Rory Stewart

It's a pompous way of saying words matter.

This story that, you know, what Trump says or what's in the strategy doesn't really matter.

The whole bureaucracy is now behind the idea that you're meant to be behind parties like Orban, populists in Europe, and you're meant to be pushing back against liberal democracy and immigration, etc.,

Let me do my attempt to sort of do a minute summary of my census speech, then you can correct me because you had a much closer thoughtful engagement with it.

So he begins by saying, we need to understand that the UK needs to be much closer to Europe.

And he talks very explicitly about the fact that Europe's got far too many different national defense systems when the US has one frigate

one advanced fighter jet, etc.

And that needs to be sorted out.

But he then says some people talk about rupture.

The person who talked about rupture is, of course, Mark Carney.

And that was Mark Carney and Davos a few weeks ago.

And I disagree.

And I think we need, and he then explicitly says, we cannot break the transatlantic relationship.

We need to remain very, very close to the United States.

But what was interesting is that he didn't, in a way that Merz did, Stubb is now doing, the president of Finland, and certainly Carney, he doesn't at any point in the speech really call out the US.

He doesn't say, as everybody is here.

still, Greenland is the game changer.

One of the interesting things I feel with European colleagues when I've been talking to them both in meetings and outside meetings and late at night is

Their take on Metz's speech is he needs to buy time.

He needs to get an EU-US trade deal across the line.