The divided West: British policy on Russia is right
Unless the final attempts at diplomacy succeed, it looks as though a war on the European continent is about to begin. Western capitals have urged their nationals to leave Ukraine immediately in the expectation of conflict starting within days.
Russian forces may well move in stages, using familiar techniques from the 20th century to “defend” Russian-speaking groups, then instigate further fights and finally “restore order” by installing puppet leaders.
For all the belated claims by Western leaders that there is unanimity in opposing what Russia is doing, the divisions are obvious. President Putin has cynically and cleverly exploited those divisions, testing the West and, it seems, coming to the conclusion the democracies will not do much beyond making speeches and announcing a few more sanctions. His calculation looks correct.
The US is currently weak, distracted by domestic divisions and record inflation (7.5% year on year in January, it was recorded this week). Post-Afghanistan, America’s friends despair it is now so poorly led.
Nonetheless, the US has attempted to maintain the fiction of the unified West under American leadership, via NATO.
Putin can see through that. France is pushing for a compromise to deescalate the situation. With an election looming, President Macron is mining French history, emphasising European strategic autonomy, which is code for French leadership. Macron, like some of his famous predecessors, implies there is some quasi-mystical French connection with Russia that bestows unique expertise. Understand Russian greatness, its leaders and people seek only respect, is the questionable Macron thesis.
The new German government, guzzling gas from Russia while proclaiming it is going green, has humiliated itself despite a late dash to Washington by the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Its leaders share the French view that a compromise is possible in which Russia gets some of what it wants, and they have refused weapons deliveries to Ukraine.
This is in sharp contrast to the robust and fair message delivered by the British to Russia. What Russia wants is wrong and simply cannot be agreed to. Who the Poles, or the Swedes, or the Baltic states, choose to be allies with and work with, economically and defensively militarily, is their business. It’s not for Russia to decide or to veto the policies of democratic sovereign states.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace deserves credit for his visit to Russian defence ministers and generals this week, where he talked to the Russians and put forward this robust, calm counter.
There was criticism of Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for making her own trip to Russia to see Sergey Lavrov, her manipulative opposite number this week. On the contrary, she also deserves credit for standing up to Lavrov and the Putin regime.
There haven’t been too many reasons recently to feel proud of British policy. Here is one. On Russia, Ukraine and wider Western security, the British approach takes the problem seriously on proper terms, rather than falling for the Russian historical myth, the Kremlin delusion that the rest of us must accommodate ourselves to its view of itself on account of Russia’s capacity for tragedy and supposedly God-given greatness. This Ukraine crisis and the threat to other states is instead a familiar question of self-determination, sensible global order and the refusal to accept tyranny.
I’m not making vainglorious claims about Britain saving the day. If this invasion happens, Britain can’t deploy troops, though it has provided military aid. But it has made the best principled and practical case. In alliance with nations such as Sweden, Finland and Poland it has demonstrated there are plenty of people in the West who won’t accept this from Russia. And Britain has quietly reminded the Russians that the Ukrainians have the capacity for partisan, insurgent, guerrilla warfare, and that didn’t work out well for the Soviets after their invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.
Can Boris really survive being fined?
How far we’ve all come since December, when the Prime Minister asserted there were no illicit Downing Street parties and that everything that happened was within the rules. About this he said he had been assured (note that being assured by someone else subtly shifts any blame). See, nothing happened and all is fine, was the line used by the PM’s most ardent defenders back then.
A lot has happened since December. Little more than six weeks later, Johnson is responding to a police questionnaire and faces being fined over breaches of the most draconian rules imposed in peacetime. Rules imposed by him and rushed through a then compliant parliament in lockdown. As officials attest, Johnson was taken through these extraordinary rules line by line. He either wasn’t paying attention or he took a casual approach when it came to applying them to himself and those around him. There were parties. What happened does not appear to have been within the rules that applied to the rest of us. The breaches were flagrant, and baffling.
With the PM so badly exposed his defenders have attempted to shift the argument. On social media, you’ll find him being defended by a last ditch band of defenders – some hardline Brexiteers who blame the media, a few ultra-loyal MPs, some UKIP types, and others who think the story has generally gone too far.
Their argument seems to be that this is merely nonsense about a cake. Leave Boris alone. Everyone broke the rules (no, they didn’t). And no-one normal cares. And look, there’s a potential war on in Ukraine.
On the last point, Britain changed leaders during the First World War, the Second World War and the first Gulf War. And multiple times during the Cold War. A leader goes, a new one arrives, the permanent machinery grinds on, or is sometimes energised by a new leader. There being a war on is no impediment to a leadership change in a healthy democracy.
The ground is being cleared, in somewhat menacing gangsterish terms, by Boris supporters who will say brazenly if he is fined this doesn’t matter. The hope is clearly that the rest of us, fed up, are too weary and used to Johnsonite degradation that there will be a collective national shrug. And on he goes.
Really? Let’s put to one side the trashing and tainting of the Tory brand by this squalid process – a Trumpian slide from “there were no parties” to it supposedly not mattering if the PM is fined over going to parties. That’s the Tory party’s own private nightmare, storing up the most spectacular kicking from the electorate at some point. Look at the polling on these questions.
What’s more interesting, and worrying, is what it says about us as a country if decency and basic standards of leadership count for so little, if there are fines and a sitting Prime Minister is allowed to brush it off as though this is a game and his personal survival is all that matters. As though we are all just extras in the latest Johnson clan family drama.
If – if – he is fined, at that point those of us who think it really matters, that the laws should apply to those who make them, that Prime Ministers who break the draconian laws they inflict on the rest of us cannot expect to remain in office when found to have broken those laws, will have to rely on parliament and our institutions to restore some sense of decency and propriety. Millions of us voters will be watching.
That’s really what will decide this. Amid all the Boris bluster, of the kind he always produces when caught ever since school, are there enough Tory MPs who when it counts refuse to cross the line? If there are fines, we’ll see who stands up and refuses to accept this transgression.
Sturgeon has ruined Scotland
How terrific it was to visit Scotland last week, returning home for four days to see family and enjoying a trip to Murrayfield to see Scotland beat England. To England rugby fans, sorry about the pretend try, I mean penalty try, that won us the game. Forget the result. After two years, it was dizzying to be among 67,000 noisy people loving the occasion. Life is flooding back.
Having said that, it is impossible to visit Scotland and not realise the extent to which Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP have ruined Scotland. This is not a complaint about policy. All governments make mistakes, although the SNP’s dire record on education, health, culture, ferries, and the economy stands out in that regard.
What I’m referring to is how joyless nationalism has made the place so bitter and bleak. It’s tragic, as though Scotland is caught in a terrible time-warp in which Billy Connolly never happened.
The timidity induced by Sturgeon’s system of rules, stricter and more gleefully deployed than in England, has settled into a depressing spirit of nationwide resignation, as though Scotland is once again about as much fun as a Church of Scotland minister in 1953 reading the Sunday Post and looking for examples of Scots daring to enjoy themselves.
Time and again you hear it from anti-separatist Scots, the tyrannised majority who’ve learnt not to speak up too much, and are careful to avoid being caught smiling unless in private. They say: the Nats have ruined the place, it’s nasty, you were right to leave, the atmosphere is vindictive here now. What kind of cultural smoking ruin do the Nationalists imagine they will inherit if they ever persuade Scots to leave the UK and opt for more of the SNP forever?
The gloomy TV news in Scotland is now read out as though the last rites are being delivered. Yes, coverage of Westminster beamed in looks chaotic in contrast but at least there’s some vigour and fight in London, it’s noisy democracy in action. Sturgeon’s Scotland looks downcast and dreary.
I say this as someone who loves returning as often as possible, for the people, the places and the hills. I only mention it because the contrast with a decade or two ago is so obvious and striking. More fair minded Nationalists must surely see, deep down, that imposing the First Minister’s controlling personality so unrelentingly on Scotland has had a calamitous cultural effect?
There are pockets of resistance, good people determined to have fun and not be bossed around by Sturgeon’s gang. They need all the help and support they can get.
How did this happen? It’s rooted in the divisiveness of the independence referendum in 2014. Almost a decade later, with Sturgeon in alliance with the lunatic Scottish Greens gearing up for another attempt at a referendum, Scotland is now divided down the middle, Nationalist v Unionist, between those who want to leave the UK and those who want to remain. The sectarianism of the Scotland of my youth finally faded, thank goodness. Sectarianism, Protestant v Catholic, has now been swapped for this similarly horrible new division.
The Reaction podcast is back!
We’ve gone back to the old-style Reaction podcast of the kind we did for years, pre-Covid, with a new episode available HERE. Perhaps it’s end of the pandemic optimism, like a fog clearing. We’ve tried various other formats, making the podcast a “best of” all the other stuff we produce on video and publish on YouTube. No, the team decided. Let’s go back to the simpler, old free-wheeling conversation on the subjects of the day grabbing us. This week me, Maggie Pagano and Alastair Benn discuss Russia, Boris, life after the pandemic, gender neutral bathrooms and defending women’s rights, and some other stuff. It’s great to be back doing this, I hope it’s useful and maybe even mildly entertaining.
What I’m reading
Woke Racism: how a new religion has betrayed black America. It’s by John McWhorter, who teaches linguistics, American studies and music history at Columbia University. He’s no conservative; he’s a mainstream American liberal deeply concerned that a well-meaning but pernicious form of anti-racism has morphed into a dangerous new religion that punishes heretics, those who dare to disagree. The book is sensationally good. It’s published in the UK next week.
John McWhorter is the latest guest on the authors in conversation series we’re running, available to watch on YouTube and listen to as a separate podcast if you prefer. I interview authors about intriguing books, new or recently published. We’ll post the new episode next week.
Have a good weekend.
Iain Martin,
Editor and Publisher,
Reaction