0:00

This is the BBC. This

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podcast is supported by advertising

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outside the UK.

0:07

BBC Sounds,

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music, radio, podcasts. Hello

0:13

and welcome to Political Thinking, a conversation

0:16

with rather than a news interrogation

0:19

of, someone who shapes our political

0:21

thinking about what has shaped theirs. Whilst

0:24

the world's attention has rightly

0:26

been captured by the escalating

0:28

conflict in the Middle East, the tragedies in

0:30

Israel and Gaza, something

0:33

hugely significant has happened

0:35

much nearer to home. An election

0:38

which could change the balance of power

0:40

in Europe. An election in Poland

0:43

which resulted in the likely fall

0:45

of the right-wing government of the Law and Justice

0:48

Party, which has been accused of chipping

0:50

away at democratic norms, ending

0:53

media freedoms and packing courts

0:55

with sympathetic judges. My guest

0:57

today is Radek Sikorski, a leading

1:00

figure in the opposition party

1:03

of Donald Tusk, former

1:05

president of the European Council, who

1:07

may go on to be Poland's prime minister. Sikorski

1:10

was foreign minister for seven years before

1:13

his party was kicked out of power.

1:15

A high-profile diplomat, he was

1:17

at the centre of Europe's foreign policy until 2015

1:20

and is tipped

1:23

by quite a few for a return

1:26

to the front line. Radek Sikorski,

1:28

welcome to Political Thinking. Hello. It

1:30

is just possible that there are people listening to

1:32

this who don't care very

1:34

much about Poland, barely know where it is on the

1:36

map.

1:37

Why should they care about what's just happened

1:40

in your country? Well, first of all,

1:42

because you have, what, up to a million

1:44

of my compatriots in this country and

1:47

I don't know whether this is still the case, but

1:50

last time I looked a few years ago Polish

1:52

was the second language of the British Isles.

1:55

But also we are traditionally allies

1:58

and good friends.

1:59

And I think the relationship between Poland and

2:02

Britain is something that

2:04

will stay strong, whoever is

2:06

in charge in Poland. But is this result, and the conclusion

2:09

is not yet clear of the voting, but

2:11

is this result a sign of some people think

2:14

that the tide towards

2:17

populism can be reversed

2:20

in Europe? And you would argue, I suspect,

2:22

is being reversed. This election will be studied

2:24

for that also because the ruling

2:27

party had Hungarian advisers, and

2:30

yet we won on a huge

2:32

turnout. 74% is completely

2:35

unprecedented in Poland. In 1989, when

2:38

we were voting on communism, it was 10%

2:40

less. So this was

2:42

an election which people felt we are making a civilizational

2:45

choice between mainstream

2:48

Europe, West, European Union,

2:50

and some kind of traditionalist

2:53

experiment. And the people of Poland said,

2:55

we don't want this experiment. But if I may recall

2:58

something, because you say that this

3:00

story is not number one because

3:03

of tragic events in the Middle East, it

3:05

reminds me, in 1989, I was with the Angolan guerrillas

3:12

in the Bush. And

3:15

the then vote in Poland on

3:17

communism was also only

3:19

number three on the BBC World

3:22

Service because Tiananmen

3:25

Square happened and Ayatollah Khomeini

3:27

died the same day. So sometimes

3:30

hugely important things are

3:33

not seen as important enough at the time. It's

3:35

fascinating that you refer instantly to

3:37

communism, because of course

3:40

you grew up under that

3:42

communism. Before we talk about today's events,

3:44

let's talk a little bit about your upbringing,

3:47

your influences. When

3:49

did you realize first that

3:52

you were living under an

3:54

ideology, a system

3:58

that you were going to be? hugely

4:00

alienated from. I

4:03

suppose it was the contrast between what

4:05

we talked about at home and what I

4:07

was taught at school. I

4:10

grew up in Bittgosz, a

4:13

pretty average neighborhood, average

4:16

kind of family on a housing estate.

4:19

And we discovered that our

4:21

teachers were lying to us about Poland's

4:24

history, about that

4:26

to learn what was happening

4:29

in our own country. We had to listen

4:31

to BBC,

4:34

a Polish section, or Radio Free Europe, or

4:36

Voice of America. And because in

4:38

this tiny apartment in

4:40

which I was brought up, the walls were

4:43

very thin. So when my father was listening to

4:46

Radio Free Europe, I could hear. And

4:49

that's how I became an anti-communist. You

4:51

were listening through the walls. You're listening to the

4:53

news. Yes. And when you go to school,

4:55

you're hearing something completely different. So at

4:57

school, they would tell

4:59

you that the Katyn massacre of

5:02

Polish officers during the Second

5:04

World War was carried out by the Germans.

5:07

And on the BBC, you would learn, well,

5:09

actually, no, it was 1940 in the Russians. So

5:13

you had it very early. You had to make choices

5:16

between conforming to the lie

5:18

or somehow opposing it.

5:23

At a very young age, I mentioned you got no choice but

5:25

to conform with going to the Mayday rally

5:27

or taking part in citizen

5:30

training, as it was called. Yes.

5:34

Although by high school, I wasn't

5:36

going to the Mayday rallies and got

5:38

into trouble at school,

5:40

so much so that the director summoned

5:43

my parents and

5:45

asked them, so why is your son skipping

5:48

the Mayday rally? My

5:51

parents were trying to find a

5:53

lame excuse. And

5:55

then the teacher of

5:57

my class said, very.

5:59

sternly to

6:02

my father, you know, we are beginning

6:04

to suspect that your

6:07

son is anti-communist or

6:10

anti-Soviet and my father

6:12

said, really? I said, impossible!

6:16

And was he smiling at you

6:18

as well as Smiley at them? In other words, when you got home,

6:20

was he saying, keep going Radek? They

6:24

teach us and sort of gave up, you know, they

6:26

say, right, the whole family is crazy. There's

6:29

nothing we can do. But does that feel like a risk?

6:32

It was very... it was. It was. Powerful book

6:35

written about growing up in Albania, a book called Free,

6:38

in which, to assertings, that you have to live

6:40

the lower, it's just too risky not to.

6:43

By the 1970s, which is what we're talking

6:45

about, Poland was no longer bloodthirsty.

6:48

There was a risk, but it was a risk of

6:50

harassment rather than actual heavy

6:52

persecution. So my parents...

6:56

I recently went to the archives and examined

6:58

my parents' files. And

7:01

what the files kept on them by the secret police? Actually,

7:04

it turned out they didn't have files kept

7:06

by the secret police. They had passport files.

7:08

But in the passport files, they would

7:11

denied passports on the grounds

7:13

of anti-communist use, both before

7:16

I left for Britain and then very

7:18

firmly when I left. My

7:21

father was denied passport. He has a son in Britain

7:23

who is mean about

7:25

the political

7:27

system we have in Poland. Well,

7:30

come to how you got to Britain in a second. But

7:32

before you get to Britain, you

7:34

are one of the few people I've ever interviewed who can say,

7:37

in effect, that you took part in a revolution. Solidar,

7:39

not a bad Polish pronunciation

7:41

by me. Solidarity, as it was known here,

7:44

was in the early 80s a form

7:48

of revolution. No, to people who never

7:50

knew it

7:51

or can't remember it. Just capture what

7:54

it was like to take part in those mass rallies

7:56

against Crimea. It was an attempt to

7:58

make...

7:59

communism-less totalitarian, namely

8:02

to have a free trade union in

8:04

an otherwise totalitarian society. And

8:07

it was, of course, squashed by martial law. But

8:10

it was very popular around the world. It inspired

8:12

people around the world because for

8:15

the right wing, it was anti-communist, but for the left

8:17

wing, it was a trade union. And it was

8:19

a self-limiting revolution in

8:21

the sense that the leaders

8:23

of it knew that we couldn't eject

8:26

the Red Army from our country, but

8:29

we were trying to create a space

8:31

of freedom within the system. And

8:34

you have, as I understand it, at

8:36

the time, a sort of printing press in

8:38

the basement. And

8:41

we had in my high school, we had

8:43

an underground organization which

8:46

spray-painted anti-communist slogans

8:49

on the wall of our town. And

8:52

there were four or five of us, and

8:54

we had the underground press,

8:57

and we were preparing to

8:59

resist martial law as well. But

9:02

you end up in Britain, which is where you get this very elegant

9:04

public school accent from. What

9:07

brings you to Britain? I was going to study

9:09

English at a Polish university, so I came here

9:11

to work in a pub and learn English. And

9:14

then first I received news that my friends

9:16

from these underground organizations

9:18

started being rounded up. So

9:20

I decided to stay, and then

9:23

when martial law was imposed, I received

9:25

political asylum here. So Britain

9:27

became, at least temporarily, your home.

9:31

And you quite quickly, at Oxford,

9:34

Declaration of Interest, we knew each other a little,

9:36

though not well, at Oxford, join

9:40

a

9:41

group

9:42

who end up a group of people who run

9:45

Britain. People in the

9:47

Bullingdon Club, people in the Oxford Union Debating

9:49

Society, the heart, if you like, of the British

9:51

establishment. This

9:55

is what I found so fascinating, because in Poland

9:57

there is a stereotype of Britain and of English.

10:00

people as aloof and rather difficult

10:03

to make friends with. And I was adopted.

10:06

It was partly because there was so much sympathy

10:08

for Poland at that time. And

10:11

I had a political temperament, so yes, I became

10:13

a hack at the union, as we used to call

10:15

it. Giving big speeches and intervening

10:18

on that. Which is also organizing an

10:21

address by Lech Wałęsa from

10:23

internment, which

10:27

was read out by Frank Chappell, the

10:29

British trade unionist. And we had a debate

10:32

on martial law and so on. Which

10:34

were then rebroadcast by

10:36

the BBC and by the Voice of

10:39

America. And at that time, of course, Margaret Thatcher

10:41

is prime minister. She'd made a public

10:43

stand in favor of the people of Eastern

10:46

Europe, I think, to many people. But

10:48

the Berlin Wall was regarded as something of a heroine,

10:51

having been dubbed the Iron Lady. Yes,

10:54

but she was a pragmatist too. But remember

10:56

that she was the first person to say that we can

10:58

do business with Mr. Gorbachev. Which I think

11:00

was the correct policy. But

11:02

you became rather enamored of Margaret

11:05

Thatcher, the point when you become a minister in Poland. Am

11:08

I right in thinking there's a picture of her

11:10

on the wall? Yes, and I saw

11:12

her when she was still prime minister. And I saw her

11:14

after she ceased to be prime minister. She received

11:17

me when I was a 29-year-old

11:20

deputy defense minister. And she gave

11:22

me a handwritten statement

11:25

saying that Russian troops should get out of Poland

11:27

and Poland should join NATO, which at that time

11:30

was significant. And at

11:32

that stage, and I emphasize at

11:34

that stage, that

11:36

group at Oxford were

11:39

pretty Eurosceptical, were like Margaret

11:41

Thatcher was to go on and become. Had

11:44

a lot of doubts, some anger about

11:47

what they perceived as the bussiness,

11:49

the bureaucracy of Brussels. When

11:52

I think back on those days,

11:55

I see the origins of Brexit

11:57

then. I have a confession to make.

12:00

Euro skeptic at that time as well, but

12:02

that's because I believed what I was reading

12:04

in the British press about how the EU

12:06

works. And it was a lie. And

12:09

it partly inspires me

12:12

to counter the lies in Poland

12:15

by the Europhobes, because I saw

12:18

how this movie starts and I saw how

12:20

it ends and it ends badly. A

12:23

lie is a strong word. You

12:25

could say a caricature. No,

12:28

an actual lie. I'll give you an example.

12:31

You read in the British press in the 80s and

12:33

90s that faceless

12:36

bureaucrats impose directives

12:39

on the member states. That's a lie.

12:42

That's not how a European directive

12:45

is passed. To have a directive you need

12:47

a simultaneous agreement of

12:49

the council, which is the prime ministers

12:51

of the member states, of the Commission, which

12:53

is commissioners appointed by democratic

12:56

governments and democratically elected

12:58

parliament. And I can't

13:01

think of how to make it more democratic.

13:04

It's not an imposition. To say that

13:06

it's that the EU is run by

13:08

faceless bureaucrats is just a lie. Well

13:10

it could be more democratic if people are directly

13:12

elected. You can argue if you're a Brexiteer,

13:15

given that they can't be a level

13:17

of a coalition. Directly elected. I

13:19

received 130,000 votes. Yeah,

13:22

well currently a member of that European

13:24

parliament. Now this leads you, years

13:27

later, to fall out with your

13:29

old friends when it comes to Brexit.

13:32

Now David Cameron was Oxford at the time but wasn't politically

13:34

involved, but you had reason then and you had the

13:37

status then to say to him

13:39

you're making a huge mistake

13:41

by having a referendum on you. I made a speech

13:43

at Blenheim Palace when

13:45

there was the first inkling of a possible

13:47

referendum, warning my

13:50

friends not to do it. But

13:52

yeah, David didn't want to take

13:55

Britain out of the EU, which

13:58

is my warning to a fair amount of people. politicians

14:00

in Poland. Look, you can leave without

14:02

wanting to do so. You can leave

14:05

through incompetence and an unlucky

14:07

accident. And Boris

14:09

Johnson, who you'd know well, back

14:12

in Oxford, ends up leading

14:14

the Leave campaign. Did

14:17

you argue with him? You

14:19

know, we met him with my wife

14:22

who also knows him and, you know,

14:26

he never gave a hint that he would

14:28

be anti-EU.

14:32

I think he had it in him to be a prime

14:35

minister in a cause

14:41

that was congruent with his views.

14:44

And I think it's a tragedy that he became a prime

14:46

minister in the cause of Brexit. You

14:49

mean he could have been the

14:51

liberal conservative you thought you'd knew

14:54

rather than the Brexit-E champion that he became?

14:58

I think that was a very unlucky and unfortunate

15:00

turn of events. Your private conversations,

15:02

your private conversations, but did you fall out about

15:04

it? Yeah,

15:07

there are private conversations and I think it's

15:11

unfortunate that Britain has left. We

15:14

felt it as a direct assault on our family.

15:18

That's a fascinating phrase. Why so? Because

15:22

we felt that we

15:25

have links with this country and, you know, like

15:27

so many other polls and this frictionless

15:30

travel and trade

15:32

and shopping. It was part of our

15:34

way of life which has been disrupted. But

15:37

for you particularly, someone who knew these

15:39

people, who'd agreed with them, as you say,

15:42

when you were a young man, did it

15:45

ever get to the stage where you thought, why can't I

15:47

explain this to them? Why can't they get it? Why

15:49

can't they see it as I see it? With

15:51

hindsight, it was there from the

15:54

beginning. Mrs. Thatcher was

15:56

a hero to us as an anti-communist

15:58

and a champion of the United States. privatization,

16:01

in other words, a leader

16:03

away from collectivism. What

16:07

I didn't appreciate at the time was that

16:09

she was also an English nationalist. And

16:12

I think Brexit was a product of English nationalism.

16:16

Now I want to turn to Poland very soon and Europe,

16:18

but just one last thought on

16:20

this. When you look at Britain

16:23

now, when you're a regular visitor to

16:25

the UK, you've got family

16:27

here. Do

16:29

you see Britain ever returning to

16:32

the EU or perhaps joining

16:34

some new looser confederation? It's

16:37

been talked about for decades, hasn't it? Britain and

16:39

Macron now causing the European political

16:41

community some wider grouping of

16:43

European nations. Let me start

16:46

with a personal observation. I was

16:49

last month testifying before the House of Lords

16:52

European Committee, Lord

16:54

Ricketts and Lord Lamont and others.

16:58

And I had the following thought. If

17:00

you'd asked me 30 years ago

17:03

when I was pouring beer at a pub in

17:05

Vauxhalles, that there might

17:07

come a time when A, Poland

17:09

would be free, but Poland

17:11

would be in the European Union, but Britain

17:14

would not be, I would not have

17:16

believed you. And

17:19

you had a really good deal as Britain.

17:22

In fact, an ala carte membership. You

17:24

didn't have to join the euro. You

17:27

were outside the Schengen zone. You

17:29

had control over your own immigration

17:32

policy, actually. Even as a member,

17:35

you had two very important EU

17:37

agencies, medicines and financial

17:40

services. You had a commissioner

17:43

for the financial

17:45

services. You had the EU's

17:48

foreign minister, Lady Ashton, who set up

17:50

the external action service. If

17:53

you'd chosen to, you could have led the

17:55

creation of European defence, which is now

17:57

happening without Britain, which is a shame.

18:01

And so it's a tragedy that

18:04

after these 30 years of misleading

18:06

the public about how the EU actually works,

18:08

you've left. I mean,

18:11

are you up on one thing now? Control

18:13

of immigration policy? People say, no, freedom

18:16

of movement, men. We had no choice. Yes,

18:18

there was an argument about how quickly people

18:20

from your own country, Poland

18:23

could come into the UK after Poland joined. But

18:26

overall, freedom of movement is freedom of movement.

18:30

It's true that Tony Blair's friendly

18:32

decision not to use the

18:34

seven year derogation, which

18:37

everybody else in the EU claimed. In other

18:39

words, the delay before Poles, I told

18:41

information, could come. That meant that

18:43

anybody and his brother from the 10 new member

18:46

states who wanted to try their luck abroad

18:49

came to Britain. And we fixed up your

18:51

housing stock. But

18:54

it was a shock to some communities. I agree with that.

18:58

But this is only about people

19:00

coming from inside the EU and not to settle. Remember, there

19:03

was never a right to settle. You

19:05

always had the right to deport

19:08

people who were a draw on the public purse.

19:11

So if someone was claiming benefits, you could get rid

19:13

of them. Also, all

19:17

along, you had the right to do what everybody

19:19

else in the EU does, which is to say

19:21

when people go to the hospital,

19:24

you could have that money, the

19:26

money for the services refunded by their

19:28

home country. Britain chose not

19:30

to do that, but that was your decision.

19:33

Now, Radek Zukorski, let us turn to your

19:35

own country. You feared,

19:38

you've just said, that your country, Poland,

19:41

could follow the same path

19:44

as Britain followed, that you had seen

19:46

this movie before, as you put it.

19:49

Really? There was a political dynamic here

19:51

when a group of Europhobes essentially

19:55

took over the agenda of the ruling

19:57

party and were willing to bring down

19:59

the government. unless the whole

20:01

government moved against the European

20:03

Union. And this is what we've seen in Poland

20:06

until this election. That there was a group

20:08

that turned

20:11

the ruling party into a

20:13

viciously untied European

20:16

one. And on that you did genuinely

20:18

worry that Poland, this

20:21

great story of your life, communism

20:23

falls, Poland gets into the EU,

20:26

might be reversed. Yes, representatives

20:29

of the ruling party were saying, this

20:32

is recently during already

20:34

a raging war

20:36

with invasion of Ukraine,

20:39

that the European Union

20:41

was the biggest threat to our sovereignty

20:44

than Russia, than the East, which is

20:46

complete nonsense. In

20:48

fact, Britain, by leaving, proved

20:52

that member states retain sovereignty

20:55

because you can leave. You know, I

20:57

remember what it was like not to

20:59

have sovereignty. You know, in

21:02

communist Poland, when you demanded that

21:04

we leave the comic-con and there

21:06

was a pact, you were put

21:08

in jail. That's what not having

21:10

sovereignty looks like. So

21:13

I was very worried about that. And I'm very

21:16

happy that the people of Poland have rejected those

21:18

kind of fantasies. Law and justice

21:22

were accused not just by you, their political opponents, but by

21:24

plenty of people outside, including many leading figures

21:26

in the EU, of

21:28

rolling back democratic norms of threatening

21:30

a free media, threatening a

21:32

properly functioning and independent legal system.

21:39

Without getting into the detail of all that, how did it happen? Why

21:41

did Poles, arguably Hungarians and others

21:44

too, having

21:46

fought so hard for freedom, seem willing to

21:49

give it up? If

21:53

we'd lost this election, I was planning

21:55

to write a book about the

21:57

50-percent

21:59

people

22:01

who by not fulfilling

22:03

their constitutional role, took

22:05

us into dictatorship. It's

22:08

scary and you should be scared too

22:10

because there were tendencies in this country as well.

22:13

Do you remember the enemies of the

22:15

people? From the age of the Daily

22:17

Mail. That's right. Describing the judges

22:19

who they thought were frustrating Brexit. Right. So

22:22

think about nationalist media

22:24

doing that every day and you have

22:27

a picture of what's happened in Poland. Imagine

22:29

the BBC being taken over by Breitbart

22:32

or Fox News and pumping

22:34

out anti-EU nationalist

22:37

propaganda every day for eight years. Imagine

22:40

the courts packed by party loyalists.

22:43

Imagine the security services worrying

22:46

more about the opposition and

22:48

eavesdropping on the opposition than

22:50

about external threats. The head

22:53

of our election campaign at the last election

22:55

in 2019 had Pegasus

22:57

software installed on his phone. Not

22:59

only did they filch everything

23:01

from his phone, they put stuff on

23:04

his phone. You can destroy anybody

23:06

by doing that. And you know

23:08

about this because you had

23:10

a private conversation in a restaurant published

23:13

what weeks later, months later? Designed

23:16

to humiliate. Sure. So

23:19

those were the kinds of methods that the government

23:21

was using. They also packed

23:24

state controlled companies which became

23:26

piggy bags for the ruling

23:29

party. One of the first things they did

23:31

was to abolish competitive

23:33

examinations in the civil service. So

23:36

they were doing state capture. Let

23:38

me just understand though. When

23:40

you were thinking of writing this book of 50 people,

23:44

are you saying it's not mass movements

23:47

that send countries in the wrong direction?

23:49

Eight small numbers of determined people

23:52

can do it. If what? Other people

23:54

don't understand, stand idly by,

23:56

are complacent. You can slide

23:59

into it by accident. And so the

24:01

peace party gained power

24:03

with 38% of the vote in 2015. Just

24:07

so people know, PIS, that's

24:09

the proper Polish name for literature. And

24:12

then started putting loyalists

24:15

in key positions of power. And that's

24:17

enough. And that's scary. And

24:20

we now see that the American constitution

24:22

is not as solid as we thought.

24:25

It's a problem everywhere. So what

24:27

you need is an

24:30

ideological sect and the

24:32

support of not much more

24:35

than a third of the electorate to

24:37

change the system. You see, in Poland,

24:40

they never gained a constitutional majority.

24:43

But they were trying to change the system by

24:46

going around institutions. And

24:48

they almost succeeded. Now, this has

24:50

implications if, and it is still

24:52

an if, your party, under Donald Tusk,

24:55

who was president of the European Council,

24:58

becomes Poland's prime minister. It

25:00

has implications not just for your country,

25:03

but also for Europe. And

25:06

for the wider world, given that Ukraine,

25:09

Poland's neighbour, started

25:12

to become an issue of real tension

25:15

in Polish politics, were you worried,

25:18

are you perhaps still worried, that old

25:20

neighbours who've been so generous in

25:23

their hospitality to Ukrainians

25:25

fleeing the war? I saw it for myself

25:27

in the days immediately after the war, were

25:30

ready to turn their back on Ukraine. When

25:33

Putin invaded, a million Ukrainians

25:36

came to Poland and we welcomed them in our

25:38

homes. We had already

25:40

had a million Ukrainians even

25:43

before that. And of course, there wasn't

25:45

a 15% reserve in the Polish

25:48

health service in the Polish educational system.

25:50

So after a while, obviously,

25:53

you go to the doctor and you hear Ukrainian, just

25:55

like Polish in Britain. Some

25:58

people... become tired

26:00

of that and there are always political

26:03

entrepreneurs who take advantage

26:05

of such feelings. Poland's strategic

26:07

interest is for Ukraine to win, but

26:10

the ruling party was trying to play

26:12

the anti-Ukrainian card and compete

26:15

with another party that is even further

26:17

to the right of them, but

26:20

it failed, thank God, because Poland

26:22

needs to do its utmost

26:25

to help Ukraine win and to have

26:28

Ukraine in the European Union by the end of

26:30

the decade. And do you worry that not

26:32

just Poles, but European

26:34

leaders overall, European peoples may

26:37

just lose their patience, their willingness,

26:40

not least because there's now another terrible

26:42

conflict. The only people who are

26:45

entitled to be tired by this war are

26:47

the Ukrainians. You know,

26:49

I go every other month, I take

26:51

a pickup truck, the friends

26:54

and family sponsor, and we go

26:56

in a convoy and we deliver these trucks directly

26:58

to the front line, to the soldiers. And

27:01

every... Just be clear, you go to the front, you're not

27:03

going to leave it, you're not going to keep it. No,

27:05

no, to the front line. Last time it was Bakhmout, very

27:07

near, 18 kilometers

27:09

from Bakhmout. And every

27:12

time I go, the cemeteries

27:15

in the villages and the small towns are bigger.

27:18

It's Ukrainians who are being shelled, having

27:20

their infrastructure destroyed and losing

27:23

their people, not we. They are destroying

27:25

the Russian army, which threatens Europe,

27:28

and we haven't done enough to help them win.

27:31

And do you look back, in a way, as you've

27:33

looked back at the origins of Brexit

27:36

and decisions that were made in Europe after

27:38

the invasion of Georgia in 2008, after the annexation

27:40

of Crimea, roughly

27:43

the period, I think I'm right in saying, that you were foreign

27:45

minister in Poland and think we

27:48

got it wrong? Well,

27:50

my friend Karl Bildt, the foreign minister of

27:52

Sweden at the time, we were begging the

27:55

European Council to do more, to

27:57

impose sanctions on Russia in 2013. 13 when

28:00

Russia sanctioned Ukraine and

28:03

to deter Russia from doing

28:05

Crimea. And if we'd

28:07

been firmer earlier, this

28:09

might have been avoided. But it's

28:11

not the first time that

28:14

people play safe and we don't do enough.

28:18

Now the world's attention, as I said in the introduction,

28:21

is inevitably on what's happening in the

28:24

Middle East. Is

28:26

Europe taking the right

28:28

stance in its solidarity

28:31

with Israel? Or do you

28:33

fear that when the

28:35

tanks roll into Gaza, who

28:38

knows, they may have done better time this is broadcast?

28:40

I hope they have done, by the way.

28:43

Well I think President Biden is right

28:46

to be saying to the Israelis, look,

28:48

you have the right to live in secure

28:50

borders, we sympathize with your loss,

28:53

but he says, don't make our mistake

28:56

in doing Iraq. Don't overreact

28:58

because you might land yourself in even bigger

29:00

trouble. And you think any form

29:03

of ground invasion would be a repeat of

29:05

the mistake? Look, these are decisions for the

29:07

government of national unity of Israel. But

29:10

these are very, very difficult and consequential

29:13

decisions. And I think Afghanistan,

29:15

Iraq, should

29:17

inform us that you need to know

29:19

in advance what it is

29:22

you're trying to achieve at the end. What

29:24

is your exit strategy before you start?

29:27

Because wars are easy to start and

29:29

as Putin has discovered, not so

29:31

easy to end. But you will have friends in Israel.

29:35

You'll have many Jewish friends who are supporters of Israel.

29:37

Poland also recognizes the statehood of

29:39

Palestine. And they will say to you, I'm sure, what

29:42

else do we do, Radek Zukorsky? We

29:45

have had the worst slaughter since

29:48

the Holocaust. We have had babies

29:51

burnt. We have had grannies kidnapped.

29:54

We have no choice but to seek out the enemy

29:56

and destroy them. To which you would say? 9-11

29:58

was the big... biggest

30:00

act of terror on American soil in

30:02

the history of the United States. And

30:05

they also felt the need to settle

30:07

the score, but they overreached.

30:10

So you need to be very careful in how

30:12

you, we all

30:14

understand emotions and the

30:17

Middle East is not short of them. But

30:19

we also need statesmanship. Another old friend

30:22

of yours, I think, is the historian

30:24

Professor Niall Ferguson, who

30:26

has warned, he's on the

30:28

Today Podcast warning, that

30:31

there is a risk that if you add a conflict

30:33

in the Middle East to a conflict

30:36

in Ukraine, to the Chinese

30:38

thinking now's the moment to move on Taiwan

30:41

because the world's attention is elsewhere, you

30:43

have the ingredients of, not a guarantee

30:45

of, but the ingredients of a potential

30:49

Third World War. Do you share those fears?

30:52

It's an imaginable scenario, and that's why

30:55

responsible politicians have to weigh

30:57

all the risks. I reiterate,

31:02

Israel was the

31:05

victim of a horrible terrorist

31:08

atrocity, but Israel as

31:11

a democracy also has a bigger

31:13

responsibility to react

31:17

in a responsible way. Do

31:19

you want to be Poland's foreign minister again,

31:21

given all this? There was a

31:23

dangerous conversation, Nick, as you know. I'll

31:27

take that as a yes, but we're not confirming it now.

31:29

It's early days and all that. We've

31:32

spanned a fascinating lifetime

31:35

in this conversation. If

31:37

this Radiksakorski

31:39

could go back to that teenager

31:42

and give him some advice, what

31:44

would it be?

31:46

I feel I've

31:49

been so lucky in the moment

31:51

when I was born, old enough

31:53

to have tasted life under communism,

31:56

under unfreedom, and then see

31:58

my country. liberate itself

32:01

and also to have the fastest

32:04

period of catching up with the West in

32:06

our thousand-year history. And

32:09

last few years have been difficult because I thought

32:12

that we are again having

32:14

to fight for democracy, but overall

32:17

Poland has done extraordinarily well in

32:20

my lifetime. So actually

32:23

I feel that

32:25

I've been very lucky. But if we

32:28

went back to the Radak-Zakorsky I first

32:30

met at Oxford University and

32:32

you could talk to him, would you say,

32:35

don't get charmed by Boris Johnson? You're

32:37

regretting. Boris

32:42

was a friend and

32:46

I

32:50

don't draw me into that because that Boris at

32:53

Oxford, with the prettiest

32:58

girlfriend of our year, was

33:02

a man of great promise. Radak-Zakorsky,

33:05

former Polish foreign minister and who knows maybe

33:08

the next one.

33:08

Thank you very much for joining me on Political Thinking.

33:12

Radak-Zakorsky's generation, my generation,

33:15

grew up for year after year and decade

33:17

after decade, believing that

33:19

progress was almost inevitable. After

33:22

all, we'd witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall,

33:24

the reuniting of Europe, the end of

33:27

apartheid, globalization

33:29

spreading economic prosperity to

33:32

countries and people who'd never seen it before.

33:35

And yet it is members of that same

33:37

generation who are now warning

33:40

that if and

33:43

only if leaders get decisions

33:45

wrong now, they could create

33:48

the conditions for World

33:50

War Three. We have to hope

33:52

and pray that those warnings

33:55

prove to be wrong. Thank

33:57

you for listening. The producer of political

34:00

thinking is Daniel Kramer, the editor

34:02

is Jonathan Brunert, the studio manager

34:04

this week was Gareth Jones.

34:07

Hi, I'm Kristy Young

34:09

and this is Young Again, my podcast

34:12

for BBC Radio 4, where I get

34:14

the chance to meet some of the world's

34:16

most noteworthy and intriguing

34:18

people and ask them the question, if

34:21

you knew then what you know now, what

34:24

would you tell yourself? I don't regret anything in

34:26

my life. You don't? No

34:28

way.

34:29

Who could I turn back? For

34:31

me, well, I'd probably tell my younger

34:33

self to slow down, not

34:35

to be so judgmental, that

34:37

all that worrying was wasted energy and

34:40

that a perm is always a

34:42

bad idea. This might be the best therapy

34:44

I've had all year, by the way. Okay. You

34:46

never know. Join me for some frank and

34:48

I hope fascinating exchanges. Subscribe

34:51

to Young Again on BBC Suns.