Even before election day, Donald Trump was crossing long-established lines around free and fair democratic elections. 

Since November, the outgoing president has time and again directly threatened the electoral process, spreading baseless conspiracy theories and goading his support base to push back ever harder against what he falsely describes as a fraudulent vote. 

He has been widely condemned for his words, by political experts, world leaders and thousands of social media users. 

But it took a mob of Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol building – and repeated questions about the events – for the UK government to finally speak out against him.

Even as one of their closest allies attempted to subvert democracy, they were very careful not to put Trump directly in the firing line despite knowing, at each point, that Biden had won, or was set to win, the election.

Here are the times, just since the November election, that the UK government has deliberately avoided calling out Trump’s actions: 

While a violent mob stormed the US Capitol 

There’s no doubt Trump encouraged the events that unfolded on Wednesday. He had been touting the January 6 protests for weeks, clearly directed his supporters to head to the Capitol during a speech earlier in the day – a speech in which he repeatedly describing the election as “fraudulent” and “stolen”.

But despite widespread condemnation for his actions – and his failure to act when the insurrection began – political leaders in the UK steered clear of naming Trump or explicitly blaming him for the violence. Even as it was taking place.

In a short tweet shared by other cabinet ministers such as Michael Gove, Boris Johnson wrote: “Disgraceful scenes in US Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.” 

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab spoke in similarly vague terms. On Wednesday evening he wrote: “The US rightly takes great pride in its democracy, and there can be no justification for these violent attempts to frustrate the lawful and proper transition of power.”

Hours after the event, shortly before midday on Thursday, Raab tweeted again, and again did not condemn Trump’s actions.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak also avoided naming Trump in his own, similar, response.

Home secretary Priti Patel appeared across several news programmes on Thursday morning, as much of the UK woke to headlines that four people had been killed during the insurrection. 

In her early appearances she largely avoided criticising Trump directly, saying the president did “very little to de-escalate the situation” but looking forward to Biden’s presidency rather than dwelling on the UK government’s relationship with Trump. 

However, the home secretary did later move to criticise Trump in clearer terms, telling Radio 4′s Today programme: “The fact of the matter is: Donald Trump’s words were associated with violence, his comments directly led to violence.

“And so far, he has failed to condemn that violence, and that is wrong.”

Boris Johnson then finally delivered some strong words on Trump at the coronavirus press conference on Thursday.

He said: “All my life America has stood for some very important things – an idea of freedom and an idea of democracy.

“In so far as he (president Trump) encouraged people to storm the Capitol and in so far as the president has consistently cast doubt on the outcome of a free and fair election, I believe that that was completely wrong.

“What president Trump has been saying about that is completely wrong and I unreservedly condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way that they did in the Capitol.”

When Trump actually tried to stop ballots being counted 

As the margins narrowed on election night, Trump was widely ridiculed for claiming that the vote count should be stopped in some states, while demanding that every vote be counted in others. 

In short, it was a pretty transparent attempt to skew the result of the election, either stopping the count before any more Democrat votes could come in or keeping it running where the campaign was convinced they would pick up extra Republican votes. It was also incredibly undemocratic. 

You wouldn’t necessarily realise that from foreign secretary Dominic Raab’s reaction, however. When asked the next day by Sky News’ Sophy Ridge whether or not all votes should be counted in a democratic election, the foreign secretary replied that he would not be “drawn into opining on what is a different system in the US.”

Pressed again for a direct answer on whether all votes should be counted, he said: “In principle, of course.” Not exactly a resounding yes. 

When Trump claimed he’d won the election, days before the result was announced 

In an early sign of the chaos and conspiracy theories to come, Trump took to the podium in the early hours of the morning after the election and falsely claimed he had won a second term in office. 

In a rambling speech – delivered days before Joe Biden was confirmed to have taken the victory – Trump claimed he had “easily” won if you counted the “legal” votes, and made reference to several baseless rumours about misconduct at polling stations which went on to fuel widespread conspiracy theories.

With the world watching the US, both Johnson and Raab were met with considerable criticism for failing to explicitly criticise Trump for his speech alleging electoral fraud.

In the House of Commons, Kier Starmer called on Johnson to agree with him that “it’s not for a candidate to decide which votes do and don’t count or when to stop counting”.

But Johnson sidestepped the question, replying: “Of course, we don’t comment as a UK government on the democratic processes of our friends and allies.”

Raab did the same when a similar question was put to him by the BBC.

Asked whether the government would “call out” the claims made by Trump, Raab replied: “It’s a very close election, we’re watching with great interest, it’s for the American people to decide.

“Ultimately, whatever the election night comments from either sides of the campaigns, I’m confident and have full faith in the US institutions and checks and balances in the US system that will produce a definitive result.” 

Pushed further on the question of whether or not he would condemn Trump’s claims of election fraud, Raab replied: “You’re asking me to comment on the campaign commentary from both sides and indeed the pundits, which forgive me, I’ll refrain from doing.”