John Major has condemned cuts to overseas aid as “callous” and shortsighted, in a blistering speech that took aim at leaders obsessed by national self-interest and explicitly linked Donald Trump with Xi Jinping as the world’s main destabilising forces.
Arguing that his age and lack of connection to everyday politics gave him the ability to speak freely, the former prime minister said Trump’s reliance on threats would embolden tyrants, and said the supposed benefits of Brexit were “as elusive as Lord Lucan”.
Giving a lecture in Salisbury Cathedral in memory of Edward Heath, another former Conservative prime minister, Major noted how the Russian invasion of Ukraine had “erased the global peace dividend”, but he criticised the choices then made.
“We, among others, are now to spend more on defence, and to finance that by cutting aid to the world’s most wretched and helpless,” Major said. “Many people, with voices that will never be heard, will suffer and die because countries have made this change in budgetary priorities.
“It is shortsighted and, to my mind, callous. And the fallout, over time, will be greater migrant demand to live in the richer countries.”
In a lengthy section focused on Trump’s America, noting the US president’s seeming favouritism of Russia over Ukraine and his threats to annex Greenland, Major said: “This is not America as I have known her. This is not democracy as I understand it.”
While accepting that Europe had become complacent in relying on the might of US defence, Major condemned Washington’s treatment of Ukraine, saying it had been “threatened, bullied and had military and intelligence withdrawn as if she were the aggressor”.
Major argued that Trump’s wider tactics on the world stage, including against Iran, were likely to bring short-term benefits at best.
“President Trump may achieve extraordinary things. His very unpredictability promotes uncertainty – and sometimes fear – of what he might do next. In this fashion, he gains compliance with his wishes,” he said.
“The timid may crumble, the cautious may appease, but I hope the president understands that agreement under duress is false and unreliable. If someone has their foot on your neck, you may comply with their wishes ‒ but you will never forget the foot.”
Likening Trump’s tactics to those of Xi, the Chinese leader, Major said neither “offer the assurance of an ordered and peaceful future”.
On Brexit, Major called for the UK to sign up to the EU’s single market and customs union, saying: “I continue to search for the ‘benefits of Brexit’ but they are as elusive as Lord Lucan. Some politicians talk of them – but are unable to tell us what they are, or where they may be found.”
More broadly, Major warned about what he said would be the dire consequences of a world filled with populist leaders reliant on might and guided only by national self-interest. Also using the example of Gaza, he asked: “Is starvation now a legitimate weapon of war?”
Major went on: “Is barbarianism now acceptable if the barbarian is strong enough – or the victim without friends? Can it be that our world is so exhausted, politics so tainted, self-interest so predominant that it has abandoned compassion? Is might now right? Has the law, human decency and political morality been cast aside?
“Or is it, perhaps, as simple as this: that our world is now beginning to elect leaders concerned only about national self-interest? If so, if politics leads countries to hunker down in their own little trenches of interest, ignore reason, bypass diplomacy, forgo enlightened self-interest – then heaven help us all.”