Last Monday, following a US strike in southern Iran, former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt posted on X: “Attacking water desalination plants is attacking critical civilian infrastructure. It’s with no doubt a war crime. If this escalates the consequences would be grave”. Of course, the question that arises is not what the “grave consequences” could be, but rather if there is a single human being left on Earth who takes European leaders seriously when they suggest they will hold the US or Israel accountable for, well… anything.

Two days later, president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen followed with a statement that said the quiet part out loud. “Europe can no longer be a custodian […] for a world that has gone and will not return,” she wrote, presumably meaning a world that respects international law, and called instead for a “more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy”. Europeans have used their “values” as a brow-beating tool around the planet for decades. The speed with which they have now dropped them makes their hypocrisy and cynicism that much more breathtaking.

Meanwhile in Britain, Keir Starmer has tried to temper his response to Donald Trump’s call to war with his characteristic tepidness. He see-sawed between not allowing the US access to UK bases, to then allowing it for “defensive purposes”, which apparently includes the bombing of a sovereign nation 3,000 miles away from Britain. Starmer has now ruled out the use of British warships for operations in the Gulf, at least until a new “defensive purpose” presents itself. In the shadow of levels of military spending not seen since the Cold War, leaders in Britain and across Europe have worked hard to present war as an inevitability, instead of the most abject failure, and now struggle to disentangle their narrative from that of Trump’s reckless misadventures.

There is, of course, a broader context. For the past ten years, anyone who believes in the idea of a united, strong and prosperous Europe has instead seen it stumble from one failure to the next. A financial crisis, during which it sacrificed its citizens to the banks. A migration wave that has been dubbed a “crisis” to appease the far right. Multiple environmental and climate policy promises that have been flushed down the political toilet. The UK leaving the EU, one of the bloc’s largest and most powerful members. Wars raging in Ukraine and Iran, and Israel’s genocide in Palestine, with the majority of Europe having assumed the role of US vassal – at best a spectator, at worst an enabler. Sovereignty, international law and human rights have all become outdated terms.

In a world ablaze, Europe’s decades of weak leadership and myopic policies have placed it in the hands of those it is dependent on – in particular, an increasingly desperate US. Whispers of European independence are uttered when our bullies are not listening, but are immediately retracted when our servile leadership reacts to Israeli or US pressure with a seemingly reflexive bending of the knee. The great pretense of being the sober and calm “adults in the room” when faced with firebrand counterparts has become the screen behind which decades of incremental vacuousness are hidden.

Any change must start with resisting the catastrophic direction we have collectively taken. War, environmental and climate collapse, racism and xenophobia and ever deteriorating living conditions for the majority are not inevitable: they are the price we pay to enrich the few, and impoverish everyone else – be they migrant or Europe-born. We must engage in principled voting rather than dependency on the logic of the “lesser evil”, local organising against interests that turn every aspect of our lives into profit, and speaking truth to power, no matter how absurd our enemies try to make us appear.

There are many who speak out but are systematically silenced. In Britain and in Europe, resistance is growing at every level, gathering the strength to become the force that could shatter decades of a failing, dead-end system. It is high time that the voices of a humane alternative unite to unlock the hope we need to believe that our future is not, in fact, doomed.

On Tuesday 24 March, Yanis and Erik will speak alongside Zack Polanski, Jeremy Corbyn, Francesca Albanese and others at an event in London to mark the 10-year anniversary of DiEM25. For tickets, click here.

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