I'm a councillor in Vilnius, where people died to escape the Soviet Union. It was nothing like the EU, Jeremy Hunt

Your comparison was not only infantile, it was also irresponsible for a British foreign secretary to push such buttons in the context of the Kremlin’s continued propaganda war to divide Europe – a war in which British politicians have become enthusiastic footsoldiers

Dear Jeremy Hunt,

Greetings from Lithuania, Britain’s loyal partner in Nato. Greetings also from myself, a British immigrant democratically elected to the city council of the beautiful capital city Vilnius – a city which, thanks to EU freedom of movement and to those who fought to free Lithuania from the Soviet Union, I have been proud and able to call my home since 2005.

I was elected in 2015 on a platform of tolerance, openness, transparency and liberal democratic values. These values, until sometime during 2016, I held to be British.

I was, in part, elected by Lithuanians who hoped that a Brit would have a deep and historic understanding of those values, making him the ideal antidote to lingering socialist ideals and the persistently oppressive, top-down approach of Eastern European governance. I hope you can agree that, bearing in mind the enormously hard work she did to free the East, Margaret Thatcher would be overjoyed to see me sitting here carrying the torch – a torch that was once your party’s logo.

When I was sworn in as a representative of the people of Vilnius, I became (as far as I am aware) the only non-citizen in Lithuanian history to pledge allegiance to the Lithuanian constitution. With my hand on that constitution, I promised the people of Vilnius that I would defend their interests, their rights and their freedoms with every breath I take. Of this fact, as you might be able to understand, I am extremely proud; this duty and solemn responsibility, I take extremely seriously.

So it is in accordance with my oath that I write to you today.

This morning I read with shock, disgust and embarrassment that you – a high-ranking British parliamentarian and a potential pretender to the office of prime minister – compared the EU to the Soviet Union in your Conservative Party conference speech.

Your comparison was not only infantile, it is also irresponsible for a person in your position to push such buttons in the context of the Kremlin’s continued propaganda war to divide Europe, a war in which far too many British politicians have become enthusiastic footsoldiers, useful idiots and collaborators.

This is a war which Vladimir Putin finances lavishly: finances which undoubtedly influenced the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union; finances which successfully ensured the result Russia so dearly wanted.

This is the result which you now cherish and pervert, presenting it as the desire of “52 per cent of the British people”, while clearly much less than 50 per cent had in mind the kind of chaotic, amateurish, economically damaging exit that you and your colleagues have succeeded in arranging.

Your hysterical and hallucinogenic speech will be applauded in the corridors of the Russian secret services whose disinformation campaign tactics you are mimicking so closely that it makes me wonder whether or not you are receiving their payment via a Maltese bank.

You campaigned for Remain but have since decided, presumably for Machiavellian reasons, to reverse your position and give speeches that pander to the most Europhobic and vile sectors of your party, along with knowingly rousing the rabble of deranged and discredited organisations such as Ukip and the English Defence League.

More importantly – and I cannot stress this enough – your speech spat in the faces of millions of dead people’s surviving relatives, people who experienced and resisted and suffered under Soviet terror, people who were imprisoned in the Soviet Union, people who fought for and prayed for the kind of freedom you take for granted and now recklessly abuse.

Ordinary words cannot fully express my fellow Vilnians’ feelings about you, but swearwords can. Unfortunately, due to the restrictions of the oversight of the Vilnius City Council Ethics Commission, I am unable to use such words freely in official communications.

Sincerely,
Mark Adam Harold
City Councillor (Independent)
Vilnius, Lithuania, European Union

A version of this open letter first appeared on the author's personal website