I have been a student of history for almost forty years. What troubles me about Europe today is how readily some politicians dismiss dangers they should recognise, particularly when confronting them would mean challenging their own political allies.

Iran offers a warning. After the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, the communist Tudeh Party supported Khomeini’s Islamic Republic. Its support did not protect it. In 1983, the regime arrested its leadership and many of its members, outlawing an organisation that had helped legitimise the new order. The repression of the left demonstrated how little revolutionary solidarity meant once the Islamists had consolidated power.

That history should concern anyone who excuses religious authoritarianism because its enemies happen to be their enemies too. But the eventual betrayal of those allies is no consolation to the people harmed along the way. Our children would gain nothing from discovering that someone who excused their persecution later suffered the same fate. Waiting for an authoritarian alliance to turn on itself is no strategy for protecting a free society.

To the presidents, prime ministers and ministers of the West: your responsibility is to defend the nations you were elected to serve. That includes defending freedoms when doing so attracts accusations you would rather avoid.

Stop Leaving Citizens to Face the Threats

Europeans know what religious intimidation can cost. Teachers, worshippers, police officers and ordinary families should not have to organise their lives around the possibility that exercising a lawful freedom will make them targets. When threats determine what can be taught, published or discussed, public authority is passing to those willing to threaten.

A teacher should not have to become a martyr to teach. A woman should not have to negotiate her freedom with religious enforcers. A congregation should be able to attend worship without wondering whether its church will be attacked. Protecting those freedoms is a basic duty of government. When protection fails, citizens deserve answers about missed warnings, inadequate safeguards and what will change.

The distinction between Islam and Islamism must remain clear. Individual Muslims are entitled to the same protection as everyone else, including protection from coercion within their own communities. Opposing an authoritarian political project is entirely compatible with defending religious freedom. No preacher owns another person’s conscience, and cultural sensitivity cannot excuse threats against women, dissenters or converts.

Those on the left who provide political cover for such intimidation should examine whom they are helping. Would the movement they defend permit them to criticise its leaders, reject its religion or organise against its authority? If they refuse to confront those questions because the answers would disrupt their politics, they are acting as useful idiots for people who would deny them those same freedoms.

Governments must also distinguish peaceful protest from criminal violence. The presence of peaceful demonstrators does not diminish the seriousness of attacks on police, destroyed businesses or families frightened out of public spaces. Reporting and policing should describe what happened accurately, identify those responsible and account for the damage.

Immigration Requires Honest Answers

The same evasion damages the immigration debate. Housing, public services and the capacity to integrate newcomers are finite. Citizens are entitled to ask whether the pace of immigration exceeds that capacity, to argue for lower numbers and to expect lawful removal decisions to be enforced. Ministers should answer with evidence rather than use accusations of racism to avoid defending their policies.

Governments owe fair treatment to people seeking safety. They also owe their own citizens a workable system. That means enforceable entry rules, prompt and fair asylum decisions, and clear obligations towards the laws and freedoms of the country admitting newcomers. Refusing to acknowledge limits does not make those limits disappear; it leaves communities and public services to absorb the consequences.

Ordinary families cannot all move away from problems their leaders have failed to address. They cannot all purchase private security or private education. They live with decisions made by people who often possess the means to avoid their effects. Their safety and access to services deserve more consideration than a minister’s reputation among colleagues.

Apply the Same Standards

For those determined to preserve Europe’s Christian inheritance and national independence, Poland carries particular significance. Europol’s report covering 2024 recorded no terrorist attacks reported by Poland. That record deserves examination, without pretending that a single year explains its causes or proves the absence of a threat. The report also records arrests for terrorist offences in Poland.

Europeans need no permission to value secure borders, national continuity or the preservation of their country’s character. Those concerns deserve a political hearing rather than automatic dismissal.

Defending that inheritance also means protecting institutions from politicians who treat an electoral mandate as ownership of the state. Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal dispute illustrates the test. President Karol Nawrocki accused his opponents of a forcible takeover, while Donald Tusk defended the changes as a restoration of the rule of law. Neither description settles whether the actions themselves were constitutional.

Tusk’s pro-European credentials do not exempt his government’s methods from scrutiny. Nor does opposition to Tusk exempt Nawrocki’s conduct. Brussels should apply the same standards to governments it welcomes as to governments it distrusts; otherwise, its appeals to constitutional principle will carry little weight.

Europe’s Christian inheritance deserves a confident defence. Churches are living places of worship, and traditions carry memory, obligation and belonging across generations. Protecting their continued place in national life is compatible with the religious freedom of others. Leaders should be able to say so without embarrassment.

Public Office Is a Trust

Corruption compounds the damage when public authority becomes a commodity. In its response to the Qatar corruption allegations, the European Parliament acknowledged that its internal monitoring and alert mechanisms had failed. Those allegations required investigation, and established wrongdoing requires consequences. Institutions cannot demand public trust while treating failures in their own safeguards as a matter of presentation.

Officials who sell influence betray people whose interests they were appointed to protect. Their private gain leaves a public cost: decisions distorted, institutions compromised and foreign interests given access they should never have obtained. Leaders who retreat from lawful duties through fear of criticism also leave others to bear the consequences, even when no money changes hands.

The work required is practical. Control entry through enforceable laws, decide asylum claims fairly and carry out lawful removals. Prosecute threats and violence, protect places of worship, investigate extremist networks and expose improper foreign influence. Publish results and admit failures. Citizens should be able to judge performance rather than be asked to accept another declaration of good intentions.

Doing that work may cost you applause, invitations or office. You sought responsibility, and those are costs you must be prepared to bear. The freedoms you inherited survived because previous generations accepted obligations that were often far more demanding.

One day, your descendants may ask what you did when you understood the danger. They will have little interest in the communications strategy or political convenience behind your decisions. They will live with what you defended and what you surrendered.

Give them a country in which they remain free to ask.