Speaking to an audience on the sidelines of the Edinburgh festival, Stewart said a shift away from the UK system was needed to break through “new parties, new ideas, new opportunities”. He said this would be a major corrective to a “wooden, stiff and boring” Labor party and a Conservative party in “la-la-land”. Stewart stood to be leader of the Tory party in 2019 in the contest eventually won by Boris Johnson, but was kicked out of the party by Johnson later that year. “There is definitely a huge space for a new party. In Scotland it should be a liberal, unionist party, in other words, a party that believes in the United Kingdom that is not a right-wing populist party. In England it should be a really strong, dynamic center party,” he said. He cited the example of the independent Teals in Australia as a possible model. These are independent candidates united by the combination of blue, the traditional color of the centre-right Liberal party, with the green view on the climate. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Stewart added that he would “love to come back” to frontline politics, which he left three years ago, but that would “probably depend” on electoral reforms. Asked whether he would vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, he reluctantly chose Sunak, although his expulsion from the party means he cannot vote. He shared with the audience his feelings of disillusionment with politics, which he described as “an incredibly bogus profession” in which it was “impossible to make real change” both for his constituents as an MP and at policy level as a minister – because of of the UK’s “incredibly complex” political system. He added that it was “foolish to make policy about Africa when I knew nothing about it”. Reflecting on his “difficult” period working under Johnson, then foreign secretary, he said he had concluded he was a “truly terrible man”, who lost the “trust and respect” of his junior ministers. He regularly recalled being “very angry” at his inability to understand details and decisions he would make, such as congratulating the Kenyan government despite accusations of electoral corruption, telling ambassadors to write “upbeat” dispatches from their country, and to arrive at morning meetings. “like he was reading the Economist in the bathroom the night before.” Any attempt to confront Johnson would result in him being charmed. “I’d be out three minutes later looking like a battered partner,” he recalls. Stewart said that, as he approaches his 50th birthday, he wants to focus the rest of his career on “pencil[ing] a global movement’ to improve the impact of international development work, citing its failure to reduce the level of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa since 1980. He would like to see charities focus on cash grants given directly to those in need rather than spending money on expensive field staff from Western countries who make decisions for local people. As a staunch unionist, he said he would support the campaign for Scotland to remain part of the UK as “nothing is improved by drawing borders”, as Brexit has shown. He would prefer not to see a referendum as, rather than helping to put the issues to bed, he believes they are “polarizing and divisive”. But if anything, he recommended Gordon Brown as a “fantastic voice” to lead the pro-union campaign in his stead.
