There are photographs of William Hague with Angelina Jolie and John Kerry in his new office in parliament. His room behind the Speaker’s chair may be a quarter of the size of his Pugin-papered suite when he was foreign secretary, but even as leader of the House of Commons he still has dinner with Hillary Clinton and goes to No 10 three times a day.
The Yorkshireman who drinks from a “shut up and deal with it” mug is going to spend the next few months touring marginal constituencies to try to see off the Ukip threat. Almost 40 years since he wowed the party conference as a teenager, Mr Hague has become the Conservative elder statesman. At the centre of his table is a huge ammonite. “It’s 110 million years old,” he says, “possibly the oldest thing you’ll ever see.”
At 53, the former Tory leader may not be the oldest man in politics but he is probably the most experienced and now he feels it is time to move on. “It will be 20 years next year since I first joined the cabinet,” he says in his first major interview since announcing his decision to stand down as an MP at the next election. “I was in parliament in my twenties . . . When I speak at the conference at the beginning of next month, I will have given more conference speeches than anyone else ever in history, 38 years of them — I think I am allowed to do something else. Holding office is not an end in itself.” His wife, Ffion, is “very happy I made the decision but she didn’t press me . . . I have discharged my duty . . . but I also like music, literature and academic life. I want a bit more freedom.”
Although he first told David Cameron and George Osborne a year ago, “we had to work out the right time so it didn’t look like a snap decision”. The suggestion that he would become an EU commissioner was laughable. “I am a rational Eurosceptic like most people in the country but I couldn’t work in the European Union. I couldn’t be in Brussels . . . I know myself well enough to realise it wouldn’t work at all. It wouldn’t suit my personality. I wouldn’t feel at home, it’s not my scene. If I had been interested in any international job it would be Nato but I don’t want another international job . . . After all this time often away from home, I wouldn’t accept a job now where I would be permanently away from my wife.”
As leader of the Commons he will, he admits, not have the same “minute by minute” excitement as at the Foreign Office but he says: “I don’t need a hotline. I don’t believe in looking back.” He will still sit on the national security council, dealing with the terrorist threat. The world is becoming “systematically less stable” for many reasons. “The internet revolution [means] there is more rapid communication of rebellion or new ideas, more challenges to government authority. There has been a rise of religious intolerance,” he says. “We are less dominated by single powers or the duopoly of two Cold War powers. There are more nations, more centres of decision making. Add all those things together, and a global financial crisis with all its aftershocks and sharply different population trends, and you get instability . . . There are more dangers than at the time of 9/11.”
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The extremists of Islamic State are the immediate threat, with their videos of beheadings of western hostages. Mr Hague worries that the world is playing into their hands. “I do think it is a pity sometimes that the things they put on the internet to serve their own propaganda and glorify what they are doing are so readily disseminated by the press. But I am not suggesting that we can control that in any way. I am in favour of a free press.” It is “heartbreaking”, he says, for a politician to have to deal with a hostage crisis. “These are some of the most difficult decisions, life and death ones, I had to help make.” However, he insists that paying ransoms is a “terrible mistake . . . That then gives millions of dollars to terrorists to kidnap other people.”
It is particularly chilling on the videos to hear a British accent. “This is also a European problem, affecting France, Belgium, Germany,” Mr Hague says. “It is a challenge to our security and society as well as to the government to make sure people are not led into such a way of thinking that they commit crimes against humanity.” Although as leader of the party he warned that Britain was becoming a “foreign land”, he won’t blame multiculturalism for the rise of British jihadists. “It shows the importance of our liberal democratic values . . . in the way we conduct our politics, in the way we educate people, in the way we ask families to care for people, we have to do better.”
Would he back airstrikes? “One of the very healthy things is that we do consider these things together in the national security council, rationally and calmly with the military and the security advice,” he replies. “Sofa government has been got rid of, I’m glad to say.” Although the Commons should “where it’s possible” have a vote ahead of military action, “of course there are circumstances where it’s not possible, where we have to act immediately to defend this country or to honour a treaty obligation to an ally or to save life in an emergency”.
Losing the vote on intervening in Syria was, he says, his darkest hour as foreign secretary. “I think it was damaging to this country and to the West in general the way that vote went. For me that was the worst setback of my four years as foreign secretary because I think it gave the impression that we were inhibited about acting even when it was necessary to be prepared to act. There is a good argument that that emboldened . . . those who wish the West harm. I believe this will always be a country that will protect its national security and will act to do so and very often to save life elsewhere in the world, but that vote certainly gave the wrong impression.”
The rejection by the Commons of military action “damaged western credibility. It’s damaged the deterrent value of western military power.” Britain and America are still “paying the price” of the aftermath of the Iraq war, “the length of time it went on and the disillusionment that resulted from people feeling misled”, he says. The global financial crisis further “sapped western confidence”. He warns: “It will be vital for the West to recover its confidence in the years ahead to face up to this more unstable world.”
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His proudest achievement is tackling the issue of rape in war. “My work on this continues, including with Angelina Jolie. She has immense knowledge. If we can keep pushing this forward it would be one of the main things I’ve ever achieved in my life and I’m not going to be put off that by any criticism of working with a celebrity.”
Britain seems to be becoming more insular, with the rise of Ukip and fears about immigration. “These days we can only protect our national security by influencing events overseas so it’s very important not to withdraw in amongst ourselves,” Mr Hague says. “Britain from the time of Wilberforce has always had a restless conscience and sought to improve the condition of humanity as well as be a successful country. That’s innate in the British people and I certainly hope it continues.”
Tory defectors such as Douglas Carswell are, he believes, running away from reality. “I don’t want to make any personal criticism of him but there’s something strange about being so supportive of the policy he’s most interested in and then leaving,” he says. “It’s a shame because I think what people like him are doing when they go to Ukip is really opting out of the choice. David Cameron or Ed Miliband is going to be prime minister after the next election and there will only be a referendum on Europe if it is David Cameron . . . This is not a defection on a matter of principle.” Nigel Farage’s party is a “one-man band pursuing one or two issues . . . This is the most important general election for a quarter of a century . . . It’s one that could go either way, therefore everybody has to pitch in.”
The vote that overshadows even the next election is the Scottish referendum in less than two weeks. Mr Hague, who is wearing Britain cufflinks, will make a speech in Glasgow next week. “I just hope that minds are really focused,” he says. “This is the most important decision the people of Scotland will ever make in their lives and I know from all the work I’ve done internationally how well this country, the UK, is regarded, how much influence we have and how much that would be damaged if we broke apart. This country would be diminished and it would damage Scotland as well.” The security risk would be immense. “We have one of the best diplomatic networks, some of the most effective intelligence agencies, and the whole of the UK benefits from that. In a less stable, more dangerous world, it’s even more important to stick together.” There are economic and emotional reasons as well. “It’s very important we make clear from England, from Yorkshire, deep in our hearts we want them to stay in the UK.”
At a time when the cabinet is dominated by public school boys, Mr Hague has stood out as the state-educated northerner who drank beer. “The idea this is a party where you have to have gone to a particular school or belonged to a particular club is just not the party I recognise at all. If anything, I’ve always found it an advantage in the Conservative party to have come from Rotherham and gone to a comprehensive school and lived in Yorkshire. It’s never held me back.”
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Curriculum vitae
Born March 26, 1961, in Rotherham
Education Wath-upon-Dearne comprehensive school, Rotherham; Magdalen College, Oxford; Insead Business School, France
Career Consultant for Shell UK, 1982-83; manager, McKinsey & Company, 1983-88. MP for Richmond since 1989; social security minister, 1993-95; secretary of state for Wales, 1995-97; leader of the Opposition, 1997-2001; shadow foreign secretary, 2005-10; foreign secretary, 2010-2014; now leader of the House of Commons
Other interests Has written biographies of William Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce
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Family Married to Ffion
Quick fire
Churchill or Disraeli?Churchill
Piano or judo? Piano because I can continue with that for longer
The Miniaturist or The Goldfinch? The Miniaturist
Yorkshire Dales or Cotswolds? Yorkshire Dales
Baseball or football? Football
Baseball cap or flat cap? It has to be the baseball cap
Yorkshire tea or soya latte? Yorkshire tea, although I don’t drink much caffeine
The Fire House or fish and chips? Fish and chips
Angelina Jolie or Helen Mirren? Angelina, she’s a friend of mine