(piano intro) - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to Side by Side.

Today's guest has had a profound impact in global affairs and international relations.

He's known for his distinctive voice on policy and leadership style.

Please join me as we visit with the Right Honorable Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

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(upbeat music) - Mr.

Prime Minister, welcome to Side by Side.

I gotta ask you, do you miss being Prime Minister?

- Nido, it's a great honor to be with you on Side by Side.

Obviously, it was a massive privilege to be Prime Minister.

I was, before that, I was Mayor of London, Foreign Secretary in the UK, and I did the Prime Minister job for a little over three years, which is not a historic record, but it was a big time for our country, and we got a lot of stuff done during that time.

I'm proud of what we did.

We got Brexit done, we managed to protect our population with vaccines faster than any other European country, virtually any other country in the world, and we played an important role in that period in stopping Ukraine from being overwhelmed as I really think it might have been.

So, you know, it was a tough period, but I loved doing it.

And yes, I miss it.

- Yes, so you know, Brexit is a big deal.

Everybody has read about Brexit all over the world.

Henry Kissinger said it was a great thing.

You said in your book, "Unleashing Potential," which is a big, thick, heavy book.

- It is a big book, unleashed, unleashed.

- And you said, you said Britain will never go back.

- Yeah, I think that's right.

I think that's right.

People don't understand Brexit very widely around the world, and I can see there's a lot of negative coverage of it, and I understand that because I think people were very surprised by the decision of the British people, the elites were, but I could see that thing coming, and it was the right thing for the UK.

The UK is very different from some of those other continental countries that have much newer democracies and really see no problem being kind of folded into one kind of political superstructure.

That's not right for the UK.

And the advantages of Brexit really started to show up almost immediately.

I mean, quite serendipitously, we found when the COVID thing hit us that we could use Brexit to vaccinate our population way faster than the 27 EU members who stuck with their own bureaucratic procedures, which we would have otherwise undoubtedly followed.

And that made a difference.

I mean, that saved lives.

End of '20, beginning of '21, you had people dying in the hundreds, maybe a thousand a day sometimes.

So people were very frightened, and we got those vaccines into their arms, and I was proud of that.

And Brexit definitely helped with that, and helped in lots of other ways too.

But it's a long-term thing.

I think people need to understand that it's about giving the UK the opportunity now to think a bit differently economically.

And you've got to look at the size of government spending in the UK, you've got to look at the debt, you've got to look at the way the whole of Europe has been running, the welfare bills, the taxation, the whole system.

It's not the same as what you're doing in the US.

- For those who may not understand fully what Brexit really is, how would you explain it?

- Yes, I'm sorry, I should have said, Brexit means the exit of Britain, Brexit from the European Union.

And the European Union is not a static federation.

It's by charter, by treaty, it is devoted to ever closer union.

So the aim of the European Union is to perfect itself, rather like the United States of America, e pluribus unum, into one great polity.

And, you know, look, I love what the United States of America is.

I love it, it's a fantastic thing.

- You were born here.

- I was born here.

- You were born in New York City.

- And I love that federal concept, but the history is very different.

You have a single language, you have a single political culture, you have a common loyalty, you have a natural allegiance to a great flag.

And with the best one in the world, we don't have that in Europe, nor do the British people at any rate, want to go down that path.

- How many countries are in the European Union?

- 27 now.

- 27.

- 27, yeah, which is, it's a lot.

And the, you got, you know, whatever, 50, 51 states in the USA.

And the, but the analogy breaks down, the analogy totally breaks down, because there are different languages, there are different cultures, different traditions.

And what the, the EU is trying to do, is really push all those countries together, and get them to accept laws that are totally anti-democratic.

People in Britain have no say in this stuff.

I mean, can you imagine the United States of America accepting laws on immigration, or just judgments on immigration, from a court that was based in Guatemala or whatever, and only had one American representative amongst a dozen?

No, no, no, no, it wouldn't happen.

America doesn't share its sovereignty with anybody, anybody, right?

So I think in a globalized economy, that's not the way to go.

- Yeah.

- And we're going down a different path now, and we should be positive, and we are.

- Now you've written, what, 15 books, maybe more?

- No, no, I wish, I've written, Unleashed is, I think, about number 11.

I think it's something like, we can give you any, I should have, foolishly, I didn't bring it.

- I have all your books.

- I neglected to bring a copy of Unleashed for this show.

- I spent half my net worth buying your books.

- I know, I saw, I very, very appreciate it.

- And-- - Nino, you're too generous.

Anyway, Unleashed is about number 11, and it's a compendious book, right?

- Yes.

- Has a lot of stuff in it.

- Yes.

- But it's basically a guide to the last 15 years in world politics, actually.

If you look at the, you know, from my time as Mayor of London onwards, I was always flying around the world.

- You were Mayor of London twice.

- I was, I was-- - And while you were Mayor of London, you chaired the Olympics.

- I did, yes.

Did you come?

- I wish, you didn't invite me.

- No, no, I'm sorry.

- Next time.

- We didn't know each other.

- Yeah, that's it, yes.

- No, that's right, I should have done.

It was, that was a great success, and the whole country loved it.

I mean, Olympics are a fantastic event.

- It's a gathering of the people.

- It was just beautiful.

It was just beautiful.

Everybody, it was like someone had put serotonin in the water supply.

Everybody cheered up.

But they didn't think they were gonna like it before.

- Really?

- No, no, no.

- Why is that?

- Well, because of the legit, because the transport was gonna be, you know, mucked up by all the Olympic bureaucrats driving around London in their Zill limousines, and it was gonna be a nightmare.

There were lots of objections, the cost, the disruption, all that.

People hated it to begin with.

Hated it, even for the first few days, they hated it.

But then we started to win loads of gold medals.

- Yes.

(laughs) - That has a power.

- That changes things.

It does change things.

- People cheer up.

- Now, you know, your background is very interesting, because you're an intellectual in many ways, and you are a journalist.

You're an author.

You were a publisher of The Spectator in England.

What got you into politics in the first place?

- Well, that's a really, it's a midlife crisis, really.

I, like so many of us, I find myself, you know, is now mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, not quite knowing, you know.

When you're a journalist, you had a very privileged position, and you're behind this moat, this full, and you can throw the rocks all over the garden wall.

You can throw the rocks at the politicians, and you can listen to the tinkle of the greenhouse glass, and it's very gratifying.

But you feel a bit, you know, it's easy, comparatively easy.

- Yes.

- And so you want to try to, when you do it for a while, and I did it for quite a while.

- So it wasn't necessarily something you wanted to change.

You didn't have a passion to make something happen?

- I kind of, well, I had a kind of basic conservative instinct.

So I thought that I was a bit impatient with the direction some things were going in.

And I certainly, you know, thought there was too much wasteful spending, too much government bureaucracy.

And, you know, I'd campaigned on these issues.

I campaigned on the European issue when I was a journalist.

But in a kind of irresponsible way, as you do as a journalist.

And you just, you fire this stuff off.

You have terrific fun, exploding some politician's dreams.

But then it's much more difficult to put yourself in the position of taking the decisions yourself.

- Yes.

- And so you feel you ought to have a go.

- When you were prime minister, the queen was still living.

- She was.

- And a quote that I read that she said to you, "Leadership is not about being popular.

It's about being useful."

- Yes.

- What was the relationship with the queen and what is typically the relationship of a prime minister with now with the king of England?

- My relationship with her was wonderful.

And we had a great, you know, I mean, I had the great privilege of spending an hour a week with her.

And we would sit like I'm with you.

- An hour a week?

- Yes, yeah, yeah.

- Was that by law or protocol?

- I don't think there's a law.

It's just by custom, tradition.

The prime minister, the government is not the prime minister's government.

The government is Her Majesty's government.

And so the way it works is if you can form a majority in the House of Commons, then you can go to the queen, the king now, and say, "I'm in a position to command a majority in the House of Commons.

I would like to form a government."

And the queen assents, or the king assents.

And that's how it all begins.

You then, formally speaking, you have an engagement every week.

And we would sit like this, you know, like you and me.

- You went to her, Buckingham?

- I would go to her.

I would go to Buckingham and she would sit with us.

- She served you tea or wine?

- Actually, well, I mean, if I was lucky, I might get something to drink.

But it was quite, it was quite businesslike.

And, but very free-flowing and convivial.

And, you know, she would, we would just talk and talk and talk.

- No press?

- No, nobody else at all.

- So private conversation?

- Nobody else at all.

And that was the convention.

And so after the meeting, all the kind of top courtiers would immediately sort of cluster around you and say, "What did she say?

What did she say about this?

What did she say about that?"

Because they needed to know what her thinking was on, you know, whatever controversies or what were worrying them.

And so it had this feeling of a kind of priest-like confessional.

So she was like the favorite grandmother that you can tell all the stuff you never tell your parents.

And she was very consoling.

She kind of made you feel better about every disaster.

- Did she persuade you to change your mind about some things?

- No, that wasn't her job.

And she would never-- - She wouldn't-- Well, maybe subliminally, but I don't-- She--it was not her job to try to steer or shape policy in any way.

And she never did.

But she would kind of give you the historical context of things.

- But when you look at our world today, given the experience you've had, given all the leaders of many nations that you have met and hosted and chatted with, what troubles you about the world today?

- Look, I think that we've got a lot of problems.

I think I worry about environment.

It's just a sheer weight of population.

You know, nine billion people.

You look at what's happening around the world and we are mankind, humanity, is unquestionably damaging the natural world.

Now, whether you believe in anthropogenic climate change or not, there is no doubt that, you know, getting off a nine billion people is-- - And growing.

- And growing is more damaging for the planet than it, when I was born, it was like three billion or even fewer, right?

That's a huge, huge change.

And you can see it changing, you can feel it, you can smell it, right?

And so that's a problem.

But we'll fix it.

I tell you the thing we need to fix, and I think we'll find the technological solutions.

And the population's actually, if you look at the trends, it's stabilizing.

So I'm not actually that worried about all that.

In terms of the political problems the world faces, extremism, civil war, poverty, injustice, you know, I have a kind of Swiss army knife solution for the, you know, a multi-purpose solution.

And that is female education.

- Female.

- Female education, I swear to God, I swear, Nido, and you should get your students to campaign on this, because you look at it, you go to Sub-Saharan Africa, go to South Asia, even Latin American countries, the levels of female illiteracy can be absolutely terrifying.

And way, way, way higher than male illiteracy, because of the sexism.

It's not difficult to teach a child to read.

I have a four-year-old right now, and I'm trying to teach him to read.

You know, it can be done.

Any adult who can read can teach a child to read, right?

So why in heaven's name is there like 60% female illiteracy in Nigeria?

Huh?

- Why do you think it is?

- Or in Pakistan?

It would say nothing of Afghanistan, because of sexism by the men, by people like you and me, sitting in our suits and ties, in meetings, driving around in our air-conditioned cars, but not thinking that it's right to make sure that the kids in our country are getting a fair education.

And when girls don't get educated, you have all sorts of problems, and you're gonna see more poverty, more infant mortality, underachievement by the kids.

It's a disaster.

You know, ask yourself why the countries with big levels of female illiteracy are the hotbeds of Islamist extremism, terrorism, generators of mass emigration, migration to the rest of the world.

It's obvious.

And you see, the world, the global aid lobby hates this stuff, because it sounds condescending, and it sounds neocolonialist, and patronizing, and imperialist, because we're saying to these guys, you're failing, you are failing to teach your kids to read, and anybody can do it.

The global aid industry.

- What is the global aid industry?

- Well, the people, funded by USAID, funded by DFID, and now by the Foreign Office, Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office in my country.

What they want is the money.

They want to mainline the money, which they can spend on tackling poverty.

Tackling poverty.

You can't tackle poverty by taking a lot of money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries, which is basically what aid does.

And you're much, much better off, I think, addressing the root cause of so many of these problems, which is female illiteracy.

Get the girls to read, empower the girls as much as the boys are, and you'll see a massive change.

And all the countries where things have got better, and things have got a lot better, they continue to get better, are the countries where they've cracked the problem.

But sadly, in some countries, it's been going backwards.

I mean, come on, get the cat in the hat.

How difficult is that?

- Is that the book you're teaching your four-year-old?

- Yes, that's right.

- The Cat in the Hat?

- The Cat in the Hat, and the Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

- Yes.

(laughs) - It's a great book.

Tell me this, when you-- - Did you ever read that one?

- Well, I have four children and nine grandchildren.

They all read very well, and we insisted on that.

I'm not sure I read that book, my wife, I'm sure did.

When you look at America, period, the United States of America, what is it that you see that you like, and what is it that you see that you don't like?

I should say agree with, disagree with.

- You know, I think the United States of America is a great hope for the world, and I see incredible can-do spirit, I see incredible optimism, freedom, just the creativity.

And what don't I like right now?

I think there's too much polarization in the politics.

If I had to be, you know, had one criticism, I mean, it's not for me to criticize, right?

But I think it's sad that people are less generous to each other.

I remember, you know, years and years ago, there seemed to be more collegiality across the, I may be wrong about this, but this is my-- - Who was your favorite American president?

- Well, I mean, all present occupant accepted, of course.

Who would be my, who did I admire?

- You're a Winston Churchill guy for sure, right?

- I think, yeah, I'm a Churchill guy for the UK, yeah.

I think he would be one of the great founding fathers.

I mean, it would be, you know, I think Washington, Lincoln, you know, well, these are the, Jefferson, these are the guys who did incredible things, you know?

And they set this country on a path to, you know, a really wonderful idea of freedom.

And it is kind of indivisible.

I don't, in the UK, we don't really like the idea of people going around with submachine guns in schools, right, I mean, this is insane.

But I can kind of, and you know, frankly, I would change it, but that's for America.

Shooting up schools is, you know, I don't know how the hell that happens.

But I can sort of see that it's part of the whole freedom thing.

And it's, you either have a belief in freedom or you don't.

And somehow or other, that belief in freedom and opportunity and potential is continuing to give America rocket boosters.

It really is.

- What about AI?

Does that, are you- - Doesn't worry me in the least.

- Does not worry you?

- I love AI.

- Does not worry you?

- No, it's, does it worry you?

- Well, because we, there's so much unknown, unknown unknowns.

- Yeah, but they said that about, they said that about, you know, the internal combustion engine or, you know, I'm not, no, I'm not fussed about AI.

I think it's a good talking point, but I mean, I've yet to see something that really scares me about it.

I mean, I keep reading these very, very brilliant men saying and women saying, you know, it's going to take over.

And, you know, I haven't seen it yet.

Have you seen a single lawyer put out of work as a result of AI?

Why not?

I mean, it'd be a great thing, but it hasn't happened yet.

No?

- Yes.

- Yes.

- So- - And it's been, AI has been going on for years.

I haven't seen, I haven't seen, you know, all these human profession, all these professions that are supposed to be made redundant by AI.

- Well, technology as a whole has, has helped us in many ways, clearly.

It made the world more fluid.

So what are you doing these days?

You're not Prime Minister, you're not the mayor, you're not the- - I'm a mere toenail.

I'm a mere toenail.

I'm basically spending my time happily, writing books, trying to build kitchen.

- Trying to build a kitchen?

- Building a kitchen for my wife is very expensive.

Looking after my kids, doing some journalism.

- How many children do you have?

- I have eight altogether, but I have three now under five.

- You have three under the age of five.

- I have three under the age of five.

Hence my obsession with reading, because I think, you know, they got to crack it.

- Yeah, yeah.

So, does it seem to you that we have more wars in the world and more distraction?

- I think statistically, actually, the world continues generally to be getting more peaceful.

Crime was going through a long-term secular decline in most Western societies.

I mean, certainly happened when I was mayor of London.

We got crime well down.

Sadly, it seems to have gone up again under the Labour guy, a guy called Sadiq Khan.

It's a big pity, but hopefully that'll all change.

You know, on the whole, democracies don't go to war with each other, on the whole.

It's very hard to find an example of two democracies going to war.

The more we can spread ideals of freedom and democracy, the more we can educate the young girls, I think the safer and happier and more prosperous the world will become.

And, you know, overall, the statistics are very encouraging.

We've lived, you know, capitalism, free markets, continue to lift billions of people out of poverty.

Life expectancy broadly continues to increase.

Most serious killers of human beings, so serious diseases have long been in retreat and continue to be in retreat.

There's a lot to be positive about.

- So you're an optimist about the future of the world?

- I totally am.

- And you're an optimist about the United Kingdom?

- I am, yes, I am.

I mean, we're going through some tough, look, we've got a new government now, a Labour government, and to be honest with you, I mean, I can say this, in the sanctity of the confessional of the PBS broadcast, they're going in the wrong direction.

You know, they're taxing too much, they're driving a lot of people away, but, you know, they'll have to correct, and they will.

- It's a delight to have you on Side by Side, and I wish we had another hour to talk with you about world affairs.

You're both informed and engaged, and I thank you for your leadership, but mostly I thank you for sitting with me on Side by Side, just chatting.

- Thank you, Nites, been an honor to be with you.

(upbeat music) - Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by.

- Coca-Cola Consolidated makes and serves over 300 of the world's best brands and flavors locally, from 13 facilities and 4,500 hardworking teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- The Bud Group has been serving the Southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction, comprehensive facility support with The Bud Group.

- Truist, we're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.

Truist, leaders in banking, unwavering in care.