Reading the Financial Times is not for the easily troubled. At once the news it is mission-bound to report is confusing, intimidating, and depressing when the reader becomes aware of just how much money we don’t have and trivialities on which the rest of it is being spent. 

However, amidst the gloom of flicking through the pink ‘un these days, there is the occasional flicker of light, such as the recent article featuring Sir Ed Davey in which the Lib Dem leader endorsed a great idea – a closer working relationship between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and our own United Kingdom. 

The notion has a snappy name, it’s called CANZUK, and liberals should support it.

But, CANZUK has an image problem in liberal minds. The idea has previously been misrepresented as a colonialist retread and championed by those who suggested it’s a better alternative to the European Union. The reality is far from that. 

In fact, it is a drawing together of the nations of the world who have gained the most from the fine tradition of British liberty found in the pages of Mill, Hume, Smith, and Locke and whose lineage disappears into the fog of time on these islands. As for being an alternative to the EU, why think so small? 

A throat-clearing is required here. I believe that Brexit was a huge mistake and has left us poorer, more isolated, less confident, and more exposed to global shocks. I am no Brexiteer and would prefer it had never happened. 

However, I am a realist and understand that the road back to the European Union is a long, uphill, and uncertain one. While we’re travelling it, we should be good neighbours and partners to the EU. For an excellent example, see the Prime Minister’s recent hosting of European and allied leaders in London – a significant moment that tomorrow’s history students will study. 

CANZUK need not be anything as formal and structured as the EU. It most likely does not need a parliament or assembly of its own and could be done largely through treaty, habit, and cooperation. 

According to campaign group CANZUK International, it would involve free movement, free trade, and foreign policy cooperation and that is most likely where it would happily reside on the international stage – a formalising and deepening of already existing relationships between natural allies. 

There is already much overlap between the four countries; all are members of the Five Eyes, CPTP, and the Commonwealth. A CANZUK agreement has much existing infrastructure to build from and the current international climate has seen all four countries move closer together.

It also enjoys high levels of public support across the 130 million people and 18.2 million square kilometres of the CANZUK area. A huge 76 percent of Canadians, 73 percent of Australians, 82 percent of New Zealanders, and 68 percent of Brits support the proposal according to CANZUK International

With America, for now, proving to be an unreliable ally and actor on the international stage and the sinister threats of Vladamir Putin’s belligerent, USSR-lite, gangster state attempting to extend its tentacles across the civilised world and a bellicose and slippery Xi Jinping steering an increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic China in a more vindictive direction, increased solidarity of the Western, capitalist democracies has not been as crucial since the height of the previous Cold War. 

Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have much in common. All are English-speaking, liberal, Western-style democracies with similar parliamentary systems, accounting and business practices, and a shared thread of common law. The CANZUK nations were key in defeating Nazism and Communism when they posed dire threats to freedom and democracy. They value free speech, free association, free markets with social security, and all stand proudly under one monarchy. If countries were people, the CANZUK nations would be very close family indeed. 

Liberal values are under threat and the international order of the immediate future will be built on alliances forged in common endeavour, history, culture, and values. 

As such, closer, deeper, and stronger ties between these four countries that embody liberal values is an idea we need now. 

Britain gave the world its ideas of tolerance, liberty, and democracy; we are the cradle of liberalism. If we wish to ensure that those lofty values are protected, promoted, and passed on intact to those who follow us then CANZUK, and the strength, connection, and economic heft it promises, could prove to be their great defender. That’s why we should be Liberals for CANZUK without delay. 

* Alan is a writer and a regular columnist for the Scottish Daily Express. He also runs Alan Grant Communications, specialising in political communications and public affairs.