Jacqueline Carter
Jacqueline Carter | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader of the Liberal Democrats | |
| Assumed office 27 August 2020 | |
| President | Mark Pack |
| Deputy | Daisy Cooper |
| Preceded by | Tim Farron |
| Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |
| Assumed office 24 March 2024 | |
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Preceded by | David Gauke |
| Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport | |
| Assumed office 24 March 2024 | |
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Preceded by | Matt Hancock |
| Chancellor of the University of Oxford | |
| Assumed office 20 September 2023 | |
| Vice-Chancellor | Irene Tracey |
| Preceded by | The Lord Patten of Barnes |
| 17th Director-General of the BBC | |
| In office 10 April 2018 – 8 May 2020 | |
| Preceded by | The Lord Hall of Birkenhead |
| Succeeded by | Tim Davie |
| Senior Independent Director of the BBC | |
| In office 26 March 2014 – 10 April 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Dillon Harvey |
| Succeeded by | Nicholas Serota |
| CEO of BBC News | |
| In office 5 September 2012 – 26 March 2014 | |
| Preceded by | Declan Phillips |
| Succeeded by | Deborah Turness |
| Member of the UK Parliament for St Albans | |
| Assumed office 7 May 2020 | |
| Preceded by | Anne Main |
| Majority | 24,084 (42.8%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Jacqueline Thomas Carter 22 June 1983 Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Citizenship | |
| Political party | Liberal Democrats |
| Spouse | Henry Cavill (m. 2015) |
| Children | |
| Parent(s) | King Thomas (father) Lynda Carter (mother) |
| Alma mater | Columbia University (B.M.C) University of Oxford (M.M.C) |
| Profession |
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Dame Jacqueline Thomas Carter DBE DCWO DCH (born 22 June 1983) is a British journalist, author, and politician currently serving as Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2020 as well as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport since 2024. The youngest of two illegitimate children of King Thomas and the American actress Lynda Carter, Carter initially spent much of her early years in the United States under her mother's care before later moving abroad to the United Kingdom in 2001. In 2010, she graduated with a master's degree in mass communication from the University of Oxford before being later appointed its chancellor, succeeding Chris Patten after a two-decades-long tenure. A member of the party's centre-left Social Liberal Forum, Carter has been a vocal proponent for the nationalisation and regulation of certain industries, minority rights, withdrawal of British military forces from the Middle East, and clean energy, particularly nuclear energy.
In 2002, Carter began her career as a presenter for BBC News at One, during which over the course of five years, she became one of the most watched hosts in the United Kingdom. In 2007, Carter was chosen as the inaugural main presenter for BBC World News America, covering major American events including the inauguration of President Hillary Clinton, the Great Recession, and the Deepwater Horizon explosion. In addition, she has also presented documentaries on various topics including climate change, global poverty, and human rights abuses on Panorama, Daily Politics, and Newsnight, earning much acclaim and several accolades for her often in-depth analysis and pointed delivery style. Moreover, as the lead presenter on Today With Jacqueline Carter, Carter gained much acclaim for her interviews with various political figures including Prime Minister David Cameron, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Bahraini cleric Ali Salman amidst the 2011 Bahraini Revolution. In September 2012, she was appointed CEO of BBC News before a promotion to Senior Independent Director followed in March 2014 and subsequently to Director-General of the BBC in April 2018, becoming the first woman to hold the post until her resignation in May 2020. Since departing the BBC, Carter has served as a part-time consultant and commentator for various British media outlets, namely The Guardian, The Times, and The Observer, often providing her own liberal and centrist insight. In addition, she is also the author of a number of bestselling books including My Life: From California to London, The Future of British Media, and The Populist's Paradox. In 2023, Carter published Personally With Shimon, a biography based on a past undisclosed interview with the late Israeli politician Shimon Peres concerning the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and various other issues.
Following a distinguished career in the media industry, Carter, a member of the Liberal Democrats since 2014, made her switch to politics by contesting as a Liberal Democrat in the 2020 United Kingdom general election for the St Albans constituency, becoming its first Liberal Democrat MP. Following this, Carter stood as a candidate for the party leadership in light of the resignation of the incumbent leader Tim Farron where she subsequently defeated the deputy leader Ed Davey, becoming the first woman to lead the Liberal Democrats. In February 2024, she jointly led a successful effort to oust and deal the Conservative Party's biggest defeat in history while also establishing a grand coalition between the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, and the Hanoverian Union Party, during which she oversaw the Liberal Democrats' biggest electoral victory since their formation in 1988, winning a record of 90 seats.
In 2015, Carter married the British actor Henry Cavill, with whom she has two children. Through her father, Carter is the sister and half-sister respectively of former professional football player and manager William Carter and the United Kingdom's Empress Alexandra.
Early Life
Born on 22 June 1983, Jacqueline Carter was the second and youngest child of American actress Lynda Carter and Thomas, Prince of the Welsh, a member of the British royal family with whom her mother had eloped for several years long but never otherwise married. Being the couple's only daughter after her older brother William, Carter immediately became the subject of much love and devotion from her parents with her father particularly choosing to name her "Jacqueline" after First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy whom the latter deeply admired.
Like her brother, despite growing up in relative seclusion and away from the public eye, Carter nonetheless enjoyed a mostly happy childhood as she aged with her father said to have considerably "spoiled" an infant Carter. In this, from at least the age of five, Carter's academic and journalistic tendencies quickly became apparent to her parents who, in turn, often bought their young daughter books for the latter to read and indulge herself with. In a later interview, her mother Lynda Carter remarked, "While she wasn't very different from girls around her age who like to play dress up, dolls, and stuff, the one, absolute thing that Jackie loved was reading fairly long and colourful storybooks, sometimes to almost no end. For the first few years, it was mostly books with lots of pictures and graphics but once she started becoming a teenager, books with fewer pictures but more words started becoming her favourite". In the meantime, despite her "bookish" character, Carter was said to have exhibited some "wild" and "adventurous" tendencies which included a lifelong fascination with motorcycles owing to her own father being an avid motorcyclist himself. To that end, in a later interview, Carter admitted that while she was initially scared about accidentally falling off the motorcycle, particularly at high speeds, and thereby injuring herself, her father's enduring patience, coupled with a gradual build-up in her own confidence and self-esteem, saw her ultimately embrace the risks of riding a motorcycle with her eighteenth birthday seeing her being gifted an expensive Ducati motorcycle, one which she continues to occasionally ride to the present day.
Sometime around 1993, the apparent inevitability of the couple never getting married in reality, coupled with the need to preserve the British monarchy, saw Thomas make the difficult decision to leave his longtime partner and their two children in search for a new one which he later did with the American supermodel Christy Turlington. In this, Carter, who was around eleven years old at the time, later described the moment as "the most difficult moment of my childhood" given the sudden departure of her doting father but added that as her mother subsequently married the American lawyer and video game executive Robert A. Altman, she gradually came to terms with the latter's decision, stating, "If I were to be honest, early on, a part of me felt absolutely betrayed that my beloved father would just leave me and his family like that especially when we probably needed him around so dearly. However, even as he left us, my father promised to me and my brother William that he would be seeing us at least once a month and that he would never miss our birthdays or graduations from school". In the meantime, Carter also developed a fairly warm but not as intense filial affection towards her stepfather, with whom her mother went on to have two more children, namely a son James and a daughter Jessica in 1994 and 1996 respectively.
Described by her teachers as a "brilliant", "creative", and "hardworking" student, after initially attending fairly unassuming elementary schools and high schools in her native California, a consistently excellent academic track record, coupled with her father's relocation across the country to New York, saw Carter opting to further her studies at the prestigious Columbia University in New York City where she majored in communication studies. In recounting her university years, Carter revealed that, aside from maintaining a small group of like-minded friends, she largely lived alone and, in turn, often made up for her perceived "loneliness" by occasionally visiting her father who, together with his wife and their daughter, was also living in New York. Meanwhile, despite her seemingly reclusive nature, Carter's university peers have mostly described her as "very cooperative", "unassuming", and even a "workaholic". George Erik Rupp, who served as Columbia University's president throughout much of the 1990s, similarly said that despite her well-known status as the daughter of a famous actress, a fact that made her some sort of a little celebrity among her fellow peers, Carter generally displayed a "down-to-earth" and "unassuming" character throughout much of her time there, stating, "To some extent, one could probably feel as if she wasn't either really bothered or didn't really liked being known as the daughter of some famous actress because, in the end, much of the news about her is how she is always the top of her class and how she generally bonds well with her friends and professors rather than what food she is eating or what car she is driving, news that you often find when it comes to popular celebrities and the sort".
Media Career
Upon graduating from Columbia University, Carter, who longed on reuniting with her father once and for all, moved to the United Kingdom where, after opting not to pursue her master's degree at Columbia University, she instead chose to do so at the equally prestigious University of Oxford in London, England. Then, upon achieving her master's degree, Carter subsequently found work at the British public service broadcaster BBC where she started as a host for the company's afternoon news programme BBC News at One. In this, Carter's physical beauty, coupled with her eloquent presenting style, quickly raised her profile among British media circles which, in turn, began drawing comparisons between Carter and the famous British-Iranian journalist Christiane Amanpour, a comparison that Carter later described as "personally flattering" while admitting that she mostly looked up to the famous American journalist Barbara Walters whom she mainly credited for her entry into journalism, stating, "Before Barbara came along, I don't think there's anyone comparable to her in the media as in a very well-known woman working in the media industry and, given her profession, is widely trusted by a lot of people watching the news".
In 2010, owing to her ever-increasing ratings, Carter was later given her own self-titled show Today With Jacqueline Carter. As its main and titular host, Carter gained further acclaim for interviews featuring British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US President Hillary Clinton, American pop star Michael Jackson, and various other famous figures which also included her own father, whose paternity was then not yet publicly disclosed, during which she discussed with the British monarch several topics including the Great Recession, the future of the British monarchy, and gay marriage. Following this, in September 2012, Carter was appointed CEO of BBC News, a position that she held for roughly two years long before a further promotion to Senior Independent Director in August 2014 further increased her fame and popularity among Britons. Then, amidst the rise of right-wing populism across Europe and the prevailing debate about the United Kingdom's continued membership in the European Union, Carter went on to firmly establish herself as among the United Kingdom's leading journalists through widely-acclaimed interviews with major figures of both the Leave and Remain campaign including the likes of Nigel Farage, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Karren Brady, and Jude Kelly.
In 2018, after four years as Senior Independent Director, Carter was eventually made the BBC's first-ever female director-general, a role that she held for the next two years. During this period, owing to her inherent status as the first woman to become the BBC's chief executive, Carter focused extensively on addressing lingering gender-related workplace issues while also devoting much time towards maintaining the BBC's longstanding reputation for impartiality, a vision expressed by Carter early on in her inaugural speech in which she remarked, "As the first American to become director-general of the BBC, I hold much praise for the network's longstanding and unflinching commitment to impartiality regarding its media coverage, a phenomenon that I did not otherwise grew up with during my early years in the United States where intense politicisation and political mudslinging between media outlets seems to be the norm if not the prevailing culture. Thus, as someone with firsthand experience of actual media polarisation, I vow that my term as director-general, no matter how long it may last, will firmly ensure that the BBC continues to shine as a beacon of media excellence and an example for others to follow".
Political Career
Liberal Democrats Leader (2020 - present)
While still serving as the BBC's director-general, ahead of the 2020 United Kingdom general election, Carter, a member of the Liberal Democrats, announced her decision to stand down from her current post in favour of contesting in the general election as a member of her political party. To that end, Carter was subsequently fielded as a Liberal Democrats candidate for the constituency of St Albans, a seat held by the Conservative incumbent Anne Main since 2005. Soon enough, despite a generally positive nationwide performance from the ruling Conservative Party under Prime Minister Theresa May, Carter, in spite of a poor overall showing from the Liberal Democrats, successfully unseated Main to become the constituency's first Liberal Democrat MP after securing 50.4% of the overall vote, higher than any of those recorded by Main during her fifteen-year term.
Emboldened by her strong individual performance in the polls, the subsequent resignation of incumbent Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron in light of his party's poor electoral performance saw Carter declare her decision to contest for the role of party leader as a representative of the party's centre-left Social Liberal Forum with Carter particularly positioning herself as a response to the "failed and disastrous leaderships" of Nick Clegg who infamously abandoned the party's pledge regarding tuition fees and Clegg's successor Tim Farron whose time as leader was panned by Carter given the party's recent decline in seats at the most recent general election. To that end, Carter was only challenged by the party's incumbent deputy leader Ed Davey for the party leadership but, with 66% of the vote in the first round, ultimately prevailed to become the party's first female leader since its establishment in 1988.
As party leader, in line with her socially liberal views, Carter expressed vocal support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the United Kingdom, describing it as a "morally upright movement of reckoning" while simultaneously criticising isolated acts of vandalism, particularly those targeting statues of public figures. Otherwise, on the international stage, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Carter was quick to criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin whom she infamously described as "Europe's most notorious warmonger since Adolf Hitler". Moreover, Carter has also vocally criticised China for their heavy-handed response to popular protests in Hong Kong and, in turn, supported a ban on the Chinese company Huawei, citing "likely security risks".
Deputy Prime Minister & Culture Secretary (2024 - present)
On 20 February 2024, shortly after the ruling Conservative Party suffered two major by-election losses that further reduced their share of seats in the House of Commons, Carter publicly spearheaded a motion of no confidence under the premise of new elections and the Conservatives' dwindling popularity. With the defection of their vital coalition partner, the Hanoverian Union Party, Carter, who did so in conjunction with the Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, proved successful in ousting the Conservatives from power under Philip Hammond and thus ending their fourteen years long stint in power since 2010. Following this, amidst widespread expectations of a hung parliament, Carter was announced by Starmer as the new shadow deputy prime minister, replacing the Labour Party's incumbent deputy leader Angela Rayner, while Carter's own party deputy Daisy Cooper was simultaneously announced as the shadow home secretary, succeeding Yvette Cooper in the position. Eventually, on 24 March 2024, while the Labour Party did go on to secure a majority of 472 seats, on their part, the Liberal Democrats, buoyed by several factors including Carter's considerable popularity as party leader and the overwhelming unpopularity of the Conservative Party, secured a record high of 90 seats, thereby making them the second-largest party in the House of Commons for the first time behind the Labour Party and even ahead of the Conservative Party who were otherwise reduced to a record 67 seats. Soon enough, as the second-in-command of a tripartite Labour-Liberal Democrats-HUP coalition which commanded a firm majority of 649 seats or roughly 84.5% of seats in the House of Commons, Carter was sworn in as deputy prime minister, becoming the first woman to hold the office and the second Liberal Democrats politician since Nick Clegg in 2010.
Owing to her longstanding association with the media, in addition to becoming deputy prime minister, Carter was also appointed culture secretary, an office for which she was deemed to be the ideal candidate. To that end, as the relative of three professional footballers, Carter, while continuing the policies of her predecessor Matt Hancock, has further advocated for better visibility regarding women's football, even going so far as to publicly declare her intention to "solidify England's deserved status as the pioneers and leaders of women's football". Meanwhile, amidst lingering controversy over the British Museum's possession of valuable artefacts from abroad, Carter said that she is "potentially open" towards the idea of returning some of the foreign artefacts but only under the strong belief that the original country could preserve it well for the near future, stating, "Even if there are some reasonable criticism about why some non-British artefacts are on display in a building named British Museum, it cannot be disputed that as a country free of wars and civil strife for decades since World War II, the United Kingdom does objectively ensure that, with only a small fee to pay for, these precious artefacts could be viewed by anyone in top condition and without the risk of it being destroyed by some rowdy soldiers or militants".
Personal Life
Much like her older brother, despite being born as the daughter of a monarch, she was never included in the line of succession owing to the fact that she had been born out of wedlock, thereby immediately disqualifying her from ever succeeding to the throne. Having been born on June 22nd, Carter notably shares the same birthday with singer Cyndi Lauper, actress Meryl Streep, and fellow female politicians Elizabeth Warren and the late Dianne Feinstein. Meanwhile, she also shares the same birth year with her husband Henry Cavill as well as other actors including Chris Hemsworth, Adam Driver, Mila Kunis, and Rebecca Ferguson.
A dual American-British citizen, Carter currently resides mostly in the United Kingdom with her husband and children but has also spent some time away herself back in her native California. In this, much like her brother, Carter herself gradually adopted a more "British-sounding" accent which helped her swiftly blend in with her coworkers at the London-based British Broadcasting Corporation. Separately, in a 2018 interview with the BBC, Carter revealed that her given name "Jacqueline" was directly taken from First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of US President John F. Kennedy. However, in another interview, despite being named after the former First Lady, Carter said that both physically and emotionally, she mostly resembled her paternal grandmother, namely the American actress Lauren Bacall whose distinctive smoky voice and high cheekbones are said to have been passed down to Carter whose apparent resemblance to her paternal grandmother has been occasionally noted by media outlets.
In September 2015, Carter married the British actor Henry Cavill, with whom she had two children Thomas and Elizabeth. The couple was wedded at Westminster Abbey in an intimate ceremony following a two-year-long relationship that began after Carter met Cavill at the premiere of Man of Steel in which Cavill played the titular character of Superman. Born only a month apart, the two later began a discreet relationship that was eventually publicised for the first time when the couple appeared together at the premiere of the 2015 spy film The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Later, on 10 September 2015, the couple was wedded at Westminster Abbey in the presence of their respective families along with several of their close friends in attendance including fellow actors and actresses Daniel Craig, Christian Bale, Idris Elba, Amy Adams, Hayley Atwell, and Alicia Vikander. As a result of their marriage, Cavill became the brother-in-law of the famous former professional footballer William Carter and the American actress Anne Hathaway, the former's wife. In addition, being the half-sister of the reigning Empress Alexandra also meant that Cavill is also the brother-in-law of the Empress himself.
In addition to her media and political careers, Carter has also enjoyed some success as an author, having so far published several best-selling books including My Life: From California to London, The Future of British Media, and The Populist's Paradox. On 2 August 2023, Carter published Personally With Shimon, a tell-all biography based on an undisclosed interview that she had with the late Israeli politician Shimon Peres, whom she affectionately referred to as "Uncle Shimon", who served as Israel's prime minister from 1984 to 1986 and again from 1995 to 1996 before later serving as president from 2007 to 2014. Having specifically dedicated the book to what would have been Peres's 100th birthday, Carter explained that she was initially motivated to do the interview, which she revealed was done sometime in 2006, after discovering that Peres, aside from his career in Israeli politics, was a cousin of her paternal grandmother Empress Lauren. Moreover, Carter further added that the death of Rabin from assassination in 1995 left Peres as the only surviving major Israeli figure behind the Oslo Accords which, combined with the latter's familial relations, inspired Carter to seek a personal take on the issue from the man himself before the elderly Peres eventually passed away, which he ultimately did in September 2016, almost a decade after the interview took place. Later on, in recounting the historic interview, Carter described it as an "extremely unforgettable" and "once-in-a-lifetime" moment, stating, "There were some profound things said to me by Uncle Shimon during the interview that the public will probably never hear or know about themselves in a thousand years. Thus, it is the sheer rarity and exclusivity of those words that he willingly divulged to me is the main reason why I will always treasure the very interview that I did with him because, despite much of the nervousness and anxiety about meeting someone as famous and distinguished such as Uncle Shimon, I ultimately learned and knew a lot of things that I wouldn't have had I instead not done the interview at all".
Political positions
A member of the Liberal Democrats' centre-left Social Liberal Forum, Carter is generally associated with socially liberal and economically progressive policies. Despite this, her relative youth, coupled with her "steely" and "unflinching" persona, has quickly led her to be dubbed Britain's "Iron Lady", particularly given that her time as the country's first female deputy prime minister comes immediately after the premiership of the Conservative politician Theresa May, the first female prime minister. Consequently, amidst public perceptions of the current prime minister Sir Keir Starmer being "boring" and "bland", Carter has come to be seen by some observers as the "power behind the throne" given her more "energetic" and "expressive" character despite her technically being second-in-command of the government.
Described by BBC News as a "shrewd" and "efficient" political strategist, Carter is mainly credited for the historic defeat of the Conservative Party at the 2024 United Kingdom general election where they were reduced to a historic low of 67 seats. In this, during a post-election interview with BBC News, Carter revealed that, given the entrance of Nigel Farage's Reform UK which would likely cause a split among right-wing voters between the party's supporters and disillusioned Conservative voters, she thus sought to immediately capitalise on it by proposing a coalition with the Labour Party in order to present a united front among left-wing voters and, in turn, allowing both parties to wrestle away Conservative seats that they otherwise could have not done due to a split between their respective voters. Consequently, both Labour and Liberal Democrats voters were encouraged by their respective party leaders to vote for the other's candidates in order to maximise their chances of victory in competitive seats with both political parties strategically dropping their candidates in favour of the other in order to avoid friendly fire.
Domestic Issues
On domestic issues, in line with her economically progressive stance, Carter has been a vocal critic of neoliberalism, describing it as a "horrific return to the age of extreme economic inequality like the Gilded Age in the United States". Otherwise, citing the increase in the economy and living standards caused by the Conservative Party's abrupt abandoning of austerity in favour of government spending throughout the later half of the 2010s, Carter is a proponent of increased government spending, particularly on public schools, public transport networks, and the National Health Service which Carter described as the "bastion of British health". In the meantime, citing the recent cost of living crisis, Carter has also advocated for a progressive tax system in which the tax rate progressively rises and declines in line with one's taxable income, thereby ensuring that both low-income and high-income taxpayers are proportionally taxed.
A firm social liberal, prior to entering politics, Carter had publicly heralded the passing of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 which introduced same-sex marriage in England and Wales. In addition to this, Carter, much like her mother, has also publicly supported the transgender community, stating, "It should be the most reasonable belief that as long as one's actions do not directly or indirectly harm anyone else, it should not necessarily be a matter of public alarm or even an ammunition for a useless culture war". Meanwhile, as a woman herself, Carter has also publicly criticised what she described as the "online misogynist phenomenon" and its leading figure, namely the controversial British kickboxer and social media personality Andrew Tate who is currently detained in Romania on charges of sex trafficking. In this, Carter once publicly criticised Tate's "warped" and "twisted" version of masculinity, stating, "As someone who kicked butts in films like James Bond while also serving in the Royal Navy, my father is undoubtedly a somewhat masculine man but, unlike the type of masculine men heralded by these online misogynists, my father was never aggressive with me or saw his own daughter as some sort of a lowly object like these people would. Instead, at least within the context of a man, my father was, by all accounts, the most loving man I ever had in my life and is also who, if I were to ever come near, would make me feel safe and comfy rather than terrified or fearful for my life for no reason".
Owing to her family's history, Carter has generally expressed support for the retention of the British monarchy in its current ceremonial form. Otherwise, Carter has publicly criticised proposals for either a presidential or parliamentary republic, alternative systems of government deemed by Carter to be "ruining democracy more rather than upholding it", citing the political instability and polarisation present in such countries including the United States, France, Turkey, and South Korea. In addition, despite her political party's inclinations, Carter has publicly objected against any sort of abolition of the House of Lords, pointing to the fact that despite its unelected nature, the upper house of the United Kingdom's parliament has otherwise been considerably effective in scrutinising government bills passed by the House of Commons given the absence of political considerations influencing their decisions. Moreover, owing to her American heritage, Carter has occasionally cited the regular partisanship present in the United States Senate as proof of the House of Lords's superiority, stating, "While the vast majority of my political peers would not necessarily be familiar with or aware of how an elected upper house works, as an American who spent much of her childhood growing up in the United States of America, I can confidently say that the blatant inefficiency of their Senate is not something that I personally enjoyed while the clear efficiency of the House of Lords in spite of its unelected nature is otherwise something that deserves much praise even if opinions on it may differ".
A self-described unionist, Carter opposes Scottish independence or any of the sort, stating, "The United Kingdom is the major power that it is today because of the contribution from all five of her constituent nations. Without even one of these five nations, Britain might not perhaps be as powerful as it is today and at the same time, neither of these nations including England could realistically stand on its own without requiring the necessary support from the others".
Foreign Issues
A self-described "liberal globalist", Carter is a vocal supporter of multinational institutions such as the United Nations, European Union, World Trade Organization, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In 2016, amidst a nationwide debate over the United Kingdom's continued membership in the European Union, Carter publicly expressed support for the country remaining in the European Union, stating, "The major issues brought by those wanting the country to leave the European Union are either nationalistic fiction or simply blown out of proportion for their own agenda. Irrespective of this, separating ourselves economically from the very continent that we have inhabited for thousands of years is downright ridiculous if not comically idiotic". Despite this, Carter is against any sort of further formal integration within the European Union, arguing that member states should retain some levels of national sovereignty while ultimately working in tandem towards a common goal.
In regards to the Middle East, Carter has generally expressed a preference for "treaties" over "armed conflicts" in solving the region's issues, namely the ongoing "cold war" between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In this, citing the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the country's continued role in its armed intervention in Yemen against Houthi militias, Carter publicly called for a "gradual and irreversible" reduction in military ties with the Saudi government, stating, "Aside from the hundreds and thousands of civilians dying each day, Western military assistance, even in terms of geopolitics, has not contributed to any meaningful success concerning Saudi Arabia's ongoing conflict with Iran. In the end, both countries are authoritarian theocratic regimes simply vying for sectarian domination over the other in an otherwise conflict-prone region". Meanwhile, much like most British politicians, Carter is a supporter of the two-state solution concerning Israel and Palestine. In late 2023, following the outbreak of war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Carter publicly condemned the role of Hamas in the infamous October 7th massacre and, in turn, expressed support for Israel's right to self-defence. However, amidst subsequent controversy over Israel's conduct in the war, Carter has come to support a humanitarian ceasefire while also publicly calling for the resignation of longtime Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in favour of his more moderate rival Benny Gantz. Moreover, citing her family's warm familial ties with the late Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, in a speech to British Jews, Carter criticised the "hawkish" and "warmongering" Netanyahu for "ruining the peaceful cohabitation efforts of the late Shimon Peres and the late Yitzhak Rabin". In late May 2023, following the decision by Norway and Spain to extend formal recognition to Palestine as a nation, Carter responded by expressing her party's "potential preference" in following suit while asserting that such a move strictly meant recognising the Fatah-led government in the West Bank rather than the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip administration, stating, "A decision by the United Kingdom is not one of rewarding terrorism and violence but rather in favour of realising and enhancing the future of peaceful co-existence between both Israelis and Palestinians". Meanwhile, in her current position as chancellor of the University of Oxford, Carter has publicly advocated for a "balanced" approach amidst the rise of student protests across British universities, stating, "While the cause advocated by these protests is up for debate, the methods used so far have largely been peaceful and non-violent so far. To respond to these protests with excessive force only serves to aggravate them further but at the same time, chaos and disorder, particularly at the nation's highest educational institutions, must not be tolerated for so long and, in turn, must be dealt with precise caution and care".
A proponent of nuclear energy, Carter had vocally called for the adoption of alternative sources of energy by Western countries with the main aim of completely eliminating their dependence on oil from otherwise hostile or malicious traditional suppliers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. To that end, shortly after reports emerged that OPEC was slowing down oil production amidst an ongoing cost of living crisis, thereby likely resulting in increased oil prices, Carter controversially branded the organisation an "enemy of the common people and of Western values of freedom and democracy", a heavy-handed remark that promptly drew criticism from the governments of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Russia, among others. In response, Carter defended her remarks during a subsequent BBC interview, stating, "By simply looking at a map, one could easily decipher that the majority of OPEC members are neither Western nor are they generally aligned with Western liberal values. The inevitable fact that they somehow control a considerable production of oil in an otherwise free and borderless world is not only scary but something that should be fought against by any reasonable means". In this, Carter has publicly criticised the Scottish National Party's opposition against nuclear energy, a stance she claimed is rooted in "Chernobyl and Fukushima paranoia deliberately manufactured and exaggerated in order to prolong countries' reliance on oil and fossil fuels, thereby delaying the transition to alternative energy".