Charles Moore Charles Moore

‘You can’t have your cake and eat it’: Rishi Sunak talks to Charles Moore

Illustration: Natasha Lawson 
issue 30 July 2022

The morning after the first one-on-one Tory leadership debate, Rishi Sunak came to 22 Old Queen Street to speak to Charles Moore for SpectatorTV. This is an edited transcript of their conversation.

CHARLES MOORE: Rishi Sunak, welcome to the offices of The Spectator. Just a preliminary – because you mentioned it first in the debate last night [Monday] – David Trimble died and you paid tribute to him. Almost the last thing he intervened on in public life was on the Northern Ireland Protocol. He was worried because he said it threatened the Belfast Agreement. Do you agree?

RISHI SUNAK: David Trimble was someone who did an enormous amount to support the Union and bring peace to Northern Ireland, and we’ll miss him dearly for that. What I’ve seen in the job that I’ve had is economically that the patterns of trade have certainly changed in a way that moves Northern Ireland further away from the orbit of the rest of the United Kingdom.

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