Hypocrisy as Foreign Policy

The Trump administration’s latest State Department report declares that Britain’s human rights record has “worsened”, especially when it comes to free speech. This from a political machine that bans books in schools, purges teachers for teaching uncomfortable history, and dreams up laws to jail protesters for getting within shouting distance of an oil pipeline. If there’s one thing Trump’s crew know about human rights, it’s how to trample them while keeping a straight face.

Their star example is Southport, where three young girls were murdered and a lie about the killer’s immigration status went viral, whipping up riots. The UK government, quite sensibly, went after the people spreading the falsehood and calling for “revenge” – because that’s called incitement, not “robust political debate”. But strip away the context, as the report conveniently does, and you can paint this as “an especially grievous example of government censorship”. That’s the trick – airbrush out the violence, keep the outrage.

Then comes the hand-wringing over abortion clinic buffer zones. In Trumpworld, protecting women from harassment as they access legal healthcare is tyranny on a par with gulags. They’ve elevated the Bournemouth case of a woman holding a sign saying “Here to talk, if you want” into a free speech martyrdom, skipping over the years of intimidation that made such zones necessary. This isn’t human rights advocacy – it’s the export version of America’s culture war, complete with its obsession with policing women’s bodies.

Meanwhile, the very people condemning Britain for “silencing disfavoured voices” are busily silencing climate activists, anti-racist protesters, and anyone questioning Trump’s election fairy tales back home. When political violence erupts in Washington – January 6th springs to mind – it’s suddenly all about “legitimate grievances” and “peaceful patriots”.

Let’s not kid ourselves: this isn’t an impartial audit, it’s a campaign flyer dressed as foreign policy. It seeks to redefine free speech so that incitement, harassment, and outright falsehoods are untouchable – provided they serve the right political tribe. Speech that challenges that tribe’s power, however, is dangerous, divisive, and probably part of a shadowy plot.

If Trump and JD Vance want to talk about the “worsening” of human rights, they might try starting with their own backyard. Though given their record, they’d probably just ban mirrors in case the reflection looked woke.