JD Vance has taken aim at the UK and Europe over what he claimed was “backsliding” free speech and democracy.
The US vice president held no punches when addressing European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday.
“When I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” he said, during a speech that roamed across Europe targeting perceived infringes on free speech.
“And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs.”
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Mr Vance criticised the country for the jailing of 51-year-old Adam Smith-Connor – who was imprisoned for breaching a safe zone around an abortion clinic in Bournemouth.
“After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before,” Mr Vance said.
The conviction was not related to Smith-Connor’s thoughts while he was in the safe zone.
He then went on to talk about “safe access zones” in Scotland – a 150m wide area outside abortion clinics to stop anti-abortion campaigners leafleting, holding vigils, or showing graphic images to people near the sites.
“In Britain, and across Europe, free speech I fear is in retreat,” he said.
“In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town and under Donald Trump’s leadership we may disagree with your views but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,” Mr Vance said to muted applause.
He then switched his focus to the car attack in Munich on Thursday in which 36 people were injured.
Mr Vance wrongly described the suspect in that attack as an asylum seeker, when in reality he has lived in Munich since he arrived as an unaccompanied minor in 2016 and has a work permit.
As he listed values he believes Europe is diverging away from the US over, he raised immigration.
“I can’t bring it up again without thinking about the terrible victims who had a beautiful winter day in Munich ruined,” he said.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with them and will remain with them. But why did this happen in the first place?”
It’s a “terrible story” that we’ve heard “way too many times in Europe”, he added.
Mr Vance’s speech was the latest wake-up call for the UK and European nations in terms of security and the Trump administration’s new foreign policy aims.
It highlighted the divergence between the new US administration and their allies.
This story originally appeared on Skynews
