James Cleverly: ‘Defending freedom isn’t free – but not doing so costs a lot more’

It was pitch black inside the Ukrainian government building as James Cleverly was led to meet the nation’s wartime leader the week before last. The same darkness stretched across Kyiv, with energy stocks being held back after Russian attacks targeted the nation’s power supplies.

The Foreign Secretary’s visit had almost been cancelled after a fierce new bombardment – the Ukrainians expected him to bail. But the trip went ahead. Led through the dark corridors by the light of an iPhone torch, Cleverly was taken to the only room where the switches had been kept on – the one where Volodymyr Zelensky was waiting.

“They all had the lights turned out,” the Foreign Secretary recalls, speaking to The Daily Telegraph down the line from a Nato summit in Bucharest where the conflict dominated discussion. “You’re going through these quite ornate and large government buildings, but there are sandbags everywhere, there are people with guns everywhere. You’re reminded that this is a country at war.”

Cleverly had read all the briefings, struck up close relationships with his counterparts and railed publicly against the Kremlin’s barbarity.

But it was only when seeing a country under attack first-hand that the realities sank in.

“There’s something quite surreal about driving into a big, normally vibrant European city where there are no lights on,” he says. “No lights in the windows of buildings. For the preservation of energy and the protection of the Ukrainians they have a curfew so there were very, very few people about; almost no cars on the road. It’s such a jarring experience.

“That juxtaposition of things that look very familiar – suburban tower blocks, multi-lane roads, traffic lights, shop fronts – and yet were completely alien because they were plunged into darkness: there were no people, there were no cars.

“We got to the ambassador’s residence. There was no running water and the electricity had to be supplied by a portable generator. It was a shock. No amount of diplomatic telegrams that you read or no amount of intelligence reports that you read quite prepare you for that.”

Cleverly has a curious position in the emerging Rishi Sunak government, being both a great office of state newbie and an unexpected reshuffle survivor. The Conservative MP for Braintree’s ministerial rise has largely moved in tandem with that of Boris Johnson, during whose tenure as London mayor he served as deputy. Elected to the House of Commons in 2015 – the same year as Johnson’s parliamentary return – he was handed the Tory chairmanship and later the Department of Education by his old ally.

In September, Cleverly was picked to be Foreign Secretary by Liz Truss, who carried the Johnson flame. And then came the twist. Last month, Sunak kept him in post.

Not many of Truss’s cabinet colleagues got the same treatment. Most, like she, were in and out in 49 days. The Cleverly move in part reflected Sunak’s “unity” reshuffle, a bid to bring a divided party back together. But, as Sunak and Cleverly allies both argue, it also reflected Cleverly’s impressive early weeks in the office. The role of Foreign Secretary, perhaps more than most Cabinet posts, is one defined by the recipient’s character. Cleverly has a clubbable charisma and neat turn of phrase that is a marked contrast to the approach of his recent predecessors – Truss’s determined dogma or Dominic Raab’s details-focused intensity.

Approaching three months in the role, Cleverly took a moment to step back and reflect with The Telegraph on the issues at the top of his in-tray and how he has been addressing them.

Like foreign ministers across Europe, it is the war in Ukraine that has dominated his time so far. Sunak, like Truss and Johnson did before him, has pledged total support to Kyiv. But that blanket backing masks a host of unknowns. How long will the conflict last? What will Vladimir Putin do next? Is there any visible route to peace? And will the West’s resolve hold?

The effect of what ministers dub the Kremlin’s “weaponisation” of energy exports can be felt across Britain in the form of higher energy bills and soaring supermarket prices. So what is the message to the public? Are spiking energy bills the cost for defending democracy?

“I know it’s a bit of a clichéd line but defending freedom is not free,” Cleverly says – while pointing out that the Government is helping on bills. “But the cost of not doing so would be even higher. And I don’t just mean in the abstract sense – in the sense of, like, liberty and freedom, these sometimes slightly abstract concepts. [I mean] the costs that people experience. If we don’t reestablish the kind of international rules that have kept us safe and kept us secure, it will cost us more in actual money.

“We will see more food insecurity, which will push up food prices. We’ll see more protectionism, which will push up prices. We’ll see more energy provision used as a weapon or as leverage: that will push up prices. So we’ve got to win this argument now.” The UK position on peace talks has been consistent for a while: that the call is one for Mr Zelensky. But it has been more than nine months since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February. Could Cleverly conceive of peace talks happening in, say, the next year?

“It’s really, genuinely, really, really difficult to say,” he says. “At the moment the atmosphere that I’m picking up here in Nato is that Vladimir Putin has not really been engaging in good faith. The message that I’m picking up – and this very much echoes the message that I’ve been broadcasting here – is that if this isn’t done right, then it isn’t done.”

The fear, he says, is that the Russian president uses a so-called ceasefire as a smokescreen to retrain more troops and replenish ammunition stocks. “The resolution to this needs to be sustainable, it needs to be meaningful, it needs to be real. What we have got to watch out for is a pause being utilised by Russia as just a way of making sure that its next phase of aggression is more effective than this current phase,” he says.

On one stark fear hanging over the conflict – the possibility of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons, something Washington DC has publicly warned of – the Foreign Secretary is less willing to engage. “I’m not going to speculate on that one,” he says when asked if it is likely. But, he adds: “The only country that’s been talking about nuclear weapons is Russia. It would be a completely unprecedented and unjustified escalation.”

This week it actually has been another foreign policy topic that has hit the front pages. Images of masked Chinese protesters holding up blank sheets of A4 paper in opposition to strict zero-Covid lockdown measures, and the heavy-handed police response that followed, were broadcast across the world from Sunday.

China-watchers believe the scale of public dissent is unlike anything seen in the country since the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The arrest and beating of a BBC journalist covering the news also triggered a diplomatic incident, with the Chinese ambassador to the UK summoned for a dressing down. In a quirk of timing, Monday also saw Sunak give his first major foreign policy speech as Prime Minister, vowing “robust pragmatism” – triggering eye-rolls from Tory China hawks, who questioned what that meant in reality as they demanded a tougher stance.

Cleverly repeats Sunak’s declaration that the “golden era” in Sino-British relations – as declared by then chancellor George Osborne in 2015 – is over. He also thinks Communist rulers should not turn a blind eye to their countrymen taking to the streets.

“In the UK and Europe and other parts of the world, public protest is a natural, normal and fairly regular part of society. Even [if] sometimes I personally disagree with what people are protesting about, I value the fact that public protests in the UK are part of how we live our lives. [But] public protest like that in China is really rare. I think the Chinese government should take note of that.”

But should the UK not take a firmer stance? If the Government really wanted Beijing to take note, as Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg argued in the Commons this week, why not invite Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit?

“With everything you do with international relations, the question you’ve got to ask yourself is, what are you trying to achieve?” the Foreign Secretary responds, saying that approach has become his mantra for the department. “So for me, one of the things that I really want to drive as Foreign Secretary is to really remind ourselves that we are not bystanders or commentators. We are not protesters. What we do is we are here to drive change.”

Or put otherwise: Don’t hold your breath for an invitation.

But what about Taiwan? There are those who have held senior Foreign Office positions in recent years who believe a military move on Taiwan by the Chinese could come in the next two years. Is invasion a red line for the Britain?

“Our position on Taiwan has been very, very, very long standing and it is unchanged,” says Cleverly, carefully side-stepping the question. “No side should take unilateral action,” he adds – a coded warning to Beijing. But he declines to speculate further.

Earlier this month, the Foreign Secretary was representing Britain on another front, visiting Qatar as the World Cup kicked off and meeting senior figures in the government there. Cleverly’s knowledge of the region predates his autumn promotion, having built up personal relationships with senior Qataris during his stint as Middle East minister. That allows him to have “direct”, “honest” and “sometimes challenging” conversations with the Qataris, he argues, including around human rights and the treatment of migrant workers.

What was his message, then, on British football fans and gay rights? “It’s the message that I’ve said consistently over the last three years, which is that LGBTQ football fans going to Qatar should be able to enjoy the football, should be able to be themselves, and that the Qataris as host nation should make all – all – football fans feel safe and welcome. And this was a commitment that I got from the Qataris.”

That has not always been the case, however, with stories emerging of Wales fans having rainbow-coloured bucket hats confiscated by stadium security guards. Should Britons not be allowed to wear rainbow clothing at the World Cup?

“Fans should be able to wear what they want to wear,” Cleverly responds, making clear whose side he is on. “But ultimately, Fifa are the ones that decide the rules of what goes on in the stadia.”

But it is a no to another talking point of the tournament – wearing the “One Love” armband. The captains of England and other nations baulked at doing so after Fifa threatened them with a yellow card. German and Belgian ministers wore one when they attended matches, as did Stuart Andrew, the UK sports minister who is openly gay. If England progresses and Cleverly joins in the crowd, do not expect to see the armband.

“I’m not sure I would,” he says when asked if would wear one at a match. “But, as I say, I think anyone that knows me – and this includes the people that I work with in the Middle East – knows my position on this. Whether I wear the armband or not, I’m actually having the conversations. So I don’t need to wear an armband because I sit down with people and I just say, ‘These are my expectations of how gay football fans are treated.’ I think once I start talking whether I was or wasn’t wearing an armband would pretty quickly become a moot point.”

Cleverly, 53, is at the peak of his political career. (A past tilt at the Tory leadership in 2019 fizzled out.) After a childhood in London, born to a father from Britain and mother from Sierra Leone, he hoped to become an army officer before a leg injury ended his training.

Election to the London Assembly in 2008 kick-started a life in front-line politics that is now a decade-and-a-half long. But his recent ministerial ascent has coincided with the deepest of lows in his family life.

In December 2021, his wife Susie, 49, was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer, news that left her (unsurprisingly) in tears and her husband struggling to sleep.

“I had to ring my private secretary in the Foreign Office saying, ‘Can you cancel meetings because I need to go home,’” Cleverly told Sky News last month about hearing the news. During the emotional joint interview with his wife he held back his own tears. “I tried to say Susie might have cancer, I just couldn’t get the words out, I couldn’t speak – I like to talk, but I just couldn’t speak.” Mrs Cleverly’s surgery and recovery has left the couple, along with their sons Freddy, 20 and Rupert, 18, making a “conscious” effort to spend more time together.

In October, it was not certain that Cleverly would retain his role at the top of the Foreign Office. He backed Johnson’s audacious tilt at the Tory leadership after Truss’s implosion, one launched just six weeks after leaving Downing Street. Did he really expect to be kept on by Sunak in such a plum Cabinet job? “I’ve always thought in politics, expecting stuff is always a little bit arrogant and always a little bit foolish,” he jokes, in a response that suggests he did not.

It means that to him comes the responsibility of untying the Gordian Knot that is the Northern Ireland Protocol. The noises from both sides are positive, but Cleverly refuses to set a deadline of next April – the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

Asked if no European Court of Justice oversight is a red line, he shoots back: “I’ve been doing negotiations my whole adult life. What I’ve discovered is a really, really, really good way of negotiating is face to face with your interlocutors rather than through the pages of an august organ like yours.”

Which leaves one more topic to discuss: The blond-haired elephant in the room. He backed Johnson’s leadership bid in 2019, stuck by him in the putsch this summer and endorsed him again this October. So what is his message to his old friend, who by all accounts still harbours Downing Street dreams should the ball once again come loose from the back of the scrum?

“I think Rishi has done a fantastic job just calming the parliamentary party, calming the markets and setting an agenda for government,” Cleverly says, loyalty on show. “All of us [are] completely focused on supporting him to deliver for the British people. That advice I would give to Boris or indeed anybody else.”

But surely the next election is lost? What are the odds of Tory victory, one in a 100? “You know what,” he says, showing a flick of Johnsonian optimism. “We like winning against the odds.”