Vance Blasts European Leaders Over Free Speech Stance

Forget Russia and China, US Vice President JD Vance warns that Europe's greatest threat comes from within.

In a speech on Friday to Europe’s top leaders at the Munich Security Conference, JD Vance delivered a blistering attack on Europe’s approach to free speech, immigration and political dissent.

The American Vice President began by noting that:

“We gather at this conference of course to discuss security, and normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many great military leaders gathered here today, but while the Trump Administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and [while] we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defence - the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China and it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values - values shared with the United States of America.”

The sudden shift in focus was met with tepid applause from the audience which included our own Minister of Defence, Judith Collins.

Vance went on to list a series of grievances including EU censorship of social media accounts, the arrest of people in silent prayer outside abortion clinics in the UK and the cancellation of elections in Romania.

“Free speech, I fear, is in retreat and in the interests of comedy my friends but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe but from within my own country where the prior Administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation and disinformation, like for example, the idea that Corona virus had likely leaked from a laboratory in China. Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth.”

Vance then chastised the organisers of the conference for not inviting lawmakers from Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) which remains on course for its best ever results at the federal election to be held next weekend. The VP observing that:

“to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation … who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or God forbid, vote a different way - or even worse, win an election.”

To those Europeans in the audience nervous about what potential deal Trump may strike with the Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, Vance offered little reassurance. Instead, he emphasised that Europe must take greater responsibility for its own defence, as America has more pressing security concerns elsewhere.

His speech was swiftly condemned by an array of European leaders led by the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who accused Vance of interference in Germany’s upcoming elections and the German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius who labelled the speech “unacceptable”.

In the UK, the retired Supreme Court Judge, Lord Sumption reacting on BBC Newsnight dismissed Vance’s arguments as, “silly and immature”. However, he also disagreed with Vance’s central claim that the threat to free speech was coming from governments. Instead, Sumption argued:

“There is a significant, large minority of people, particularly among the young, who don’t accept the basic premises of democracy and who don’t accept free speech. The challenge to free speech is not actually coming from governments, it’s coming from the pressure of opinion from our fellow citizens and that’s a much more difficult thing to deal with than the pressure coming from governments … It’s a problem that goes back to the origins of mass democracy that conformity is the instinct of many of our fellow citizens.”

Vance and Sumption encapsulate the long-standing differences between the American and European approaches to free speech - differences that are now becoming even more pronounced.

While Vance sees government overreach as the primary danger, Sumption warns of a deeper cultural shift, where intolerance for dissent is being driven not by laws, but by public sentiment itself. The clash between these perspectives is more than just a debate over policy; it reflects a growing divide in the West about how to define democracy, individual liberty and the limits of acceptable speech.