Ultra-Remainers are furious that Britain has led the world in confronting Russian aggression
No country did more to strengthen Ukraine’s defences than Britain. If the resistance on those chilly steppes was stiffer than Vladimir Putin expected, it is partly because we spent seven years helping to train 22,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Those Russian tanks whose carcases now line the roads in grisly columns? Many of them were disabled by the 2,000 anti-tank missiles we provided.
True, neither the UK nor any other Western ally is directly engaging Russian forces. But that decision was taken in 2008, when Nato placed Ukraine’s membership application at the back of the cupboard next to Georgia’s.
For what it’s worth, Britain was at that time one of Ukraine’s stronger advocates. But other members felt that the priority had to be the credibility of Article 5. Any putative aggressor needed to know that crossing the border of one Nato state in anger would trigger an immediate war with all 30 members. Unless all Nato states were prepared to go to war to defend Ukraine, extending that pledge would have been dishonest and, in the exact sense, incredible. Politics is often about lesser evils and unpleasant compromises. A line had to be drawn somewhere, and Nato decided to draw it around the Baltic states.
That did not mean, though, that Britain washed its hands of Ukraine. As Putinite revanchism intensified, culminating in the seizure of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, we stepped up our support – diplomatically, economically and militarily. We sent body armour and defensive equipment. We deployed troops, including Challenger 2 tanks, to Poland and Estonia. We ordered warships to the Black Sea. We worked with Ukraine and Georgia to anticipate and expose Russian cyber attacks. We changed the law to make it harder for Putin’s cronies to launder money through London. By some accounts, before the invasion of Ukraine, we had already sanctioned 275 Russian individuals and entities.
None of this would need saying were it not for the bizarre narrative, pushed by embittered Europhiles, that Britain has somehow lagged behind the EU in its response.
Few things are as myopic as petty tribalism. I have been in the United States all week, and have been stunned by the way conservative talkshow hosts view the Ukraine crisis through the prism of the alleged impropriety of Hunter Biden, the president’s son who was accused of misusing his influence there. Some Republicans are so eaten up with dislike of President Biden that they seem almost to want Ukraine to fall so as to be able to say “I told you so”.
We have our equivalents in this country. From the moment Russian armour crossed the border, irreconcilable Remainers declared that Britain, by leaving the EU, had lost all influence and was rowing in pathetically behind the sanctions regime determined in Brussels.
Here, to pluck an example at random, is the former minister Nick Boles, who resigned over Brexit: “What do my Brexiteer friends and former colleagues think of the fact that the EU has proven itself to be far more muscular and effective than the UK Government led by Boris Johnson? Across the board: delivering weapons, increasing defence budgets and enforcing sanctions.”
Each of these complaints is demonstrably false. While Britain was sending missiles, Germany was blocking the transfer of military equipment across its territory by other Nato allies. While Britain was pushing for across-the-board sanctions, EU states were carving out their special interests – luxury handbags for Italy, diamonds for Belgium. Britain and the US have closed sterling and dollar clearing to Russia, but the EU still permits euro clearing. The total value of Russian bank assets sanctioned in the UK is £258.8billion; in the EU it is £38.8billion. Even now, Brussels won’t do the thing that Russia most fears and block its energy exports.
I don’t say this to criticise our European allies. Some of them, notably Poland and the Baltic states, have behaved bravely throughout. Even those which were initially the most hesitant are now doing the right thing (we must hope that Germany’s cancellation of Nord Stream 2 is permanent, and not simply about short-term optics).
No, the problem is not with other EU governments. It is with that large minority of British commentators who are so blinded by their dislike of Brexit and their loathing of Boris Johnson that they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that anything Britain does is right.
Scrutiny is important. I have never had much sympathy with the idea that, during a war, critics should bite their tongues. Quite apart from being a rather Putinite attitude, it ignores the way opposition helps keep ministers on their toes. Some of the criticism, though, is so deranged that it harms both our democratic legitimacy at home and our reputation overseas.
Take, for example, the charge that the Conservatives are somehow corrupted by Russian money. The accusation is so preposterous that it feels slightly undignified to respond to it but, since shadow ministers have started levelling it, it is worth pointing out that, if the Kremlin really did try to buy the Tories, it was the worst investment in history.
No government has been more active in mobilising opposition to Putin. As the crisis loomed, the PM wove a cat’s cradle around the globe rallying support. As Russian troops wheeled and drilled on the border, he dashed from Krakow to Kyiv, from New York to Brussels. In Munich, days before the invasion, he warned presciently of what was about to happen: “I believe that in preparing to invade Ukraine, a proud country whose armed forces now exceed 200,000 personnel, considerably more expert in combat today than in 2014, President Putin and his circle are gravely miscalculating.”
Few public figures were so vindicated. Most commentators – including, I’m embarrassed to admit, this one – could not quite believe that Putin would launch an all-out invasion. EU governments and Ukrainian politicians dismissed the warnings.
Even the United States, which shared Britain’s analysis of what would happen, has a patchy record. One of Joe Biden’s first decisions was to remove the sanctions aimed at blocking Nord Stream 2. He went on to muse about Ukraine and Russia having a special relationship, and stated in terms that there would be no US military response. He even suggested that Putin might get away with minor border incursions provided he held back from a full-scale invasion.
Britain, by contrast, calibrated its responses carefully, giving Russia’s neighbours the wherewithal to defend themselves without offering Russia an excuse to escalate. Not that this soothed our armchair critics. For a week now, British defeatists have been gleefully circulating a clip of the PM’s appearance before the defence select committee in which, responding to the Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, he argues that technological advances have made it unlikely that we will again need to deploy large numbers of British tanks on the Continent.
“Ha! Look at Ukraine! What are those columns, then, eh, eh?” crow the naysayers, almost willing the Russians to prove Johnson wrong. But, in the event, tanks did indeed prove to be of limited use against missiles and drones.
To the annoyance of our cynics, Global Britain has risen to its second challenge (the first being the vaccine rollout). Our record is not flawless, but it compares well with that of many of our neighbours. Instead of hiding behind a common European front, we built a worldwide coalition against the aggressor. We were not alone, of course. We worked with allies in the G7, the Commonwealth and, yes, the EU. But we showed leadership and we were willing to back our words with deeds.
This matters in an age when the relative power of the West is waning, and when the US is prioritising the Pacific over the Atlantic. Back in October, I started to hear hints from Ukrainian politicians that the Americans were concentrating on Taiwan and leaving it to Britain to defend Europe. I wondered whether they could really have been told this and, if they had, whether we would do our part. In the event – yes, patchily and imperfectly, but willingly none the less – we did.
“England has saved herself by her own exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example,” said William Pitt shortly after the crushing of a large but ramshackle Russian expeditionary force at Austerlitz in 1805.
So, today, Britain is offering a model of responsible leadership, combining sanctions, intelligence, cyber security and proportionate force.
Ukrainians appreciate it, even if our domestic commentators do not. And, we may be sure, Europe is watching our example.
The UK’s role matters even more in an era in which the relative power of the West is waning and the US is focused more on Asia
It is worth pointing out that if the Kremlin really did try to buy the Tories, it was the worst investment in history