The UK must always defend liberal democracy

The look on Theresa May's face speaks for all who value liberal democracy (Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images)

Liberalism is “obsolete”, Donald Trump is a “talented person”, “traitors must be punished” and one of the benefits of the war in Syria is Russia now has battle-hardened soldiers.

For those in any doubt about the true nature of Vladimir Putin and the growing threat to liberal democracy posed by the despotic Russian president and his fellow travellers around the world, then his interview with the Financial Times must surely be a wake-up call.

As world leaders gathered for the G20 meeting in Japan, Putin had good reason to feel confident in making the claim that liberalism is dying out.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its military support for rebels in eastern Ukraine, including the missile that shot down a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane, the use of nerve agents in Salisbury, resulting in the death of local woman Dawn Sturgess but not the intended target, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, and other affronts to democracy, human rights and the rule of law have been met with little more than a few sanctions and meek acquiescence by the world’s democratic states. Appeasement is another word, heavy with history, that could be used.

And so, in the manner of a naughty schoolboy who thinks he’s being clever, Putin, speaking about about Skripal’s attempted murder, told the FT that “traitors must be punished. I am not saying that the Salisbury incident is the way to do it ... but traitors must be punished”.

Leader comment: Russia is creating a new Cold War

Treating the situation as a joke is a sign Putin knows he will not face any real consequences, despite Theresa May’s weak call yesterday for Russia to end its “irresponsible and destabilising activity”. Fat chance.

As expected, the meeting of Putin and Trump sparked an outbreak of bonhomie. “Don’t meddle in the election, please,” the US President said as he wagged a comedy finger at the grinning Putin. Perhaps still inwardly glowing from the praise for him in the FT interview, Trump said it was a “great honour” to be with Putin, adding that they had a “very, very good relationship”.

Other people Trump has a good relationship with include Conservative leadership candidate Boris Johnson and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage. Given the latter’s regular attacks on the “liberal elite”, it’s pretty clear he’s a member of the “illiberal elite”.

Johnson’s position, however, is less certain. He was a liberal internationalist when it was prudent to be one as London mayor, now he plays the hardcore Brexiteer.

When casting their vote for party leader and therefore Prime Minister, Conservative members will need to guess what Johnson’s values actually are. Are they willing to take the chance that the leader of this country might soon, like Trump, be striking up the friendliest of relations with Putin?

If Brexit Britain joins the growing illiberal alliance around the world, it will only increase the isolation of the European Union as one of the last globally powerful bastions of liberal democracy, weakened from within as it is by far-right leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban.

And it was the EU’s President, Donald Tusk, who gave one of the strongest responses to Putin’s declaration of ideological victory.

“Whoever claims that liberal democracy is obsolete also claims that freedoms are obsolete, that the rule of law is obsolete and that human rights are obsolete,” he said. “What I find really obsolete are authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs ...”

But sadly, Tusk still felt the need to add, “... even if sometimes they may seem effective”.

The UK must always defend liberal democracy – leader comment