Transcript: 2024 — a testing year for democracy

This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘2024: a testing year for democracy’

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Lucy Fisher
Have we ever had a year like this for democracy? Around half the world’s population are heading to the polls in 2024, including, of course, here in the UK. So what does this year have in store for politics and why are so many worried that we’re in the twilight of democracy? I’m Lucy Fisher. This is Political Fix from the FT. With me in the studio, we have a line-up of Financial Times heavyweights: Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT. Hello, Roula.

Roula Khalaf
Hello, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator. Hi, Gideon.

Gideon Rachman
Hi, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
And Political Fix regular Robert Shrimsley, the UK’s chief political commentator.

Robert Shrimsley
Hi, Lucy. Happy new year.

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Lucy Fisher
So we’ve got elections coming up in more than 70 states, kicking off with Bangladesh on Saturday; ballots in three of the world’s biggest democracies — the US, India and Indonesia — and of course, an election in the UK. We’ll come on to that, but I want to talk a bit about the global context first. Roula, the stakes feel high. I wanted to ask you in particular about the spirit of democracy in 2024. Are you hopeful that it can be revived this year? And which particular ballots are you gonna be looking out for?

Roula Khalaf
Great to be here. I think this is my first time on your podcast, a new experience for me. Revived — I don’t think democracy needs to be revived. I think that if you look historically, we are at a phase where democracy has progressed. But in the last few years we’ve been in a bit of a regression. I like to think of it more as a fertile regression. We’ll go backwards for a while, try a few different systems and realise that that’s not what we actually like. I think in general, the thirst for freedom, for social justice is as strong as ever if you look around the world, particularly in countries where there is no democracy. So I think this year, I think of it more as a test for democracy, as a test for populism as well, but I’m not depressed about it.

I think the biggest risk we face is the election in the US. That is by far the most consequential election this year. I know Americans tend to vote on domestic issues, as they should, but the US election matters to the whole world, and it matters far more this time, because the choice is between a president who believes in institutions and in democracy and an opponent who doesn’t, and who’s been tried and whose whole campaign is about undermining institutions. It’s the spirit of revenge rather than the spread of construction and of harmony. And so, obviously, I think all of us here will be looking to the US election as the biggest risk.

Lucy Fisher
Well, absolutely. And I want to come back to that in a bit more detail shortly. Gideon, can you give us some historical perspective around 2024 and how important a year this is for geopolitics? Which bouts will you be looking out for?

Gideon Rachman
Sure. Well, I mean, maybe it’s just a coincidence, but it’s a remarkably dramatic coincidence that eight of the 10 most populous countries in the world are holding elections, and the fact that they are all holding elections, even though some of those will be very flawed. Like, I don’t think anybody really doubts that Vladimir Putin will win the Russian presidential election. But the democracy remains really the aspiration of everybody. Everybody claims to be a democracy. In fact, usually you can tell a non-democratic country because they put democracy in their title — the German Democratic Republic or the Democratic Republic of Congo, neither of them democracies; or in fact, the North Koreans are the DPRK. So everybody wants to be a democracy, and that is a tribute.

But it is true that if you look at beyond pure voting, there’s been what Roula referred to a kind of democratic recession. People who try to put numbers on these things say for about 17 years, civil liberties around the world have been eroding. And so in that sense, this year is really a key test. How many of these elections will we see as genuine exercises in democracy which affirm the system? And how many of them will we look at and say, actually, that was a mess or that was a mockery? That’s really important.

And in terms of particular votes, obviously, as Roula said, the US one overshadows everything. But I’ll point to three others — Taiwan, which we’re having this month, the presidential election there will be critical because if the candidate who is regarded as pro-independence by Beijing wins as he’s expected to, that could spark a new level in the Taiwan security crisis, straits crisis. The elections in South Africa in the first half of the year could be very dramatic because it could be the first time that the African National Congress, who basically sort of fallen into disarray. They probably won’t lose outright, but they may slip below 50 per cent. So you could have a coalition government in South Africa.

And then finally, of course, the US, which we’ll talk about in more detail.

Lucy Fisher
Robert, do you share that quite optimistic assessment of the state of democracy that these warnings that we’re in the twilight of democracy are overblown? And, of course, same question to you, which ballots are you looking at?

Robert Shrimsley
I think warnings like ta, democracy are always overblown. I think the difficulty is, as Roula and Gideon both suggested, the role of the US in maintaining the liberal democratic order is so central that if that election goes the wrong way, then everybody has reasons to be concerned across the world. So it is so monumentally important compared to the others. I don’t particularly think democracy is in retreat in general terms, but it has the capacity to be badly undermined. And I think the elections I’ll pick, which are of interest, one I think, obviously, is the European parliamentary elections, which will provide a very useful barometer of the support for the populist right across Europe. Having had a period of being pushed back, it seems to be springing up again. We saw the results in the Netherlands. Particularly, we see the strength of Marine Le Pen in France. So you can see quite a big win for them in a proportional system in those elections will be very interesting. We’ll talk about the UK later.

The other one I’d mention out of a partially parochial interest is Ireland, which doesn’t technically have to have its election till next spring 2025. But all the pointers are that it will come this year. And that has the potential, if the polls are correct, to put Sinn Féin into government in Ireland for the first time, which would mean Sinn Féin was then in government both north and south for the first time. It has huge ramifications, I think, and presents big challenges for them in terms of whether they want to force a border poll, drive forward reunification, which is their central mission. The general position in Ireland has been that although all the main parties want reunification, they want it sometime soon, but not yet. It’s not certain that they get there because their poll lead has been falling, but they’re still quite well ahead of the two traditional parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. So I think Ireland is one to watch.

Lucy Fisher
I’m really glad you mentioned that because I think it’s underpriced in Westminster. How much do you think the UK government is thinking about that, planning for that scenario?

Robert Shrimsley
It’s quite hard to think that the UK government at moment is planning for anything beyond its own election. It will cross that bridge with Sinn Féin when it comes to it. Clearly, the British government is used to dealing with Sinn Féin in the North for some time. They’ve been in power sharing since it was created under the Good Friday Agreement. But I think if they were to make a border poll a priority, that changes things substantially. I mean, there are reasons for them not to. This is not at all clear, despite the strength of the nationalist vote in the North, that there is the same support for reunification. So there’s a timing issue for them. If they go too early and lose, then it’ll be another generation.

Lucy Fisher
Another ballot we’ve mentioned just in passing is in India and Roula, you clinched a rare interview with Narendra Modi at the end of last year, a fascinating interview that I’ll put in the show notes for any listeners who haven’t read it yet. Tell us a bit about what we can expect there and the rise of Hindu nationalism. Does a Modi government present an ongoing opportunity or challenge for the west?

Roula Khalaf
Both an opportunity and a challenge, I would say. The issue in India is that under Modi, the economic picture has improved. It is today India’s moment, in a sense, partly because of geopolitics, partly because everyone is looking for an alternative to China. At the same time, I think that the west has largely overlooked the domestic political situation in India, where there is increased repression, a lot of pressure on the media, on civil society and on the opposition. Now, the opposition for the coming poll is more united than usual, but I don’t think that the expectation is that they would be able to make a huge difference. Modi is hugely popular, and his advisers are hoping that they will get a supermajority this time, which would mean that there could be changes to the constitution, which he denies and his people deny. In fact, when you talk to him, he is extremely proud of the fact that India is the world’s largest democracy. He talks about democracy a lot and denies that there is any real problem because, you know, he does have a lot of popular support, huge popular support. So that’s definitely an election we will be watching very closely.

Robert Shrimsley
What are the consequences if you were to get that in terms of the policies of Hindu supremacism that he’s been advancing so much?

Roula Khalaf
I don’t think it’s so much necessarily about Hindu supremacism. It is more that whether he can change the constitution and stay on for much longer, it is also about whether that will allow him to, to make, you know, more changes in the judicial system. I mean, what we’re always looking at when we’re trying to assess the health of a democracy is the health of institutions. And although in India today, the civil society and the media are under tremendous pressure, the judiciary is still seen to be largely independent. And that is something that needs to be preserved. The military as well, though, that’s another institution that we closely look at.

Lucy Fisher
Well, let’s move on to the US and the health of institutions there, Gideon. I mean, I think there’s just so much confusion even about how the campaign is going to play out. Are you confident that Biden and Trump are even going to be the main candidates for the two parties?

Gideon Rachman
I’m reasonably confident. Yeah, I think it does look like Trump is very difficult to stop to win the Republican nomination. And it’s very, very late, maybe too late now for Biden to step aside and for the Democrats to have a new contest. I mean, he could become very seriously ill. Either of them could, and that could change it. But I think, you know, I’d put it at probably 80 per cent that it will be Biden versus Trump.

But I think that, you know, this is such an extraordinary election in so many ways, most basically because you have the leading candidate. If you look at the bookmakers, Trump is now the favourite. He’s ahead of Biden in the opinion polls and that’s reflected in the betting markets. But he is also essentially on trial for having attempted to stage a coup d’etat. And that is just sort of extraordinary in what is the, you know, the leader of the free world and a sort of stain on America’s soft power, I think, which then will be very hard to get rid of.

And then if you look at the various scenarios that could play out. I mean, obviously I don’t think I’d make any bones about it — most sort of liberal, you know, believers in democracy would want Biden to win. But, you know, the problems don’t end if he were to win because I can’t see Trump accepting that under almost any circumstances. I think he would say it’s rigged, etc. And that raises the prospect of sort of civil turmoil. Trump winning, I don’t think Biden would dispute the election, but I think you could have some trouble on the streets because America is so polarised right now and, you know, it would depend how it played out.

And then of course, for the world, if Trump does win, well then, a whole new set of issues emerges. Is America still the anchor of the system? That has a couple of facets. Firstly, it has played this role as the exemplar of democracy. Will it continue to do that? Will it continue to support democracies around the world? Because Trump has been very hostile, actually, to the liberal democracies in the European Union, got on very badly with Germany and so on, very close to people like Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who is seen as undermining the democratic systems of Europe, very ambiguous relationship with Vladimir Putin. So there’s that.

And then I think, finally, America’s security role, which is connected to this idea of it being the defender of democracy around the world. It has this huge network of security alliances with democracies in Asia, in Europe. If Trump were to pull America out of Nato, and his former national security adviser, John Bolton, says he’s pretty sure he would, well, what does that do for the other democracies? Not just looking at America as an example, but as a protector? What happens then? So these are huge questions, all of which, you know, are riding on this US election.

Lucy Fisher
What does happen then, Robert, if Trump pulls out of Nato, particularly for the UK?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, I mean, for the UK and for all of the countries of western Europe, you first up have them facing up to the realities of having to pay for their own defence, which not enough of them do and not enough of them do at anything like the level. You would immediately face pressure for them to increase their defence budgets considerably at times when a lot of them don’t have that much money to spend. There would need to be some form of recalibrated political co-operation. It would be a very interesting position for Britain to be in, obviously, as it’s now outside of the European Union. It would want to be an active participant in the defence of western Europe, one of only two major military powers in Europe. So that has very, very substantial consequences if it goes that far. And obviously, it has direct consequence in Ukraine, where you would wonder the extent to which European nations felt able to carry the burden of support for Ukraine by themselves, but equally aware of the danger of letting Ukraine lose.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And you could see it without wishing to be too catastrophist about it. If you have Russia making progress in Ukraine and maybe significant progress by the end of the year, and Trump just elected saying he might pull America out of Nato, you’d have a full-scale sense of a security crisis in Europe.

Roula Khalaf
But what he would probably do is just say whatever is yours is yours to Russia. I mean, that is the biggest risk for Ukraine, is that he just draws a line in the sand if he’s elected. So, I mean, if Ukraine is worried about a stalemate, essentially he would move the stalemate into a Russian victory when that is the biggest risk that Europe is facing when it comes to a Trump election.

Gideon Rachman
I think then the Europeans would also worry that, OK, you know, Putin might not stop there. You know, he might then . . . 

Roula Khalaf
He might be encouraged.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, rearm and then the next . . . I mean, that has been the pattern.

Robert Shrimsley
I mean, I know that people talk about him pulling out of Nato, but do you actually think he will? Because there are obviously consequences for American foreign policy beyond western Europe if it breaks its alliances. The countries that have been supportive of America elsewhere might feel less need . . . 

Roula Khalaf
He could do a lot of damage without pulling out of Nato. He doesn’t need to pull out of Nato. His issue is that he doesn’t really believe in alliances. And this is the biggest fear in Europe. He doesn’t have to actually take the step.

Gideon Rachman
Correct. I totally agree. I think pulling out of Nato is sort of in inverted commas. It could mean a bunch of things, but essentially just saying, look, I’m not really interested in underwriting Europe’s security. Look after yourselves, guys. Whether that means formally pulling out of Nato, one doesn’t know. But I think the other thing is that I suspect that his top priority is taking revenge on his domestic political opponents. What happens in Ukraine, what they think about him in Brussels will be very low down the list.

Roula Khalaf
Absolutely.

Gideon Rachman
But that also has ramifications for all of us, because if America is in political turmoil, if Trump is putting, you know, the heads of the joint chiefs on trial, which he said he would do. Well, you know that too is a bit of a problem.

Roula Khalaf
Well, it empowers a lot of bad actors.

Lucy Fisher
Certainly. And Roula, what about the economic impacts of the US election, both on the US economy domestically and globally?

Roula Khalaf
Well, you know, the US economy has been remarkably resilient. I mean, that’s been the story of 2023. And the biggest dilemma or challenge for the Biden administration has been the inability to sell the story. I’ll tell you about one of the things that I heard recently from American officials. They think, well, there are two reasons for this, and one is probably relevant to the discussion we’ll get to about the UK. But inflation has come down substantially in the US and faster than it has in Europe or the UK. But if you’re a voter, you are comparing your living standards today to a few years ago. So the fact that inflation is no longer accelerating at the same rate does not mean that you are feeling better. You’re still paying more than three years ago. This is what voters don’t understand when we talk about inflation. It’s not disinflation.

The other is that was cited to me and I thought was very concerning, is economic disinformation on social media. There is so much economic disinformation on social media that there are very few good stories that are making it through. So I think the Biden administration has a serious, serious challenge here. Overall, I think the economy is doing very well.

Lucy Fisher
Let’s move on to talk about the UK, because, of course, we are Westminster-obsessed at Political Fix. And, Robert, you know, you are over and across all aspects of this election. This week, we’ve heard from Keir Starmer his big New Year scene-setter. Rishi Sunak’s ducked doing a major set-piece speech, probably because his one at the beginning of last year got him in all sorts of hot water, setting out those five pledges of which he met only one. Give us your sense of how the two main parties, their standing as we head into this election year.

Robert Shrimsley
Well, I mean, it’s very clear that Labour has enjoyed a sustained and substantial poll lead. Traditionally, you would expect that to close a bit as we near an election, because there are a lot of disaffected Conservatives who say they don’t know how they’re going to vote. One would often expect them to return to the Conservative fold, though many will abstain in the end and that’s a really serious problem for the Conservatives.

One of the interesting things about the British election is that actually, it’s one of those where populist parties are not going to play a major role in the outcome. I’m not saying they’re not there, because we have the success of the Brexit party, Reform UK, which has the capacity to do immense damage to the Conservative vote, but our electoral system means they can’t make any great progress politically.

But I think when you look at the state of the two parties at the moment, what you have is a Conservative government essentially relying on two things. One is some proposed tax cuts, more tax cuts, which we’ll expect to see during the course of this year, and the hope that an improving economy will leave people feeling a bit better off and better off enough that they might think it isn’t worth taking a risk with a Labour leader who, for all his successes, has not endeared himself to the country. There’s no sense of love for Keir Starmer, no sense of excitement about him, as perhaps there was when Tony Blair was leader of the opposition. And so I think the challenge for this year is going to be the extent to which Labour can set out a hopeful agenda for voters at a time when it knows it’s not gonna have much money to play with, and when it’s innately cautious about saying anything, which the Conservatives might use to attack it. But it’s a change party. Essentially, Labour wins when people feel there’s a need for dramatic change.

And the one other thing I’d mention as being worth looking at is Scotland, because it really does look like we’ve seen the high-water mark of the SNP for a while. Labour is clearly back in the opinion polls, at least in Scotland. And, you know, it doesn’t look fanciful to think it could yet become the largest party in Scotland again in the Westminster elections. That’s probably a stretch, you know, but it’s certainly going to reclaim a lot of seats. And the interesting question in the Scottish vote will be the extent to which tactical voting occurs. Is it the tactical voting of independence versus the union which it has been in the past, or is it anti-Conservative tactical voting? And you have people who instinctively support the SNP lending their vote to Labour in order to get the Conservatives out. So I think that’s really one to watch.

Roula Khalaf
I have a question for Robert. We’re talking about putting the UK within the global context, and I think we can be very relaxed about the UK election. I know that it won’t seem like this to our readers, because we’ll be writing a lot about it and there’ll be a lot of drama. But I think we can be quite relaxed because nothing fundamental will change. There is no threat to democracy in the UK. We have kind of gone through our populist phase to the extent that, you know, people are somewhat over it right now. You have two parties that are both acceptable. There’s no radicalism, I think, on either side of the aisle. At the same time, we shouldn’t be complacent because, you know, as Robert says, there is still the Reform party. And that doesn’t mean that we are immune to populism. But I think there’ll be a lot of populism that we see in the rest of Europe that we will not be suffering from here. OK, both of them. But I have a question.

Robert Shrimsley
I think you’re right, Roula.

Roula Khalaf
No, keep going. But then I have a question. No, no, my question was about how . . . Whether Europe is surprised that there just seems so much unity within . . . 

Robert Shrimsley
Well, I just . . . I mean, I think the question is whether we’re seeing that the end of populism in Britain or a hiatus of it. I think many people would argue that the Conservative party has accepted a lot of the principles of the populist right which secured Brexit, and therefore they’ve been mainstreamed a bit in Conservative party policy. If I was more pessimistic, I would say one of things you have to watch for is what might happen to the Conservative party after an electoral defeat. If you get a Labour government, particularly a Labour government that’s not got a strong majority and it has a tough parliament, the economy doesn’t improve and you have a sort of populist-ish Conservative party in opposition, able to take a lot of the positions that it was more nuanced on in power, then you could see a return quite quickly. So although I agree with your fundamental point . . . 

Roula Khalaf
Yeah, I agree with that.

Robert Shrimsley
 . . . This election feels in the scale of things, lower stakes than others, it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Roula Khalaf
That’s why I say we shouldn’t be complacent. 

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, and I think also that, you know, the British election will be taking place more or less the same time as the American election, which will be incredibly interesting. Let’s say Trump were to win, and then you have this rump Conservative party, the temptation for them to become the British Trumpists, if you like, to look at Trump and say, you know, maybe we need a bit of that. That kind of populism would be there. But I must say that certainly in the kind of international context, it’s been interesting for me, ’cause in the years after Brexit, I’m sure you guys had the same experience, you’d go abroad and people say, what is wrong with Britain? You know, have you guys completely lost your heads, and, you know, Britain had this image as this moderate, stable place.

So I’m rather enjoying the fact that, at least briefly, there’s a period where we can say, well, you know, you’ve got all these sort of far-right parties surging across Europe, look at America, and we have two boring centrist parties competing with each other. I mean, that is quite good. And I think in a funny way, it could even have a positive spin-off for the UK because — this is pure anecdote but, you know, I bumped into, over Christmas, a rich American who basically moved to Britain and he said, you know, he didn’t really fancy being, raising his kids in the US at this precise moment. And I said, oh, we’re getting Trump refugees. And he said, yeah, you are, you know, and you’ll see more of them. I mean, it is just an anecdote. But, you know, relative to France, relative to Germany, maybe Britain begins to look a bit more attractive, which could be good.

Lucy Fisher
I think that’s really interesting to put it into this international context, because we often hear a lot about, as Robert, you said, the party, the Conservative party potentially becoming radicalised after a bad defeat. But I also wonder if this narrative of certain defeat takes hold in the Tory party, if Sunak will bow to pressure from his right flank, who want him to go further on migration, who want him to wage this election on the culture wars, particularly at a time of tight public finances where it’s not possible to make huge retail offers that we could see a Conservative manifesto that’s distinctly to the right of where Sunak is now.

Robert Shrimsley
It’s funny, isn’t it, Lucy? Because when you actually look at what Sunak has done since he became prime minister, he’s quite obviously in most respects allied himself with the Cameron Conservative vision, including bringing David Cameron back, of course. He has sided with those people against the sort of Braverman side of the party. He’s held out quite courageously for the principles of fiscal prudence, which used to be a basic hallmark of Conservatism and defied his right on this as well. He drove through the Windsor Agreement on Northern Ireland and Brexit. He’s showed he’s prepared to defy the right. But at the same time, he doesn’t seem willing to say, look, I’ve picked a side, hooray! This is who I am. It’s all very in spite of that.

And you’re right, there will be pressure from the right to do those things. But it’s not who he is. And it’s also, I think, problematic in the . . . all those issues, they’re not nothing. Immigration’s a big one and I separate that. But, you know, cancel culture, some of the stuff we talk about, woke arguments, war on the motorist, all these things. These are just not the central issues on which the election will be decided. And if the Conservative party heads off down the rabbit hole of talking about these issues, when the things that the country’s concerned about are the economy, the cost of living and the National Health Service, I think they may shore up their base, but it’s a strategy for shoring up the base rather than winning. And certainly when you talk to the people, the strategists around Sunak, as you and I certainly both do, that’s not what they where they want to go. Immigration is different. Immigration, I think, is a big issue. And the polls show it’s generally third in salience. But I think he’d be very ill-advised to let that dominate his pitch for the country.

Lucy Fisher
Let’s just touch on the economy, cost of living. Roula, we’ve seen the FT survey of economists this week suggest it’s grey gloom for the UK for the rest of this year. And it does look, from what Rishi Sunak said on Thursday, that he’s planning for an election in the autumn, as we’ve already been predicting for many months now. What is your sense of the pitfalls for both the Conservatives and Labour in terms of their economic policy? I’m thinking in particular Keir Starmer, are we gonna see him after rowback from this £28bn green borrowing plan further to avoid being accused of a tax bombshell? And as editor of the FT, are there any proposals you’d like to see on the policy platform in order to improve productivity and growth in the UK from any party?

Roula Khalaf
I think we have made our position on sort of policy proposals clear: a lot more structural reform focused on growth and productivity, investment, skills — lot of the things that we didn’t see enough of in the Budget. You may have noticed that on the same day that we had the economist predictions, we also had a leader column on the optimistic case for the British economy. Our readers were a bit bemused. (Laughter) So was Robert, clearly.

Robert Shrimsley
You know, I’ve been here something like 20-odd years and I can’t remember when our economist poll was ever upbeat. It’s always gloomy.

Roula Khalaf
Exactly, exactly. I mean, economists are always gloomy. In fact, I was speaking to an economist and I really should not say this in public, but I’ve now started, so I’ll keep going. He said that he used to be polled by the FT. And his press office would tell him, you have to say the most negative thing, otherwise you won’t get quoted. (Laughter) So just so you know, yes, of course, these predictions are often negative.

It is true that what we saw in 2023 was revisions. That improved the numbers a bit. Having said all of this, we do have a problem. We have a problem of growth, we have a problem of productivity. We have a problem of crumbling public services. And I don’t think that any of the parties is going to be able to address the real problems and the real issues because they are not politically appealing. So, you know, an election year, this is not the time to be lowering taxes. Unfortunately, we have to raise taxes in this country if we have to deal with the problems that we have. Is this going to be a message in the election? I don’t think so.

Lucy Fisher
No.

Roula Khalaf
I mean, even the Labour party is thinking of lowering taxes now, of promising lower taxes, which . . . 

Lucy Fisher
What do you make of that? I mean, do you think that they will go through with it?

Roula Khalaf
I think they are trying to make their programmes as similar as possible to each other.

Lucy Fisher
Gideon, something I’m sure that those holding the pen on the various manifestos are giving less time and thought to is foreign affairs, defence security policy, because the orthodoxy is there’s no voting in those policies unlike retail offers. But could we see any element of those kind of policy areas playing into the UK election, whether it comes to the ongoing UK support and the cost of that for Ukraine? Could Starmer face a backlash for his response to the Israel-Hamas crisis? If Rishi Sunak is forced by the right of his party to commit to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, would that damage the UK’s reputation on the international stage? How are you thinking about the international elements of this election?

Gideon Rachman
So, I mean, Robert would have a better sense of it. My guess is that mostly they won’t play a huge role, with the possible exception of Gaza, where you’ve seen, you know, big demonstrations in the UK on that and can motivate some groups of voters. I mean, I had a funny conversation with somebody who said it was a sort of bad insight into the minds of political strategists. He was talking to a Conservative and he said, you know, Gaza is really terrible, isn’t it? And the guy said, yeah, but it’s worse for Labour. And he said, no, no, I meant like what’s actually happening in Gaza. (Laughter) Yeah, but that’s just how these people think.

I think foreign policy will become much more salient the day after the election, because I think that, as we were saying, this is an election that will take place more or less the same time as what’s happening in America, which will present huge, almost existential questions for any British government. What do you do if Donald Trump is the president? You know, potentially there’s gonna be big problems in Ukraine.

I think one possible outcome is that I think if the US were to go towards Trump, it might open an opportunity for a Starmer government to be slightly bolder in re-establishing relations with the EU than they would currently say they’re going to be. Even then, they’re not gonna rejoin the EU or anything like that. But there may be a sense that, OK, we have to get close to Europe if that would happen.

Roula Khalaf
But there would be a lot more on foreign policy and defence than it would be on . . . 

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, absolutely. But I think maybe, you know, once you have this sense that these are the countries that we’re closest to, there might be more goodwill on both sides to say, OK, let’s try and get some of the irritations in the relationship out.

Robert Shrimsley
I do think you’ve touched on the one foreign policy area which is not meant to bark in this election, but is the one that is the most crucial, which is the relationship with the European Union. And both parties seem to have an incentive to not want to talk about it — the Conservatives, because no one of them can say it’s gone fantastically well, and the Labour party because it sees it as an electoral vulnerability, certainly in some of the seats that it wishes to regain.

But there is no question that Labour is talking about aligning itself in certain areas, be it on food standards or whatever, that Labour is going to move Britain closer back towards the European Union. The question for Labour strategists in the election is going to be what they want to say on this, because a bit like the Gaza example you gave, it’s an area where Labour’s disappointing many of the people who want to vote for it, who say the opinion polls show people think people want to get back into Europe. People are furious at Brexit. Your voters want a more, you know, aggressive position on this; why aren’t you taking it? And I think a question will be the extent to which Labour feels in any way able to say things on the next steps in its negotiations with Europe.

And touching on an earlier point you raised, Lucy: one reason why I think this matters, and one reason why I think the issue of the £28bn green package that Labour has matters is that actually, there is a risk of the Labour vote fraying at the edges as its caution disappoints more left-wing voters. And the most obvious receptacle for that fraying is the Green party. And so if they are seen to water down one of their few clear pledges too much, that I think poses a risk for them. If they seem to disappoint people too much on Brexit, that poses a risk for them as well. But I think those are the areas where it could be interesting to watch how they move.

Roula Khalaf
But you do expect that they will continue to remain very cautious on Brexit? I can’t imagine that they’re going to lay out anything more precise.

Robert Shrimsley
I think fear is the overwhelming emotion of the Labour party. They are constantly looking for new ways that they could blow this election, and so everywhere that they can get away with caution, they will stick with it. Absolutely.

Lucy Fisher
And finally, Roula, our listeners are often interested in going under the bonnet of how we do journalism. And I just wanted to ask you just to say a word about how the FT prepares for a whirlwind year of elections like this. How do you think about the news coverage, ramping that up and of course, the editorial board verdicts?

Roula Khalaf
Well, on the editorial board verdict, I’ll be saying very little. We only have a verdict on the UK election and that will have to wait. We don’t tend to have verdicts on other elections, although the US sometimes, we do opine on that.

I’ll tell you about one really exciting project that we started working on last year, and it’s about to be published as we asked four prominent authors to write reflections on democracy. We’ve turned these into sort of artistic films, and we’d be launching that project next week or the week after. More generally, we tried to use our data journalism and our visual journalism to great effect, whether it is in, you know, analysing polling data or polling trends. We invest in polling data as well.

And we try to give, you know, the big elections, the most important elections, as much space as possible while not ignoring the smaller ones. We’ve actually kicked off. Several of our writers and our columnists have already written about 2024 and, you know, the test for democracy in 2024. A lot to look forward to.

Lucy Fisher
Roula, Robert, Gideon, thanks for joining.

Robert Shrimsley
Thanks, Lucy.

Roula Khalaf
Thanks, Lucy.

Gideon Rachman
Thanks.

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Lucy Fisher
That’s it for now. My thanks to the FT’s editor, Roula Khalaf, to Gideon Rachman and to Robert Shrimsley. Political Fix is presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Audrey Tinline. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Audio mixed by Simon Panayi. Broadcast engineer is Andrew Georgiades. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. We’ll meet again here next week.

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