Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music The latest round of peace talks in Moscow between the Americans and the Russians has ended without agreement. As President Vladimir Putin talked of being ready to fight a war with Europe, attention in Westminster turned to whether the U.K. has the capability and the will to help protect Ukraine in all scenarios. While Keir Starmer flew to Scotland to announce a joint maritime operation with Norway  to ward off prowling Russian submarines in the North Atlantic, defense chiefs and MPs asked why there was so little mention of the spending commitments in the Budget — and what that means for Britain’s preparedness. This week, Anne McElvoy talks to John Foreman, who was Britain’s military attaché in Moscow between 2019 and 2022 having previously performed the same role in Kyiv; and with Esther Webber, POLITICO’s Senior Foreign and Defense Correspondent. Both have been keeping a close eye on the talks. Later she’s joined by two influential MPs to discuss Starmer’s options. James Cartlidge is the Shadow Defence Secretary, and Labour’s Calvin Bailey sits on the influential Defence Select Committee and served in the RAF for 24 years, including in Afghanistan.

LONDON — Nigel Farage wants to use Britain’s next election to hammer the government on law and order. That’s got ministers scrambling to mount a fightback. The Reform UK leader — who has already made a running on the hot-button issue of immigration — has warned that parts of Britain are facing “societal collapse.”  His right-wing populist party has been pushing the slogan “Britain is Lawless” — and now the U.K. government is planning a series of announcements to prove Farage wrong. It’s a tough ask for a government that’s trailing Farage in the polls and is presiding over public services in a state of disarray. In the coming weeks, ministers will pitch a blueprint for a major police reform as one answer to tackling street crime. Labour MPs are already sending out leaflets to constituents highlighting details of their named neighborhood police officer. The government is “making sure our streets are policed, which is something the previous government just failed to do,” Policing Minister Sarah Jones argues on this week’s POLITICO Westminster Insider podcast. Jones said the shake-up will “make sure the police are doing the things that we need them to be doing.” Farage’s claims of lawlessness can prompt an exasperated response from ministers and officials who point to statistics. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Prime Minister Keir Starmer has meanwhile put Shabana Mahmood, who dealt directly with shoplifters while working in her parents’ corner shop, in charge of delivering the message as home secretary. “I think she is absolutely the right person for this job, and I hope she’s really, really tough on it, because of her own background with her mum and dad running a shop,” said Labour peer and former political adviser Ayesha Hazarika. PERCEPTIONS MATTER Farage’s claims of lawlessness can prompt an exasperated response from ministers and officials who point to statistics, such as the Crime Survey of England and Wales, which suggest crime has broadly been falling for decades. In September, London Mayor Sadiq Khan hit back at politicians “spreading misinformation” about safety in London, highlighting data showing a fall in violent crime in the capital. That came after U.S. President Donald Trump, an ally of Farage, said “crime in London is through the roof.” But MPs — and ministers too — caution against being dismissive of voters’ lived experience. The narrative that crime is going down in London “infuriates my constituents,” said Margaret Mullane, the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham, part of Greater London.  “It’s the personal experience, isn’t it? So if you hear that, you’ll think: Well that’s not my experience when I’m going in and out of work, or I’m popping up to Tesco, not that late in the evening, and I don’t feel safe.” Hazarika, who has spoken about the issue in the House of Lords, said: “I think it is a real issue, and I do think it’s contributing to people really feeling like the country is broken when they see so much antisocial behavior.” Hazarika’s parliamentary interventions have been informed by her own experience in Brixton, where she is part of a community group called Action on Anti-Social Behavior. The group was set up because of local concerns that included rife drug-taking, people defecating in public, violence against shopworkers and brazen shoplifting.  While rejecting Farage’s “lawless” characterization, Jones accepts there is work to be done. “It is undoubtedly the case that there is a bit of a mismatch on some of the perceptions versus the reality, but I think if you walk through the streets and you see rubbish in the streets, you can smell cannabis, you talk to a shopkeeper who’s just had somebody steal something, your bike gets stolen and the police don’t come and talk to you about it, of course that’s not right, and we need to fix all of those things,” she said.  DELIVERING ON THE PROMISE “There will be a steady drumbeat of stuff coming up,” said one government official involved in discussions about the strategy, who was not authorized to speak on the record. “We’ve got to make a really persuasive case about the work that is going on to combat [street crime].”  Reform UK can “whinge all they want,” the official said. “We’re focused on governing and getting our heads down and really trying to solve this problem, as opposed to shouting from the sidelines.” The upcoming announcements are likely to be focused on police reform — not on big spending. | George Wood/Getty Images But the upcoming announcements are likely to be focused on police reform — not on big spending. Police chiefs warned in June that their funding settlement from the Treasury would not be enough to fund the government’s ambitions. Instead, there’s been reallocation. The government has already announced plans to ax directly elected police and crime commissioners — who have spent the past decade setting budgets, appointing chief constables and producing policing plans, but with limited democratic take-up. That role will be transferred to existing mayors or council leaders in a bid to “cut the cost of unnecessary bureaucracy” and invest back in the front lines. Alastair Greig, research analyst for the Organised Crime and Policing Team (OCP) at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said it was important to recognize the “prioritization and the policy decisions that are involved if police decide to really meaningfully crack down on this street crime.“ “People that are pushing the narrative of British lawlessness and pointing to these low-level crimes need to be aware that if their proposals are acted on, then we may well see increases in other forms of serious and violent crime,” he warned. Still, ministers believe reordering police priorities can really start to alter public perceptions. “By reforming policing so that our police can focus on those physical crimes, respond to people, not necessarily always solve the crime, but keep people informed, tell them what they’re doing and let them know, then I think people will start to feel safer,” Jones argued. With Farage breathing down their necks, ministers need all the help they can get.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Politicians in Westminster are always falling all over themselves to sound tough on crime. But with so-called “low level” crimes like shoplifting and phone snatching now at record levels, the rhetoric on “lawless” Britain has been growing ever louder. This week, host Patrick Baker has been to Dagenham in outer London where the Labour MP Margaret Mullane says she fears parts of her local area are being overrun with street crime. After speaking to local residents and shop owners about their fears, Patrick speaks to the Policing Minister Sarah Jones in Parliament about how the government is planning to cut crime and make people feel safer. Gavin Stephens, chief of the National Police Chief’s Council, sets out why he believes Westminster’s obsession with police numbers makes policing harder and what reforms he feels are needed tackle the worsening perception of crime in Britain. And Andrew Greig of the security think tank RUSI explains how social media is amplifying public fears — and says policy makers face tough tradeoffs when trying to tackle crime.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Does anyone care about British farmers? Those ploughing the fields and harvesting crops certainly don’t feel Westminster pays attention to them. So this week Westminster Insider finds out how the relationship between politics and farming – from post-Brexit trade deals to inheritance tax. She speaks to NFU President Tom Bradshaw about how Keir Starmer set up the promise of hope for farmers, before swiftly letting them down. Michael Gove, editor of the Spectator and former Conservative Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) Secretary, admits the Australia trade deal did betray Britain’s farmers. Emma Pryor, former special advisor to Defra Secretary George Eustice, explains how subsidies, which mean farmers can make a profit on producing food, changed after Brexit. And Sascha heads to rural South West Norfolk, where she speaks to Terry Jermy, the Labour MP who ousted Liz Truss. He tells her the new rules on inheritance tax are “unfortunate” and he hopes they are changed. Sascha gets on a tractor harvesting potatoes and speaks to farmers Danielle and Richard Gott. And she visits a farm run by Ed Pope which has turned 170 acres of the property into wildlife conservation. This episode was produced by Robert Nicholson and Artemis Irvine at Whistledown Productions.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music With Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party suffering some teething problems, host Patrick Baker delves into the art of starting a new political outfit. Corbyn himself speaks to POLITICO’s Bethany Dawson at one of the many Your Party regional assemblies happening across the country. With tensions between Corbyn and co-leader Zarah Sultana simmering as the duo try to get their start up off the ground, Labour insider Sienna Rodgers of The House magazine explains the roots of the discord and how rival factions have been undermining the party’s progress at an early stage. Patrick sits down with former Change UK MP Gavin Shuker in Nando’s, site of one of the now-extinct party’s early summits, to discuss the pitfalls of starting a new venture in Westminster. Journalist Catherine Mayer, who co-founded the Women’s Equality Party alongside comedian Sandi Toksvig, lifts the lid on the curious underworld of smaller political parties and the outsized impact they can have on our politics. Professor Alan Sked, the founder of UKIP, tells the story of arguably the U.K.’s most consequential political newbie and describes how he slowly lost control of the party to Nigel Farage. And Reform UK board member and Farage’s former press secretary Gawain Towler sets out how he believes the U.K.’s current insurgent can complete its journey from newcomer to party of power.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Liz Truss is never far from the shores of the United States, hobnobbing with the folk seeking to “Make America Great Again.” What does she think Britain can learn from the second Trump era? Anne McElvoy travels to Washington to talk to the former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss, who’s on a self-proclaimed “mission” to remake the U.K. in the image of MAGA-land. It’s exactly three years since she left Downing Street after just 49 days in office following a mini-budget that sent the markets into freefall — and has haunted  her party ever since. In a wide-ranging interview, Truss tells Anne that the Green Party might end up being the official opposition party after the next general election and argues that voters are sick of “technocratic managerial crap” in politics. She insists that she will foreseeably not be joining Reform UK, despite criticizing her own party’s record in office. Truss also pours scorn on both Kemi Badenoch’s leadership of her old party and the Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whom she blames for an impending economic crisis.

WASHINGTON — Former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss thinks the Green Party might end up becoming the official opposition after the next election. In an interview with POLITICO’s Anne McElvoy for the Westminster Insider podcast, Truss said “I think there’s a certain kind of honesty about the Green Party that you don’t see in the Labour Party,” adding that people are sick of “technocratic managerial crap” in politics. The former prime minister also insisted she will not be joining Reform UK in the foreseeable future, despite criticizing her own party’s record in office. She poured scorn on both Conservative chief Kemi Badenoch’s leadership of her old party and on Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Asked what she made of Reeves’ claim that Truss’ controversial mini-budget in September 2022 had contributed to Britain’s flailing economy today, making tax increases in her budget next month inevitable, Truss shot back: “I think she is a disingenuous liar. I have no time for Rachel Reeves. I don’t think she’s telling the truth about what is wrong with the British economy. I think she’s desperate … the public are now cottoning on to the fact that our country is in serious trouble.”  She also accused the Labour chancellor of having “bought the narrative of the Bank of England [about the dangers of the Truss mini-budget], which was a false narrative. Now she is being hung on her own petard.” The government has returned to the Conservatives’ economic record in preparation for a likely tax-raising budget next month, claiming this week that “things like austerity, the cuts to capital spending and Brexit have had a bigger impact on our economy than was even projected back then.”  Truss took issue with this assertion. “It is ludicrous to blame Brexit for a 30-year problem,” she said. “These arguments, like the mini-budget or Brexit or austerity, they’re just distractions from what the real problems are.” Speaking to POLITICO, Badenoch’s leadership of the Conservative Party also came in for a lengthy pasting from one of her recent predecessors. “I don’t believe the Conservative Party has come to terms with why we were kicked out after fourteen years,” Truss insisted. “What I was trying to do was shift the Conservative Party into the nationalist space. And what I faced was huge resistance from the Conservative blob who actually want to kowtow to the woke agenda. They want to be part of the transgender ideology, green climate change stuff.” Badenoch, she believes, still needs to choose more decisively “between representing places like Rotherham and Norfolk on the one hand and places like Surrey and Henley-on-Thames on the other. They haven’t chosen, and that’s a fundamental issue. And what Nigel Farage has done is he has moved into that space. That’s an existential threat for the Conservative Party.” But she had an optimistic assessment of the outlook for the Greens, reenergized under Zack Polanski’s leadership. “People don’t want this kind of technocratic managerial crap anymore. [Polanski] might end up leader of the opposition at this rate,” she said. “I think there’s a certain kind of honesty about the Green Party that you don’t see in the Labour Party … because there’s nothing for people to believe in.” Truss was speaking during a trip to Washington, D.C. and Virginia, where she met with leading figures from the conservative MAGA movement. In an extensive interview, Truss hinted, however, that her position could change when it comes to staying above the party fray. Asked how she saw Reform, she retorted: “I’m not offering my services,” even if there is a chance of bumping into its leader, Farage, who enjoys close links with U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House. However, she didn’t shut the door on some alignment with Reform: “I’m doing what I’m doing on an independent basis for now … reaching out to people, to network and to understand the lie of the land. I’m not going to say … my definite plans for the future.”  Truss resigned three years ago after just 49 days — the shortest period in office of any British prime minister. After losing her seat in last year’s general election, she has made regular visits to the U.S., attending right-wing conferences and conventions where she has praised Trump. Last week she joined a roster of Christian conservatives who support the MAGA movement. She spoke at a business summit at Liberty University in Virginia, founded by the late televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell, alongside Gen. Mike Flynn, the former national security adviser to Trump, whose stump speeches described a Manichean fight between good and evil and Trump as the nation’s savior. Reflecting on the event afterward, Truss told McElvoy: “There’s a huge amount we can learn from [Trump] and what is happening in America and the MAGA revolution in the U.K. and Europe.”  Asked if she identified with the more fundamentalist view of religion and politics of the evangelical pro-Trump activists, she described her work “mission” to remake the U.K. and said:  “I think the [Church of England] needs to be restored to its former glory … it needs serious change.” Even Badenoch, who has fought “woke”  institutions and now wants to abandon the Climate Change Act, remains in hock to “modernizers” who Truss believes still control the party. But she had a positive word for Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick’s recent plan to restore the lord chancellor’s direct role in appointing judges. “I did agree with his policy on that — he’s right about it.” Liz Truss said she is “not offering services” to Reform UK, even if there’s a chance of bumping into its leader, Nigel Farage, who enjoys close links with U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House. | Neil Hall/EPA Truss remains defiant about the circumstances of her resignation as prime minister. She admitted to having been “upset to be deposed,” but was dismissive of her detractors and the jokes about her premiership being outlasted by a supermarket lettuce. “The people who joke about it or take the mick … I mean if I had been just a truly kind of mediocre, incompetent prime minister, I wouldn’t have been deposed. We’ve had plenty of those. I was deposed because people didn’t like my agenda and they wanted to get rid of me. “We’ve had years and years of pantomime personality politics, like Angela Rayner’s tax bill. And it doesn’t actually change the fact that the country is going down the tubes. And until the public and journalists understand where power and the British system actually lies and start to challenge it, start to question it … nothing will change.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music U.S. President Donald Trump is in town next week for an unprecedented second state visit to the U.K.  The sacking of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s Ambassador to Washington, following the revelations about the extent of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, could not have provided a more awkward backdrop for the visit.  Shorn of his “Trump whisperer,” and badly bruised by recent events, the prime minister needs to make the most of the opportunity after deploying the ultimate diplomatic move.  The U.K. is looking to make progress on a whole host of thorny issues, including trade and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. This week on Westminster Insider, host Patrick Baker explores what the British state has up its sleeve when it comes to charming foreign dignitaries into giving the U.K. what it wants. Theresa May’s former Chief of Staff Gavin Barwell explains the jeopardy attached to Trump’s dealings with the press when he’s abroad, and the stress involved in trying to minimize the U.S. president’s exposure to any protests. Esther Webber, POLITICO’s senior foreign and defense correspondent, takes us through what’s at stake with this Trump visit, and reveals how the royal family are set to be deployed to woo a U.S. president known for his love of pomp and pageantry. Robert Hardman, the royal historian and author of “King Charles III: The inside story,” reveals the U.K.’s long and storied history of inviting controversial world leaders on state visits, leveraging the mesmerizing power of the monarchy as the ultimate diplomatic weapon. Grant Harrold, a former royal butler to King Charles, explains the importance of etiquette to the royals, and takes us through what Trump can expect at the glittering state banquet. Former Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell lifts the lid on what it’s like to be entrusted as guardian of the Government’s vast wine cellar, and how the finest claret is served up to heads of state to lubricate potentially difficult political discussions. And Kate Fall, former deputy chief of staff to David Cameron, recounts her former boss taking China’s President Xi for pints at the pub on a 2015 state visit.

As President Donald Trump arrives in the U.K. for his unprecedented second state visit, officials involved in his first say there are tried and tested strategies the palace and No. 10 can deploy to manage an unpredictable U.S. leader with a record of causing controversy in Britain. Here’s what they told POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast about keeping things on track.  ‘PLEASE DON’T DO THAT, IT WOULD UPSET THE QUEEN‘ King Charles and the royal family represent the U.K.’s best hope of taming Trump during his stay. That’s according to former International Development Minister Alan Duncan, who served under former Prime Minister Theresa May and attended the last state visit. Duncan remembered: “The challenge was to persuade the president that this is a visit of state dignity, not of political comment.”  He said that last time a “great weapon” had been to say, “Oh, please don’t do that, it would upset the queen.”  The powerful aura of the royal family, Duncan said, ensured Trump “behaved faultlessly.” Though now of course Trump’s opposite number is the king, who Duncan predicts “will handle it brilliantly.” The former Conservative minister told the podcast that it’s when Trump is most enamored with the royal family that those in government have the best chance of making a breakthrough on political matters. “The hope would be that Trump is enjoying basking in the beauty of it all, and that perhaps you can just say, ‘Thank you so much for coming, Mr. President, and oh, you’ve been absolutely fantastic, by the way, can you…?’” But, he advised, keep the demands simple: “Don’t over-ram it. Just see if you can bank something you want to.” GET TRUMP ONE-ON-ONE  Gavin Barwell was May’s chief of staff during Trump’s previous state visit in 2019. He remembered how the No. 10 team was on high alert due to the events that occurred in the president’s U.K. trip the previous year, which wasn’t a full state visit (though there were royal engagements involving the queen).   On that 2018 tour, before a Trump-May bilateral meeting scheduled at the prestigious Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, the U.S. president had given an interview to the Sun newspaper criticizing May’s Brexit proposals. The intervention could not have come at a worse time for the embattled May, who was trying to convince the right of her party to support her vision of Brexit. Former International Development Minister Alan Duncan said that last time a “great weapon” had been to say, “Oh, please don’t do that, it would upset the queen.” | STR pool photo/EPA Barwell told Westminster Insider that he and his team were despondent — and suspected that some prominent pro-Brexit politicians may have “got to him” before Trump came over. But the former aide said that despite the difficult press that morning, the prime minister was confident she would be able to talk Trump round during their meeting at Blenheim. And it worked.  “Once he was here, he was actually sweetness and light,” said Barwell, who described Trump as “charming” in person. “When he was with Theresa and she talked him through how she saw things, he was uber polite at the press conference afterwards.” Trump dismissed the reports of his criticism as “fake news” at the Blenheim press conference and publicly stated his support for the prime minister.  It’s unclear whether Trump will do another bombshell interview during his visit, or whether he has learned to make fewer interventions into British domestic politics this time around.  But if his criticism of London Mayor Sadiq Khan this summer is anything to go by, Trump is as freewheeling as ever when it comes to making things awkward for his hosts. Barwell said he believes Trump “genuinely has a warmth for this country” but that “it’s not always replicated in what he does in policy terms.” AVOID ANGRY BRITISH VOTERS No. 10 insiders say Britain’s best hopes of diplomatic progress are to make the president feel as welcome as possible.  But as is the case every time Trump is in town, his arrival is expected to be met with protests on the streets of London. While the giant diaper-wearing balloon that greeted him in his first term was great for TV news pictures, if you are at the center of the No. 10 operation, avoiding traps like the blimp and accompanying demonstrations presents difficult logistical challenges.  Barwell advised: “Focus the visit on locations where those things are not right in his face, and that means for example not being in central London.” He added: “I think we did that very effectively with the first visit and I’m pretty confident the same thing is going to happen this time around.” But as is the case every time Trump is in town, his arrival is expected to be met with protests on the streets of London. | Andy Rain/EPA With Buckingham Palace undergoing restoration works and parliament in recess for party conference season, Trump will be steering clear of London and will not be addressing MPs in Westminster. Duncan believes this is “quite fortuitous.” He told the podcast: “It only takes one MP to shout and scream for it to be a quick flip from triumph into disaster.”  GIVE TRUMP WHAT HE LIKES Royal historian Robert Hardman attended Trump’s 2019 state visit and says the value of the pomp and ceremony cannot be overstated: “Once you’re inside the castle, everything will be perfect.” He anticipated the reception at Windsor. “There’ll be fresh flowers everywhere, there will be a welcome lunch and every menu will have been treble checked with the presidential chef to check it’s all the right thing.”  Though the palace might not offer Trump his much-loved McDonald’s fast food fix, Hardman does have one tip that he remembers from 2019.  On a 2018 tour, before a Trump-May bilateral meeting scheduled at the prestigious Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, the U.S. president had given an interview to the Sun newspaper criticizing Theresa May’s Brexit proposals. | Pool photo by Ben Stansall/EPA “One of the first things that President Trump was served by the late queen at the welcome lunch was doughnuts. You don’t often get doughnuts at state lunches but President Trump liked doughnuts and there they were,” Hardman said.  He added that when it comes to the royal engagements, nothing is left to chance: “It’s that kind of level of detail right through to the gifts and the banquet will look absolutely spectacular.”  Big Mac or no Big Mac, Trump, it seems fair to suggest, will be lovin’ it. 

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Zack Polanski, the self-confessed eco-populist, won the leadership of the Green Party in a landslide this week. So Westminster Insider Host Sascha O’Sullivan finds out why the Green Party have often struggled to be taken seriously in SW1. Sascha speaks to the man himself – Polanski – who tells her he is a vegan, who doesn’t drive and wants to tell “similar stories as Nigel Farage” but his will be “the truth”. She speaks to Jonathon Porritt, a Green Party veteran and former chair, who says he isn’t “completely comfortable with eco-populism”. And Natalie Bennett, Green Party peer and former leader, tells Sascha the party will have to “stir the hornet’s nest” to start to get their message across. Jürgen Klockner, senior policy reporter for POLITICO Europe, based in Berlin, takes Sascha inside the troubles of the Green Party in Germany and issues a warning to their compatriots back in the UK. “They would promise a Mercedes but turn up with an empty wallet”, he says.