Jeremy Hunt is the anti diplomat – insulting Britain’s closest allies to please a few thousand Tories The Foreign Secretary’s comparison of the EU to the USSR was offensive and alienates the very people Britain needs for trade deals

Observing from the outside it appears that there is a popular new game at the Foreign Office: anti diplomacy. The objective of this game is to insult as many countries as possible and undermine relationships with your closest allies.

Bonus points are given for insulting countries with whom you are involved in sensitive negotiations or with whom you hope to make trade deals in the future.

Boris Johnson had a natural talent for this game – indeed may have invented it – but Jeremy Hunt is learning fast.

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Just months after the EU offered the UK “unqualified solidarity” over the horrific poison attacks in Salisbury, Hunt adopted the far-right trope of comparing the European Union to the Soviet Union; a prison that others apart from the UK will also want to escape.

Did he know how offensive these remarks would be in the capitals of the Baltic states and central Europe where Theresa May and other minsters visited during the summer to seek their support over Brexit? If he was in any doubt, he shouldn’t be now.

Outraged allies

Radoslaw Sikorwski, an Oxford educated former Polish foreign minister, has demanded an apology. He tweeted that comparing the EU to the USSR was “cheap and offensive, particularly to us who have lived both. Did the Red Army force you to join? How many millions has Brussels exterminated? Gulag for demanding a referendum on independence?”

Brexiteer comparisons of the European Union to the USSR is cheap and offensive, particularly to us who have lived both. Did the Red Army force you to join? How many millions has Brussels exterminated? Gulag for demanding a referendum on independence? Apologise, @Jeremy_Hunt! — Radosław Sikorski MEP ???????????????? (@sikorskiradek) October 1, 2018

Or perhaps he might take notice of the current ambassador of Latvia who responded: “Soviets killed, deported, exiled and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Latvia’s inhabitants after the illegal occupation in 1940, and ruined the lives of 3 generations, while the EU has brought prosperity, equality, growth, respect”.

Dear @faisalislam , just FYI – Soviets killed, deported, exiled and imprisoned 100 thousands of Latvia's inhabitants after the illegal occupation in 1940, and ruined lives of 3 generations, while the EU has brought prosperity, equality, growth, respect. #StrongerTogether https://t.co/BNUvmsgXnR — Baiba Braže (@NATOBrazeB) September 30, 2018

Perhaps unnoticed also, amidst the salvo of Tory bile directed at Donald Tusk, is the fact that the European Council president played an active part in the Student Committee of Solidarity, a group opposed to Poland’s communist rule at the time.

Re-writing colonial history

Behind this crass determination to burn any remaining bridges to our European friends lies a deeper psychological motivation: the projection of historical oppression to conceal the reality of our own shameful history.

In his speech to the Conservative Party conference, Hunt celebrated the export of free trade by the Royal Navy, as though the opium wars and the theft of Indian wealth at the barrel of a gun was something to be proud of.

Did he know how offensive these remarks would be in the capitals of the Baltic states and central Europe where Theresa May visited to seek support over Brexit?

Did he forget that it is the very same countries that we are supposed to be making close trading relationships with in our Global Britain future? Has he believed the public school fantasy that the people of Asia and Africa share his view of the Empire as a civilising mission?

These oppressed and murdered communities are now our communities and if we are to heal historic divisions we need to acknowledge and atone for our privateering past, not transmute it into a Brexiteering future.

The ignorant rewriting of history and the dog-whistle politics of Global Britain may go down well in the conference hall, but it is disastrous for our international standing and our future partnerships in the world outside.

Soft power

To understand the EU as a foundation of peace and prosperity in our continent we need to excise from our national consciousness the myths of splendid isolation and benevolent imperialism.

Our friends in other countries have forgiven us our historical trespasses because of the strength of our diplomatic efforts and ‘soft power’.

But Conservative foreign secretaries are testing that indulgence beyond breaking point and – unless they develop some expertise in real diplomacy – the consequences will be disastrous for our country.

Molly Scott Cato MEP is Green Party speaker on Brexit.