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 As Rachel Reeves’ budget approaches, Westminster is braced for tax hikes. The political manoeuvring necessary may just be one of the greatest political challenges of her career. So on this week’s episode of Westminster Insider, Sascha speaks to those who have been there, and compiles some golden rules on how to raise taxes – and get away with it. Social Market Foundation Director and former Gordon Brown advisor Theo Bertram walks Sascha through Brown’s 2002 decision to raise National Insurance, and how he kept voters onside while he did it. And Rishi Sunak’s former advisor James Nation explains why Sunak’s health and social care levy was such a difficult tax rise to announce – and how he tried to mitigate the political blowback. Jeremy Hunt, former Conservative Chancellor, defends not bringing back this tax rise and tells Sascha why freezing income tax thresholds – as Reeves is expected to do – was “less visible” than a hike to the basic rate of income tax, but still “very politically painful”. And Sascha, with the help of Bloomberg journalist and author of Can You Run the Economy Joe Mayes, puts herself in the shoes of Rachel Reeves and goes through the options available to her to fill what is expected to be a £20bn blackhole in the budget. Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warns Britain is in for a productivity down-grade, and if she were Rachel Reeves, she would worry about whether or not the budget will “drag down growth”.

Liz Truss looks out of place. In her neat pink jacket and white blouse, the former U.K. prime minister, who served a brief but eventful 49 days in the role back in 2022, strikes a contrast to the hoopla around her in the packed ballroom. Truss has come to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia this October evening for the yearly “CEO summit,” drawing corporate figures, conservative influencers and donors for a night of fiery speeches about the triumphs of the MAGA movement — seasoned with the university’s Christian conservative tradition of mixing politics with prayer. Truss rises somberly as the crowd is enjoined to repent, soul-search and double down on tithe payments to the Baptist mega-church originally founded by the late televangelist Jerry Falwell. From the stage at the front of the room, she nods along to the heady mixture of God and politics, waiting to start a talk about the so-called “deep state” — which, she claims, includes the Bank of England and the U.K. Treasury. She announces that she is “on a mission” to transform the U.K., and when someone cries a noisy “amen,” that throws her for a moment before she resumes. If the juxtaposition between the ex-prime minister and fire-and-brimstone MAGA evangelicals seems unlikely — Truss later tells me she is still a stalwart of the Church of England, which is much more establishment than evangelical, even if she thinks it has gone a bit “woke” on social issues like trans rights — her presence here nonetheless represents an increasingly popular trend. A transatlantic “Magafication” movement is luring traditional conservatives from the U.K. to identify with the provocative style of U.S. President Donald Trump — and to try their hands at imitating him on his home turf, participating in rousing conservative speaking events across the U.S. For some, like Truss, these events are a lucrative, mood-enhancing chance to establish a new identity after the stinging defeat of the Tory party at the last general election in July 2024. For her more charismatic predecessor Boris Johnson, they are a chance to hear the roar of the crowd that more sedate speaking gigs with hedge funds and law firms can’t deliver. For Nigel Farage, from the ultraconservative Reform UK party, they are a chance to re-forge British politics in the image of Trump — a benediction and a bro-mance all in one. Whether it’s connecting with voters on either side of the Atlantic, however, is a less certain proposition. Most of the students going about their early evening outside the hall don’t seem to know who Truss is. “They kind of told us she was the leader in the U.K.,” muses one business studies major, “but I never heard of her.” Just a few weeks earlier, it was Johnson — the premier who rose on the wings of Brexit and preceded Truss in a carousel of Tory leaders after the Leave vote — who spoke on campus at the new-term convocation, following a sequence of Christian rock numbers.  “We’re in a congregation, folks, convocation — I mean, we’ve been convoked,” Johnson riffed. The ruffle-haired charm and Old Etonian levity were a preamble to a speech about the Christian university as a “bastion of freedom” and a paean to the memory of Charlie Kirk, the murdered conservative activist, whom Johnson hailed as “a martyr to our inalienable right as human beings to say what is in our hearts.” Later, he zoned in on the need to keep supporting Ukraine and lambasted the authoritarianism of Russian President Vladimir Putin — to a muted response from the audience. It’s not exactly a popular take here; there are no follow-up questions on the topic. And at the CEO event, none of the speakers mention Ukraine or the U.S. role in its future at all. Much like the isolationism Johnson encountered, the British MAGA trail is a sign of the times. Trump’s twofold electoral success is attractive to some U.K. conservatives who feel there must be something in the president’s iconoclasm they can bottle and take home. And unlike tight-lipped debate forums in the U.K., such events give them a chance to be noisy and outspoken, to paint arguments in bold and provocative colors. In other words, to be Brits on tour — but also more like Trump. And, for added appeal, these tours are a lucrative field for former inhabitants of 10 Downing Street. One person who has previously worked at the Washington Speakers Bureau, one of the main hubs for booking A-list speakers, said that the fee for a former premier is around $200,000 for a substantial speech, plus private plane travel and commercial flights for a support team. That is a level of luxury unparalleled at home. Well known figures like Johnson and David (Lord) Cameron, the British premier from 2010 to 2016, can aim even higher if travel is complicated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Having “former prime minister” in front of your name in writing may open a lot of doors, but these politicians nonetheless have to tailor their resumes to appeal to American audiences.” Political CVs are duly bowdlerized to appeal to the target market of U.S. institutions and interests. Johnson’s profile at the Harry Walker agency in Washington, for instance, stresses his interest in deregulation and claims that he “successfully delivered Brexit — taking back control of U.K. law, marking the biggest constitutional change for half a century and enabling the United Kingdom to generate the fastest vaccine approval in the world.” This sequence of events and superlatives is debatable at best. Failures are routinely airbrushed out — Johnson’s premiership crashed in a mess of mismanagement during the pandemic and party divisions unleashed by the Brexit vote and his controversial handling of the aftermath, including the temporary dissolution of parliament to push through his legislation. But for characters whose legacy at home is either polarizing (like Johnson) or more likely to elicit a sly British eye roll outside a small fan base (Truss), there is also a degree of absolution on the American performance circuit that feels refreshing, in the same way that U.K. Indie bands stubbornly try to conquer America. Neither of the former Conservative leaders however, have as much to gain or lose by speaking at Trump-adjacent events as Farage, the leader of Britain’s Reform party — an “anti-woke,” Euro-skeptic, immigration-hostile party that is leading in the polls and attempting to expand its handful of lawmakers in the House of Commons into a party in contention for the next government. Farage has the closest access to Trump — a status previously enjoyed by Johnson, who last met Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2024 to discuss Ukraine. Proximity to Trump is the ultimate blessing, but it’s far harder to secure out of office than in it. Johnson endorsed Trump’s comeback at CPAC in February 2024 and wrote a column in support of Trump’s attack on the BBC for splicing footage of the January 6 uprising, which was deemed to be misleading and led to the abrupt departure of the broadcaster’s director general. Johnson was at Trump’s inauguration along with Truss (no other former U.K. politician was asked), but the invitations appear to have dropped off since chummy relations in Trump world can be ephemeral. Farage, by contrast, is a frequent visitor at both Mar-a-Lago and the White House. On November 7, he joined Trump at a fundraising auction for military veterans and has arranged to donate the prize of a walk with a centenarian veteran on Omaha beach, commemorating the D-Day landing site for U.S. forces. “I see him often,” he told me of his visits to Trump. Farage’s relationship with Trump could prove advantageous to him if he and his party claim greater power at home. He’d have the ear of the president, perhaps even the ability to sway Trump into a more sympathetic stance toward the U.K., even as the Americans embrace a more isolationist foreign policy. For now, Farage is certainly the most in-demand Brit on the MAGA circuit. He was the main speaker at the $500-a-head Republican party dinner in Tallahassee, Florida in March. Guests paid around $25,000 for a VIP ticket, which included having a photograph taken with the Reform UK leader. For the leader of a party that has a skimpy presence in parliament and faces the challenge of keeping its surge momentum and newsworthiness intact on a long road to the next election, being in the Trump limelight is a vote of confidence and a sign that he is taken seriously across the pond. The quid pro quo is performative loyalty — Farage, by turns genial and threatening in his manner, has echoed the president’s rancorous tone toward public broadcasters and media critics of MAGA. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All of this transatlantic networking has threatened to ensnare the British visiting troupe in ethical quagmires about how their lucrative American freelancing relates to duties and strictures at home. Farage has attracted envious attention among his peers in parliament for earning around $1.5 million a year in addition to his MP salary, but he was forced to apologize recently for failing to declare the March dinner appearance and any fees associated with it in the official registry. So far, he’s revealed only that the trip was “remunerated in three separate installments over the course of two months,” without naming the funder.  Even Farage’s friendship with Trump — the envy of his compatriots on the MAGA trail — could present vulnerabilities among the U.K. electorate. Farage’s base of Reform voters largely supports Trumpian stances on immigration and diversity, and they love Trump’s personality. But beyond core Reform voters, the president does not enjoy broad support in the U.K. Recent polling shows only 16 percent of British people like the president. That’s a challenge for the Reform UK leader, whose party polls at just under 30 percent support in the U.K.; he needs to reach Trump-skeptical voters beyond his base in order to claim power. On top of those liabilities, avid Christian nationalism of the kind Truss encountered at the Liberty event presents a cultural problem for British politicians. Mixing ideology with religious fervor is awkward back home where church-going is largely regarded as a private matter, even if there are signs of more evangelical commitment among influential Christian Conservatives like Paul Marshall, a hedge-funder who recently acquired The Spectator, the house publication of well-heeled Tories, expanding its digital reach into America. Hardline evangelical stances could undermine support for campaigners like Farage, says Tim Bale, an expert on elections and political trends at Queen Mary College, University of London. Farage “probably needs to be careful of getting into things like anti-abortion arguments or even term limits on abortion. That does not play in the U.K.,” he told me. Duly, on their U.S. pilgrimages, both Truss and Johnson side-step direct engagement with the religiosity of their hosts. Johnson, who once joked that his own Anglican faith “comes and goes like Classic FM in the Chiltern hills,” basks in his reputation as a cheerful libertine with an array of past wives and mistresses. He fathered one child by an affair, and a scandal arising from allegations that he paid for an abortion during another affair got him sacked from his party’s front bench in 2004. (Johnson married his current wife, with whom he has four children, in 2021.) Religion isn’t the only subject that makes British MAGA-philes modulate their tone toward Trump. Johnson spoke of Trump’s “boisterous and irreverent” treatment of journalists, but dismissed it as minor compared to the attacks on the fourth estate in Moscow. Despite her previous support for Ukraine as Johnson’s foreign secretary, Truss awkwardly ducked questions on the Westminster Insider interview podcast when I pressed her about whether the administration should send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which Trump opposes. “I’d have to know about the facts on the ground,” she said. But Farage, Johnson and Truss are betting that the benefits of being a transatlantic Trump acolyte well outweigh the risks. And there might be more to it than personal vanity tours and cushy earnings. The sense of grievances unheard or unaddressed that first elevated Trump to power have echoes across the Atlantic: worries about national decline, a feeling that traditional parties have lost touch with voters and a capacity for making Barnum-style entertainment out of the business of politics. It is a long way from being interrupted by the Speaker of the House of Commons shouting, “Order, order!”- Whether it is a flattering transatlantic afterlife for fallen leaders or a precursor to pitch for power at Westminster for Farage (who tells me that, like Trump, he is “building an unstoppable movement”) the MAGA circuit is the place to be — even if it’s not where everybody knows your name. It is also about embodying something these political pilgrims reckon their rivals fail to grasp: namely, the way one man’s MAGA movement has redefined Conservatism and opened up space for imitators in Europe to identify with more than their own election flops — and for newcomers to seek to remake their own political landscape. After all, if it happened to America, it might turn out to be a bankable export.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music After a wild week in No.10 Downing Street, host Patrick Baker takes listeners on a podcast tour of the famous building to find out how the hell a cobbled-together Georgian townhouse is meant to run a modern state. Patrick asks how the rabbit warren layout influences those who govern the country, for better or worse. In one of his first interviews since stepping down, former Cabinet Secretary Simon Case opens up on how the building is less-than-ideal for the demands of modern government — with problems like losing the PM all-too-common. Case argues its layout contributed to the Partygate scandal that toppled Boris Johnson. The set designer of the film “Love Actually,” Jim Clay, recounts a tour given to him by Gordon Brown so he could memorise the layout  — and commentates on Hugh Grant as he boogies down the Grand Staircase.     Jack Brown, author of “The Power of Geography at No 10,” gives a step-by-step tour, taking us inside the pokey “Den,” the prime minister’s office at the heart of Downing Street.  POLITICO Political Editor Dan Bloom explains why Keir Starmer prefers working in open-plan offices — and shares some secrets from rooms you’ve never heard of. Beatrice Timpson, former deputy press secretary to Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, shares her sympathy for those in the policy unit, seen as banished to the rafters of Number 10. And she reveals the constant battle for phone signal that rages at the heart of British power.  John McTernan, who served as political secretary to Tony Blair, reveals stories from the Number 10 flat — and sets out what the current government must do to overcome the limitations of the building. 

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.”