Transcript of Former PM Boris Johnson speaks at the World Governments Summit in Dubai

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Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, our next session is a conversation with the Right Honorable Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This session is moderated by Richard Quest from CNN. Johnson. Thank you, Richard.

Now, we are the first session of the day. That's fantastic.

We'll wake everybody up, didn't it?

So Everybody's expecting us to deal with all the difficult issues. We have a good half hour, which is plenty of time- Bags of time. To get into all sorts of trouble.

Bags of time, yes, I'm sure.

I wanted to divide it just so you know where we're going. We're going to do it with present, past, in the future. That will allow us to cover all the major areas. If we deal with the present, then obviously it has to start with the current administration in Washington, which you You were a great supporter. Well, I- You were at the inauguration.

I was at the inauguration, and I was very, very honored. I was there in the rotunda.

How on earth did you get into the rotunda when there were such few seats?

I was very lucky to be there. I was behind some very smartly dressed young members of the Trump family who were all having a wonderful time. At the church service before, I was in the same row. This is absolutely true. You can see the photos. I was sitting next to Jeff Bezos, a Mrs Bezos. Actually, I was sitting next to Mrs Bezos, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Elon Musk. I was considerably bringing down the net wealth average.

Why do you think you were invited?

Well, I think because, look, I'm I'm sympathetic to many of the things that I think Donald Trump is trying to do. I think that the world is, on the whole, better when America is strong and providing strong leadership. I think that that is certainly what Donald Trump is capable of providing.

Is he providing at the moment?

Well, you certainly couldn't say that he wasn't delivering action and event. There's plenty of things going on. Whether I agree with absolutely everything that he's doing is another matter.

All right, I'll go for it. Everybody wants me to say the word, so I'll just say, Gaza and his plan for Gaza.

Well, look, what's happening in Gaza, what has happened in Gaza, is an absolute tragedy. It needs to end, and the suffering of the people of Gaza needs to end. The suffering of the people of Gaza needs the end, the hostages need to come back. I think it's horrific the conditions in which those hostages have been held, and I think they all need to come back. It's not for me to try to analyze what the President is suggesting with his plan.

You know where I'm going with this? Yeah.

No, go on. I don't mind. You're far ahead. I don't think, plainly, that it is... I actually happened to be giving a speech in Florida the other day, and I looked at the beach at Mar-a-Lago, and I thought this is absolutely a fantastic place if you wanted to resettle millions of people from the Middle East. It's absolutely beautiful. There's lots of space here, but it's not going to happen because somebody else owns it. And Gaza is in law, owned and occupied by people who have a right to be there. So that is not going to happen.

But it's destabilizing to suggest it when you've You've got, for example, King Abdullah, you've got the Egyptians and your threatening aid. Whether or not this is just open thought, let's have a wonderful thought about what might happen. It's destabilizing.

Well, but what Hamas did, frankly, was destabilizing. I think that the problem in Gaza, since we're being very, very candid with each other in the privacy of this audience of 4,000 people, frankly, you can't go on with a situation in which you have a Gaza rule by a government that wants to exterminate Israel. It's not for me to try to analyze what the President is saying, but I think he's inviting everybody to say, Well, look, this place plainly does have great potential. It does have a wonderful location. What is it? What is this failure? It's a failure of governance. This is a world government summit, right? The tragedy of Gaza, in my view, there are many tragedies, but one of them is that it is not, to put it mildly, a model of sensible municipal government, is it?

That's one way of putting it.

I think it's reasonable to point that out and to ask people to to speculate and to ask people in this part of the world to speculate about how it could be improved and how collectively working together, life for people in Gaza could be improved. It doesn't seem to me that since 2005, the lives of people in Gaza have notably improved under the rule of Hamas.

The other area, of course, is Ukraine, of which you've taken great interest for strong reasons. We've got the US Secretary of Treasury going there to try and sign up $500 billion worth of rare earth minerals, which seems to be the quid pro quo for the military aid that's been given. Can we have potentially comments, Yesterday, Ukraine could be Russian. Again, destabilizing. You can't support that.

No. Look, I think to say that Ukraine could be Russian again, you might as well say that the United States of America could return to the British Empire. It's just not going to happen. I don't think so, anyway. Look, I think that so far, what's happened with the new administration in Washington has been encouraging. There hasn't been an instant to Putin, which I think would have been a disaster. I still think that any solution to the disaster in Ukraine that involves Putin keeping some territory, freezing the conflict, not giving the Ukrainians the security guarantees they need. That represents, I'm afraid, a success for Putin. I don't think that Donald Trump is going to want that. Do you think eventually- I think actually he's He's being very clever, and I think he's thinking very hard about how to deliver the right result for the West and for America and for himself.

In a battle of wills between Putin and Trump, who wouldn't?

Look, I mean, Overwhelmingly, the United States is in the stronger position. I hope for the sake of freedom for- But you don't think Donald Trump is going to abandon Ukraine? I I really, really don't see how he can do that. I think that that is basically what has happened, Richard, in the last couple of months. I think that people in the Trump administration are focusing very hard on Ukraine. They're seeing that the solution that they thought they could come up with last summer, you remember there was talk about freezing the conflict, having a long border that was monitored, but basically not giving Ukraine any sense of where it was going, that won't work. The solution to Ukraine is not about geography, it's not about territory, it's not about drawing a new line on the map and saying, Okay, Putin, you keep this, Ukraine, you keep this. That won't work. It's about identity and it's about destiny. The Ukrainians want to be free. We've learned- No solution that ignores that point can work.

In both cases of Gaza and in Ukraine, we're at risk of not learning from history that you can't just rewrite borders and move people and expect it to work 30, 40, 50 years down the road.

I completely agree with that. I think that Gaza is a terrible, terrible problem we've discussed. I think that... But there is no easy solution there. There really is not. The Palestinian people do deserve to have the state that they've been promised for decades. But you've also got to accept that Israel can't be expected to live side by side with people who are literally, literally, vowing that to eradicate them from the river to the sea.

You talk about a moment ago about municipal government. You know something about that, Mayor of London, obviously, Prime Minister. Does good government and governance mean you really shouldn't be doing the things Elon Musk is doing? No. Which is pulling things down, USAID, Department of Education, consumer protection board, without having a plan for what's going to replace it.

No, I think, honestly, Certainly, that's all the things that are happening now in the United States. I think that's the one we need to have it. We need to have a recognition in European democracies in the UK that we are spending far too much taxpayers money without achieving the objectives that we promise the people that we're going to deliver. I think to go through budgets, To go in and take out waste is completely right.

Is it right that somebody who is neither elected nor confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate? You're familiar with the system?

Yeah, look, You will remember, Richard, that when Mrs Thatcher came in in 1979, she had a guy called Derek Reina, who is Chief Executive of Marks & Spencer, who came and did the same thing for UK government. It actually wasn't as far-reaching as Elon Musk, but the principles are the same.

Did you ever wish to do something similar when you were- Yes, I did. Why didn't you do it?

I did because we had this thing called COVID, which was a total nightmare, which necessitated, tragically, a huge expansion in state power, but also state spending on furlough and many other things. I think that what we need to do now in the post-COVID environment is move away from that state interference and and state spending. I actually think that's what people want us to do. They really do. I think Elon is on the right track. I really don't. I like the thing where he went in with his son. Was it his son?

Yes, on his shoulders.

Yeah, it was fine. I think it was good. It was a model of parenthood.

Really?

Yeah. Well, I think he's showing that you can take your kids to work or something like that.

Does it not look you have the president at the I ask Elon Musk behind power behind the throne, the puppet master?

I don't think so. Well, you'd have to ask. I don't think so. I think that, look, it's so difficult to get change in government. It's so difficult to cut government spending. You know the cutting a billion is cutting a thousand pounds from a million people, right? Cutting government spending is... You need to have a lot I think he's too. By the way, I thought what he said about the 50 million condoms going to Mozambique or whatever, that was completely right. It is entirely reasonable to look at some of this expenditure and to wonder- But you don't look at it by closing it all down.

Surely the reasonable way, or I've said the word reasonable way, is to look at the whole thing and then decide, not to look at Slash and burn. Or are you saying slashing and burning is the only way to get the result?

Well, I think that you've got to move fast. The new presidency is on the clock now, right? It's got four years. This is it. They've got to move fast if they're going to achieve something. I think that when it comes to overseas expenditure, there is a... Overseas aid has a... Yes, it's It's a relatively small amount of government spending, but a lot of it, frankly, is wasted. Mozambique, I happen to note, sub-Saharan Africa, probably the female literacy rate in Mozambique is probably about 50%, right? The male literacy rate will be about 70% or even higher. That is the problem. The way to fix poverty in the developing world is to get the men, and it's the men who run these countries, to educate their daughters and to insist. That will fix it. All the societies which have invested in female education see massive improvements.

This part of the world.

This part of the world, see massive improvements in prosperity. If there is a Swiss army knife for global governance, which is what we're talking about, it will be that. Rather than spending huge sums on highly paid executives in white Toyotas, air-conditioned Toyotas to drive around Africa, I would ban all representatives of governments from international conferences or whatever until they educate their girls. That's all they need to do. It's the number one thing.

You talked about your time in government and what you did and could not do. Obviously, as you reflect on that, we are at the World The criticisms of you, most recently, of course, by your former chief, Dominic Cumming, are fairly brutal. Do they hurt?

Honestly, I missed the most recent stuff. I missed the most recent stuff. I missed the Look, it's water off a duck's back.

It said basically that you came into power, you thought you were the king, and therefore you didn't need to make the changes. You didn't need to be an Elon Musk.

Well, we did make a lot of change. One of the One of the things that we did was to take back control of our government, of our national independence, our laws, our borders, our money. As you saw yesterday, I don't know whether you spotted this, but in Paris, yesterday, there was a summit on artificial intelligence in which the British government, the Labor government- Which you are highly critical of. Yeah, decided to use Brexit freedoms and to go the United States on the future of artificial intelligence and not with the sclerotic European model. As everybody here will know, there's a new European directive on AI coming out, which promises to regulate before the whole thing has even been developed. Brexit, Britain, can do things differently. We did things differently on vaccination. We were far faster. That was thanks to Brexit.

You blame in many ways, and with some strong justification that it was the Britain did not embrace Brexit. You had the referendum, you had the leaving. The debate and the result was done, but there were still those who would not let go, and therefore Britain has not taken full advantage of its departure.

You have to remember that Brexit was achieved by the British people who took back control of their lives in defiance of the advice of the ruling elites of Britain. Who have never given up. Seventy % of, probably, roughly, if you look at the BBC Newsroom or the universities or wherever, you will find a majority who loved the idea of being paid by the EU to travel club class to conferences in wherever, Milan, and have a fantastic time. That's what they thought the EU... They loved it. Also, it gave them a steady supply of labor from other European countries, which meant that they didn't necessarily have to invest in the talents and skills of people growing up in their own country. I thought ultimately it was wrong in many, many ways.

We won that argument. Uk hasn't taken your full advantage of it. There's been a dragging.

I just gave you an example of where the labor government, even this... I don't know what the etiquette is.

Oh, go for it.

Well, I think it's absolutely hopeless, the labor government. I think what they're doing is in many ways nuts. They put another £22 billion of tax on business, putting up national insurance contributions for every private business in the country, while simultaneously agreeing to pay Mauritius £18 billion for the privilege of having the Chagos Islands, which are British anyway. I mean, it's just total mad.

What should they do with the The Chagos Islands. I'm bearing them- The Chagos Islands. What? Keep them. They're British. Donald Trump wants to keep them, of course.

I don't know, but a very sensible policy. We should keep them. They've been British since 1814. Frankly, just because an international panel where one of the senior judges is a Chinese lady who has already called for them to be returned and who actually supports Putin's invasion of Ukraine, just because a panel has said that they belong to Mauritius, that doesn't mean that that panel is correct. I don't know if any colleagues have looked at the map, but the Chagos Islands are 1,300 miles away from Mauritius. The United Kingdom has a better claim to Calais than Mauritius has to the Chagos Islands. They're considerably better, so we should drop it. Labor, it's being driven by pure political correctness and left-wing ideology.

Let's talk about your and your future. Really?

I assume you have one. Well, I don't know, but it's very generous of you, Richard, even to canvas the possibility. I'm living a life of blameless of obscurity, mainly trying to build a kitchen, which is extreme. We can't build a runway in I'm glad you mentioned Heathrow. We can't.

You were against Heathrow. You've always been against Heathrow's third runway.

I'm a great admirer of Heathrow and they do an incredible thing.

Do you accept now there's a call for a I do.

They're cramming a call into a pipe. Look, I think given that the government is plainly not going to do the obvious thing- Which is? Which is to build a huge 24-hour four-runway airport in the Thames Estuary.

That was your idea? It was It got nowhere. Brilliant idea.

Sadly, not yet. But given that they're not going to do that, given that there is clearly a capacity shortage in the south-east, given that London is the global hub, given that it's insane, you fly over the Atlantic. You've done this millions of times. You zoom over, wafted by the Gulf Stream or whatever the hell it is, incredibly fast. In no time at all, you're over Oxford and then you're over Slough. Then the captain comes on saying, Sorry, you're going to have to go round and round stains because you can't land it. There's no way to land a heat throw. We do need to fix it. We do need to fix it. I've reluctant to come round to it. But what I doubt, and this is a terrible thing, I doubt that with the current regulations, the current way we do things, we'd get it done in a reasonable time. Look at what this country has done in the last 17 years since I first started talking about more runways in London. I mean, how many runways are they built here?

Well, they're about to more like more at New Airport. New Airport, look at it. It's incredible. Let's talk about you and your future, even though you don't want to. Do you still aspire to office, high government office?

Look, I've had a wonderful time in policy. I was able to do some things that were useful. When I look back, I can I see- Don't divert.

No, with respect, don't divert. Do you still want to go into office of some high government office, whether it be with Conserv or reform?

Well, so those guys never forget the party that you just mentioned currently. Reform? Yeah. They was on 0% when I was running the show. They were 0% to 3%. And The answer to any political problem, you can't make yourself more attractive to the electorate as a political party if you try to glomp on monkey glands from some other political party or to try to cannibalize the strength of another party. That won't work. Conservatives need to recover by looking at what labor is doing on the economy and pointing it out to the people and showing every day where they're going wrong. Labor have completely plowed this thing. They've made an absolute hash of it. There's a massive opportunity for Conservatives, as Mrs Thatcher did in the late '70s, to make the point about Labor and they're overtaxing, overspending, overregulating ways and to go on that.

I'll come at this from a different direction. We'll get there in the end.

What role do you want to play in that future? I I would only do something if I genuinely thought I could be useful. At the moment, plainly, there's nothing I can usefully do. But if I think back to 2008, we didn't have a candidate to be mayor of London. We tried everybody else, frankly, and then they asked me to do it, and I did that for eight years. Then in 2019, we'd also got into a bit of a jam. But I'm blissfully engaged, as I say, trying I can't build my wife a kitchen.

You're not physically doing it yourself, are you?

No, it's very expensive and laborious business. You have to build newt motels and God knows what. It's very expensive. It's very expensive. It's very expensive. It's very expensive. It's very expensive. Time consuming and- So we can write with- I'm doing that. Okay, I'm just- I have a lot of young children which are also expensive. Can the Tories recover? Yes, of course, and they are going to recover. Recover.

But not before the next election.

Well, that's the time they need to recover by, and they will recover by the next election. They won't recover. I think the next election is wide open.

But do you worry that, for example, the We're not back coming full circle. The one thing people seem to love, and if you look at the polls on Donald Trump, is they love the fact he's doing what he said he was going to do. He's coming to office, he said... I think if you look at Europe, people are saying in Germany, for example, We want a bit of that. We want a leader that basically breaks the eggs to make the omelet and does what he says.

Which is why I think that we need that experience in the UK. The whole Elon thing which shocks everybody so much I think it's great. Government is taxing and spending far too much. Look at this amazing country here. They have a very, very different approach. Look at the United States.

We don't then worry about the far rights rise in Germany. You don't worry about it in France.

Look, the way to crowd out the far right, the way to defeat the far right, is to listen carefully to what people are saying and to answer their concerns. People want their kids' skills addressed. They want their kids' housing shortages addressed. They want the the problems in their country fixed. They will vote for a party that they think really has their interests at heart. That was why it was so important to take back control of our borders and of our laws and all the rest of it. You can't do that. You can't focus on the needs of the UK if you're part of a 580 million strong federal superstate.

The reality of Europe has to make a decision. It either has to go fully federal or it has to almost break apart or become more Asian-based. The current way does not work in Europe.

Look, I think I agreed very much with a lot of what Mario Draghi had to say the other day. I think the European economic model doesn't work at the moment.

But do you believe they can change? The Draghi report has some brilliant suggestions, but has Europe got the wherewithal to make those changes?

I think if they don't, then Richard, your point about the far right is going to be People will look for people who will break the China and give them the solutions that they want, and that would be a mistake.

As we come to the end of this time, were there moments in government or even you're running up as the mayor or as Prime Minister your opposition, where you just wanted to hit your head against a brick wall because you couldn't get anything done.

You just thought this is- Yes, there were many. But we also It's been a huge amount. I think that what you learn about government in a mature democracy like the UK is that there are lots and lots of vested interests that are trying to stop you.

Is there a deep state?

Well, I think that's probably in the sense that there's a organized... There's definitely too much bureaucracy. What Elon Musk was saying last night in the oval office, I'm afraid, rang a bell with me. We do have a problem in democracies that people vote for change and then find that they don't get it. Unless they get the change they vote for, they will vote for more extreme parties. That's why Democrats have got to respond. Whatever you say about Donald Trump, and a lot of people are very critical of him, he fought for four solid years to get those votes. He won that election fair and square. There are plenty of countries in the world where the outcome of elections are pretty well preordained, Russia or China or North Korea, wherever, right? Everybody This is what's going to happen in the elections. Nobody knew. Did you know? Were you absolutely sure that Trump was going to win? No. No. How about that? By the end of it- That's democracy. Well, really? I was there on polling day in Washington, and they were all saying Kamala was going to win, but me, that's Washington.

You've answered your own question there. Last question. We haven't heard the end of you, have we?

Well, I think we have, actually, because we've just come to the... I can see our clock says I've run out of time.

Maybe for now we have, but overall, you're going to come back in some shape for more description. Like Gandalf?

Yes. Reincarnating us in a form more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

God help us, ladies and gentlemen.

I think it's highly unlikely, but anyway. Boris Johnson. Great to see you. Thank you. Thank.