My guest is Simon MacDonald.

Simon MacDonald.

Simon MacDonald was the head of the British Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service until the autumn of 2020.

He now sits in the House of Lords as a crossbencher and is Master of Christ College, Cambridge.

He's also the author of a new book, Beyond Britannia, Reshaping UK Foreign Policy.

Welcome to the podcast, Simon.

Hello, Paul.

Right.

Well, we're going to talk very much about the future, the position of the UK going forward

in terms of reshaping its foreign policy, which is very much, of course, the theme of your book.

Before we do that, I will like to start, as your book itself does

start, with the day after the referendum result, the 24th of June, 2016. You talked vividly

how you went into the foreign office that morning and didn't know quite what to expect in terms

of the atmosphere. Could you very briefly recount the atmosphere on the

morning of the 24th of June, 2016? The 24th of June, 2016 was the single most dramatic day in my 38-year

career at the Foreign Office. Almost every moment is etched in my memory, and almost every moment was dramatic

because this was the most dramatic reorientation

in the UK's post-Second World War foreign policy orientation

and people working for the foreign office, I think,

understood that immediately and were wondering

what on earth was going to happen next. The result was clear. The destination was more or less

clear, but how we were going to get there was completely unclear.

...