SPANISH prime minister Pedro Sanchez hosted a big conference in Barcelona last weekend.

It was attended by more than 20 political leaders from around the world including President Catherine Connolly. Strangely it received almost no coverage here.

The conference was called In Defence of Democracy. It’s the fourth in a series of an initiative Spain and Brazil launched jointly in 2024 to discuss the growth of authoritarianism, autocracy, imperialism and the consequences of all that for international law and multilateralism, especially the United Nations.

Perhaps it’s because the leaders attending were predominantly left of centre or socialist, and speakers condemned Trump and the death and destruction he has wreaked alongside his partner-in-crime Netanyahu, that first world leaders ignore the conferences.

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However, representatives from left-of-centre parties did attend. For example the British Labour Party sent delegates. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz attended. Murphy gave a speech excoriating Trump.

Government leaders included Cyril Ramaphosa from South Africa, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, Brazilian president Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, and the........

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