just under £50 billion a year.' He believes Rachel Reeves should have focused on a comprehensive reform of the benefits system rather than on the now-derailed attempt at removing pensioners' winter fuel allowance. 'The Government has used up all the capital that it might have had on what is, in Treasury terms, a relatively trivial amount of money, [saving] around £1 billion, when they could have taken the same hit for £50 billion, and would have improved work incentives.' 'We need to start trying to be the country that I know we can be' Hunt is a born-again Brexiteer, and embraces an open, Singapore-style future of globally competitive businesses and free trade. 'I didn't vote for Brexit, but I've never had any doubt that we can make a huge success of it. I see no reason why we couldn't be a completely independent, sovereign country like Canada or Australia.' He believes Keir Starmer's 'reset' was a political catastrophe. 'I cannot understand why the Government is agreeing to pay money into the EU. The Government cunningly didn't tell us how much they're going to pay, but it's going to be billions. They're going to have to justify cutting benefits for pensioners at the same time as increasing payments to the EU.' Starmer's sell-out will have cut-through, Hunt believes. 'It is going to be Chagos on steroids, Gordon Brown's gold scandal on steroids. It's a very big political mistake. Why would a sovereign country pay to do a reciprocal trade deal? Canada wouldn't do that. Australia wouldn't do that. The United States wouldn't do that. It betrays a mentality that we are the junior partner.' This is where Hunt's rational optimism shines through. 'We have the top military in Europe, the top universities in Europe, the top tech sector in Europe. We have more hard and more soft power than any other European country. We are an equal partner.' This goes to the heart of Hunt's thesis. 'We need to get back our self-confidence. The world is in an incredibly dangerous state. We've got Ukraine, Taiwan, we've got an unpredictable president in America. We've got a migration crisis. We've got so many things that are going wrong. Countries that have power or influence need to use it. Do we just hold our hands up and say we're screwed and there's nothing we can do about it because we're such a weak and ineffective country, or do we look at the facts, which are that on every single major global issue, we are one of the top 10 most powerful countries on the planet, and if we choose to, we can have a decisive influence in solving problems? We need to start trying to be the country that I know we can be.' Hunt thinks defence spending should increase. 'Three per cent is the minimum. America spends 3.4 per cent, so you probably want something along those lines.' It is usually a cliché to describe somebody as irrepressible, but that is Hunt. Nothing seems to drag him down, even irritating journalists such as myself, who spent 15 years accusing him of being too Left-wing. He always bounces back, and can take almost any criticism. He is energetic, repeatedly running the London marathon. He tries to marshal reason and facts to convince his critics, a counter-cultural approach in an era of social media attack dogs and demagogues. The son of an admiral and a father of three, 58-year-old Hunt attended Charterhouse School and was president of the Oxford University Conservative Association during Thatcherism's heyday. He had a buccaneering streak and, after a couple of years in consultancy, headed to Japan, where he learnt the language and taught English. On his return, he founded several businesses, making millions. His eyes bulge when he makes important points, a trait his enemies have mocked but that, in private, merely underlines his earnestness. Many critics of the historic catastrophe that was Britain's Covid lockdowns point to Sweden or Florida as role models. Hunt looks instead to Korea and Taiwan. 'Korea had a much more effective test and trace scheme, and quarantined people who had the virus quickly. They avoided any lockdowns at all in the first year, all the restaurants stayed open for the whole of the first year, and there was much less economic damage.' He doesn't believe lockdowns reduced the number of deaths and blames them for destroying the work ethic. This is a core Huntian value: he believes in hard work, in self-reliance, in upward mobility and in ensuring tax and red tape don't discourage it. 'The real problem with lockdowns was a cultural one. They got us out of the habit of hard work. Working from home has become a virus which is incredibly damaging to our work ethic,' he argues. He adds of lockdowns, 'They created a mentality that if there's any big problem, the state will always step in, and we are still paying the price, and the worst place of all we're paying that price is the benefits system.' He's a fan of Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms. The issue is that at around the same time, 'Britain passed a law saying there had to be parity of esteem between mental and physical health. This was a good thing for the NHS, because it needed to treat mental illness more seriously. But it was a terrible thing for the benefits system, because people realised they could increase their points and therefore their likelihood of qualifying for disability benefits or higher levels of Universal Credit. By drawing attention to mental illness, we create an incentive, not just for people to use mental illness to qualify for benefits, but for people not to get better.' Hunt is passionate about the scandal of Britain's exploding numbers of adults on out-of-work benefits. 'It is not just economically barmy. It is immoral. About half the people who are signed off having to look for work are now done so primarily for mental health reasons. If you are mentally ill, one of the most important things is social contact. The last thing you want is to condemn them to a life of daytime TV. If you have mild depression, it is likely to make it severe depression and far worse. We are doing a massive disservice to these people.' 'Which EU country would dare oppose reforms that give people control of their borders? There is a point in the life of a Tory politician when they undergo a metamorphosis. They go to bed one evening as an ex-Cabinet minister and wake up the next morning as a grandee. Hunt has completed that process, though he may not have realised it yet. Being a grandee confers a number of advantages upon the beholder. They are given a fairer hearing, and that is something Hunt certainly deserves. He was treated abominably when he was health secretary, demonised by imbeciles who should have known better. The NHS will never be well managed – it is impossible for anybody to effectively run a gigantic socialist behemoth – but it was vastly better when Hunt was at its helm than it is today. I ask him whether the NHS can still be saved as a universal, state-owned, taxpayer-funded system that is free at the point of use. 'There are a lot of social insurance systems in Europe that have better outcomes and sometimes for less money than the NHS costs us,' Hunt says. 'But I don't believe that any party will ever persuade the British people to switch to it, because the principle of the social insurance system is that everyone gets bronze-level insurance, and that's paid for by the state. But those who can pay [can opt for] silver- and gold-level insurance.' I put it to him that the NHS is in fact a bronze-level system already. He deflects my trouble-making, offering two suggestions to ensure we 'get as good a result as they get in the Netherlands or Israel on our system'. First of all, 'We've got to get rid of these national targets that have made the NHS the most centralised, micromanaged healthcare system in the world. Stalin would be proud.' His second reform would be to regionalise the NHS, making it report to locally elected mayors. More generally, Hunt's solution for economic rebirth is radical devolution. The current model hands some spending power to local authorities but does not make them responsible for raising funds, creating mismatched incentives. Power must come with accountability. 'It needs to be about local empowerment, civic leadership, giving local mayors and elected authorities the power to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.' Hunt 'favours elected mayors with four-year terms' in place of local authorities. He does not want to spread the 'grievance model' promoted by the SNP in Scotland or Sadiq Khan in London. He describes himself as a 'passionate supporter of free trade'. He says, 'Britain basically invented free trade, and the British Empire laid the foundations of the global free trade system. But we didn't make sure the benefits were spread evenly. The average wage in Manchester is some £10,000 pounds lower than the average wage in London. Boris was absolutely right to champion levelling up. The bit that was missing is that levelling up should not just be about Westminster doling out cash to left-behind regions.' Hunt, whose wife, Lucia, is Chinese-born, has a nuanced grasp of the immigration debate. 'Immigrants living here are among the strongest voices for controlling migration, partly because they are worried about social instability,' he points out. Hunt agrees the Conservatives proved too liberal on immigration. 'We allowed companies to increase their workforce by hiring cheap foreign labour, which allowed them to ignore the six million adults of working age in the UK who are not in work. That is expensive for the state and a morally bankrupt position.' His views on asylum and refugees have shifted. 'The ECHR and the 1951 Refugee Convention were written for a different age and urgently need reform, because they make it too hard to stop people coming here and too hard to get people out who shouldn't be here. Keir Starmer, a human rights lawyer, could do that with extraordinary credibility. Which European country is going to dare to oppose reforms that give people proper control of their borders? It is that kind of energy we need to see when it comes to Britain's place in the world.' In the absence of reform of the ECHR and Refugee Convention, withdrawal is the only solution. 'In the end, if we can't reform them, I would support leaving them. But the trouble with just leaving them is that you don't stop thousands of boats crossing the Mediterranean, let alone the Channel.' Ever the optimist, Hunt isn't one of those who think the Tories are about to be supplanted by Reform: 'I don't believe the Conservative Party is extinct. Our share price is low at the moment, but we'll come back because we are the only party that really understands and cares about wealth creation.' I wonder whether Hunt, who chose to step down from the shadow cabinet, may yet feel the hand of history tapping on his shoulder one more time, especially if the Tory party were to implode after next May's elections. Stranger things have happened, including when Hunt, who was preparing to wind down his career, was contacted out of the blue by Liz Truss. A message from an unrecognised number stated simply, 'Liz Truss here. Please can you give me a call.' He thought it was a trick. 'Was the prime minister really trying to contact me? Surely not. It was mid-October 2022 and she had been in Downing Street for a little over a month,' Hunt recalls. He told Lucia, 'Someone just tried to message me pretending to be Truss. I can't believe how naive people think I am. It's probably a radio show host trying a hoax call.' It was indeed the prime minister, and he was appointed Chancellor the next day. Ultra-experienced politicians who pen policy books are rarely content with becoming pundits shouting from the sidelines. Hunt is highly supportive of Kemi Badenoch and was effusive about her performance at Prime Minister's Questions on the day we met. I don't doubt his sincerity. Yet Hunt wouldn't be human if he didn't think that maybe – just maybe – he could still have something valuable to contribute to his country at the highest level.
