The west\u2019s ineffectiveness in the face of the arrant use of torture, unlawful arrest, savage imprisonment without trial and flagrant abuse of international law, even close to home in Europe, is among the bleakest symptoms of our times. The people power we saw embodied in the strikes in the Gda\u0144sk shipyards, the fall of the Berlin Wall and even the Arab spring has not presaged the new era of democracy we once hoped for. Instead, the 21st century is becoming defined as a new era of agile autocracy and vicious strong-man rule.<\/p>
As the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, prepared the UK\u2019s response to last Sunday\u2019s forced landing<\/a> of a Ryanair jet by a Belarusian MiG-29 over its airspace to secure the trumped-up detention of a well-known democracy activist, Roman Protasevich, it must have crossed his mind that Britain\u2019s response would have been so much stronger within the EU. The UK is now a little Sir Echo, weakening the west. It is part of the reason why Belarus\u2019s president, Alexander Lukashenko, can act with impunity, as he refuses to acknowledge his loss of last\u2019s August presidential election<\/a>.<\/p> Too many western companies and governments, wanting export orders, collude with controlling one-party states<\/p> Continue reading...<\/a>\n