LONDON - Boris Johnson, 61, answers on a video call while traveling to Trieste, having just returned from America after a brief speech at the University of Wisconsin: “TRSTE! Bellissima!”. He is expected at the Link Media Festival, where he will speak later in the afternoon, but first he chats with Repubblica: jacket, tie, the usual hair, and the same verve as always.

Boris Johnson, do you miss Westminster?

“No, I've got a lot to do. I'm very happy. I've got a lot of things. I've got projects. But the situation looks very difficult. We have a terrible government now. They're making a lot of mistakes. I think Kemi Badenoch is doing a very good job”.

Because of what is going in Iran, nobody's talking about Ukraine anymore. Are you worried?

“We've all made a big mistake in Europe, as soon as it was clear that Trump had got into a trap in the Gulf, that there was a kind of checkmate in the Straits, we should have realised that Europe should try as much as possible, within reason, to help America and help America get out of the mess. There's no doubt that this is a mess, right? I don't understand how the Pentagon thought they could do this… “

Do you mean Europe’s help in a military way? “Well, I do, yes. I don't think it was sensible to try to attack Iran in the way that Israel and America did. But I think that now that it has happened, we have to try to help them out of the mess. And I think that instead of saying, no, no, no, we hate Trump – you know, all this sort of “this is not our war”- we should have said, look, we will try to help you diplomatically and with what forces we have to reopen the Straits of Hormuz. But there has to be an understanding that NATO could come to you. The NATO Article Two makes clear that you should protect mutual economic interests. We should have said, look, of course, NATO can help to try to get America out of this mess. But you should help us more in Ukraine.”

A kind of Iran-Ukraine “deal” with the US?

“Yes, we should be very clear. I think there will be many advantages, such as to open the Straits of Hormuz is in our interest anyway. We have to do that. The economic shock is too much. Yeah, it's particularly bad in the UK, as you know, where we have crazy energy policies pursued by Ed Miliband. We penalise hydrocarbons more than any other European country fiscally. And so we're in a real, real mess. We should not have rejected Trump's appeal for help. That was a very bad mistake. I'm not saying we should have joined the strikes on Iran. I want to be very clear. I don't think that this was sensible. But there's a second reason for helping, which is that we're now in a very difficult negotiation. The Americans are trying to negotiate with a regime that is, as I know personally, immensely duplicitous. They lie. They're brutal. They kill women for wearing the wrong clothes. These are very, very serious creeps, these Iranian mullahs. But America now looks isolated. America is trying to negotiate with Tehran in Islamabad, in a situation where all the Europeans—even though we want the Straits of Hormuz open, even though we want a deal—all the Europeans don't seem to be on the side of America. And the Iranians can see this, yeah. Now the Russians can see this, and they can see that the West is completely divided. Now, in a negotiation, what I'm saying is it helps if you're trying to get a good result, it helps if you think that your allies are on your side. We should have been there. The fact is our team captain, Trump, has made a big mistake, right? And what does the team do? Does the team tell the team captain, “go to hell, we have nothing to do with you”? Or does it try to help solve the problem? The next reason to try to help is frankly that the West faces a very serious problem. The Americans helped end the First World War, they helped to end the Second World War and to end it in the right way. They protected Europe during the Cold War and the Balkans, none of those wars were started by America. We accepted American help for wars which were fundamentally the Europeans’ fault, and now, when America has stuffed up, we say, well, “go to hell.” No. That’s a great mistake. I don’t agree with the President’s language at all, yeah, in his tweets. I don’t like it. I don’t support it. I think this venture was clearly badly thought through. But, you know, it is unrealistic - and wrong – for Europe to think that we can just stick two fingers up to Washington on something like this. We fundamentally have to decide whose side we’re on. And we have a situation now where politicians in Europe basically think that there are no votes at all in saying anything remotely supportive of America – and they may be right – but you have to show leadership, and you have to recognise the realities”.

But, as you said: we have never seen such a language from a US president, like “ending a civilisation”.

“This is against everything that I believe in, absolutely everything I believe in. I was very, very sad and shocked when I saw that. It’s a disaster. I don’t think anybody in Europe could possibly understand or accept the kind of language we’ve heard. But we have to be realistic about what our priorities are. Who are our friends? Who are our allies? I think Donald Trump has a very, very good point about NATO, and we should be there to help. Just to say “this is not our war” is absolutely pathetic. The main reason it’s pathetic is because the Iranians can see that the West is just divided, yeah, and that’s a massive blessing for Vladimir Putin and everybody else on Ukraine. Europe says, “oh, Trump is Trump, you know, Trump’s hopeless on Ukraine,” yeah, and I’d like to see him do much more. But then why did Europe not send the hundreds of billions of euros that we could have sent to the Ukrainians? I was in Ukraine very recently, and one thing that they really need is—they’re going to run out of money. They need the funds, and we haven’t provided them. It’s a total disgrace.”

Do you think Russia is taking advantage of the war in Iran?

“Clearly, that’s a massive problem. But what it’s also shown is how clearly Vladimir Putin is supporting Iran, and the links between the autocracies”.

Are you concerned that the US don’t seem interested in Ukraine anymore? And do you feel that the US may leave NATO as well?

“I think the President is clearly thinking about some way of punishing NATO allies and all this sort of thing. I think it would be difficult for him to leave NATO without congressional approval. But yes, I think we shouldn’t have let this happen. We shouldn’t have just sat around while Netanyahu… I mean, do we not have intelligence services anymore?”

But do you think that we can still trust this America? The other day, JD Vance went to Hungary. He supported Orban, who is the greatest ally of Putin in Europe.

“I think that’s a great mistake, to go to other people’s countries and campaign for, and get involved in, domestic elections. I don’t think that you should be campaigning in other people’s elections.”

Have you talked with Trump recently?

“I’m not going to go into it. I talk to lots of people, and I’ve talked to him. I want to stress I remain very friendly with him but I’m sure, when he looks at some of his stuff about “wiping out a civilisation”, I think that was very regrettable, really, very regrettable…”.

In Italy there is a narrative on the right-wing, also left-wing social media, that you were the one who stopped a “peace deal” between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey in 2022. Did it actually happen?

“Bullshit. No, not at all. Nobody could have stopped the Ukrainians fighting, absolutely nobody. That was not what I was doing at all. I just wanted to show - to help Volodymyr Zelenskyy – to show that Ukraine was not beaten, right? So it was a good idea to get to Kyiv and to walk around and to show that Ukraine was going to win. That was all”.

So the decision not to accept that very bad compromise was purely on President Zelenskyy?

“Yeah. I promise you: no European leader could have made the Ukrainians accept that”.

Do you still think that the Europeans or the UK should send non-combat troops to Ukraine now?

“Sure, absolutely. If it’s an independent country, then it can invite onto its territory whoever it likes. So if Ukraine wants to invite a military logistics support force made up of military personnel from all over Europe and around the world, why not? Why shouldn’t they go and work and help? Absolutely no reason why not. People say, “oh, well, because Vladimir Putin won’t like it.” Well, fuck Putin! – excuse my language”.

We are approaching the 10th anniversary of Brexit, and more Brits are against it, according to the polls. Sadiq Khan told me a few days ago “Labour should campaign for rejoining”, even without a second referendum, and Keir Starmer is engaged in his Reset. Are you concerned about that?

“Bullshit. So do they want to give up the pound? Give up control of British borders? Starmer is such a useless, useless, useless Prime Minister: he is trying to blame absolutely everything for Labour’s economic mistakes. They’re now trying to blame Britain being the worst hit by the Gulf crisis, because Labour has so weakened the economy with high taxation and driven so many thousands and thousands of people out of the country. They’re even going to Italy and Milan —I mean, it’s amazing. Many Brits are now choosing to leave. It’s a disaster, and it’s because of Labour’s appalling policies. It has nothing to do with Brexit or anything else. It’s entirely—so Starmer’s is pure diversionary tactics by Labour.”

So you don’t think that Brexit will ever be reversed?

“Never! I love Brexit, I love Brexit…”

Nigel Farage is flying in the polls, and he’s still accusing you of a “Boris wave” of migrants. Farage is in a very good place to maybe become the new Prime Minister of this country.

“The last poll I saw doesn’t say so. I think he has a slow puncture…”

But what if Farage becomes Prime Minister?

“It’s a very, very big “if”. I think even the betting markets don’t give him much of a chance of becoming Prime Minister, but we have a long time to go to the election. Kemi Badenoch is doing better and better. And I think, in the end, the answers to most of the questions - the economic questions, the serious questions in the UK – are about how you manage the economy. It’s about reforming the welfare state, about levelling up. It’s about trying to create an enterprise culture by trying to reduce taxation. These are all Conservative answers”.