The UK has a history of coddling authoritarian leaders – now it’s happening again | Andy Beckett
British politicians think they exercise a moderating force on strongmen. In practice, ‘diplomacy’ and ‘pragmatism’ only ease their path
Why is Westminster, supposedly one of the world’s great centres of democratic moderation, so welcoming to far-right foreign governments? For more than a century, since the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, authoritarians have often found allies, apologists or a deliberate absence of criticism in the Commons, despite our parliament’s self-image as a historic enemy of fascism.
One reason for this forgiving attitude is that foreign policy is a pragmatic business, and Britain has increasingly become a country that can’t afford to make enemies. The Starmer government’s determination to see no evil in the Trump administration can be partly explained in those terms.
Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist
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