The West on the brink – Liz Truss explains what must be done

The West on the brink – Liz Truss explains what must be done

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss has sounded the alarm with the title of her book: Ten Years to Save the West.

Her speech at a CPAC event in Sydney last night was a stark warning that the survival of Western values and freedoms is on a knife-edge thanks to the Leftist takeover of institutions and weak conservative leadership

The forces undermining our democracies are not just external, but internal, with left-wing ideologies infiltrating every level of government, media, and corporate life.

Truss’s personal experience of being forced out of office by these undemocratic forces is a chilling example of how far they’ve come—and why it’s urgent for leaders to step up now.

“We have virtually the entire Anglosphere now governed by socialists,” she declared, pointing to leaders like Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Anthony Albanese, and Britain’s Keir Starmer.

Truss’s message is clear: these leaders govern as "student activists," and their embrace of neo-Marxist, anti-capitalist ideologies has brought Western democracies to their knees.

Now is the time to fight back, before it’s too late.

The crux of Truss's argument lies in the betrayal of conservative values by those who should have been their defenders.

"Too many conservatives," she observed, "buy into these left-wing arguments because they want to be on the right side of history."

Whether it’s supporting gender ideology or embracing climate change extremism, these so-called conservatives are abandoning their principles, not out of conviction, but out of a desire to fit in with the new establishment.

“They wanted to protect the status quo, which they were benefiting from,” Truss explained, underscoring the complacency that has allowed this dangerous shift to take hold.

This failure of leadership has had real consequences for the people.

In the UK, under nominally conservative leadership, the government imposed the highest taxes in 70 years and banned fracking for oil and gas, all while embracing “useless” energy alternatives like solar panels that are often sourced from China.

“Our energy prices are four times what they are in the United States,” Truss noted, adding that the steel industry in Britain is on the verge of collapse.

Small businesses, too, are suffocating under heavy regulation and bureaucracy.

The institutions designed to protect democracy, such as the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, are equally culpable.

Truss recounted how her attempts to implement genuine conservative economic policies were thwarted by these entities.

“The economic establishment was ready to get me from day one,” she said, pointing to how her mini-budget, aimed at lowering taxes and encouraging investment, was sabotaged.

The Bank of England’s sale of government gilts and the hidden exposure of Britain’s pension system to risky derivative products triggered a financial crisis that led to her being forced out of office.

“I believe to this day, our economic plans were right,” Truss affirmed, but she and her team were blamed for the crisis while the real culprits—the bureaucratic elites—escaped accountability.

The lesson here is sobering: Western democracies are under threat from within.

Institutions once trusted to serve the people are now working against their interests, undermining democracy by shifting power away from elected governments.

“Parliamentary sovereignty has been removed,” Truss warned, meaning voters no longer have the ability to enact real change.

Power, instead, has been outsourced to independent bodies and bureaucrats, who remain unaccountable to the public.

The path forward, according to Truss, is threefold.

First, conservatives must “drain the swamp” by reclaiming power from these unaccountable institutions.

Second, they must recognise that the establishment is left-wing and will not change unless forced to by the people.

“We need to find our voters and appeal to our voters to make real change,” she urged, calling on conservatives to align themselves with working-class communities, farmers, and those whose livelihoods depend on industries like oil, gas, and steel.

Finally, conservatives need to rebuild their political infrastructure, including training lawyers, economists, and policy experts who are committed to conservative values.

Truss’s message is a wake-up call to conservatives everywhere.

If Western leaders do not step up and confront these undemocratic forces head-on, the values that have defined the West for centuries—liberty, democracy, and individual rights—will continue to erode.

As she concluded, “If we don’t stand for our values, we are simply giving in to those regimes around the world who don’t believe in our values.”

The West must be saved, and it is the responsibility of its leaders to make that happen.