Britain, solidly for Ukraine, lobbies GOP
LONDON — When David Cameron, Britain’s foreign secretary and onetime prime minister, visited Washington last month, he took time out to press the case for backing Ukraine with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican who stridently opposes further American military aid to the country.
Last week, Boris Johnson, another former prime minister, argued the reelection of former President Donald Trump would not be such a bad thing, so long as Trump comes around on helping Ukraine.
“I simply cannot believe that Trump will ditch the Ukrainians,” Johnson wrote in a Daily Mail column that read like a personal appeal to the candidate.
If the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States has taken on an air of special pleading in recent weeks, it is because Britain, rock solid in its support for Ukraine, now views its role as bucking up an ally for whom aid to the embattled country has become a political obstacle course.
British diplomats said Cameron and other senior officials had made it a priority to reach out to Republicans who were hostile to further aid. For reasons of history and geography, Britain recognized support is not as “instinctive” for Americans as it for the British, according to a senior diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the matter.
Unlike in the United States, where Ukraine has gotten tied up in a dispute with Republicans over President Joe Biden’s border policy and come under the shadow of a dismissive Trump, support for Ukraine in Britain has stayed resolute, undiminished, and nonpartisan in the two years since Russia’s invasion.
Even in an election year, when the Conservative government and its Labour Party opponents are clashing over almost everything, there is not a glimmer of daylight between them on Ukraine, the biggest foreign policy challenge facing the country.
When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently announced the equivalent of $3.2 billion of additional aid for Ukraine, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, instantly lent his support.
Britain, the third-largest supplier of weapons after the United States and Germany, was the first major power to commit to new aid in 2024.
“We will remain united across our political parties in defense of Ukraine against that aggression from Putin,” Starmer said. On a visit to British troops deployed in Estonia just before Christmas, he warned of the problems that fester “when politics goes soft on Putin.”
That political consensus mirrors public opinion in Britain. Some 68% of people favor military assistance to Ukraine, and 53% say aid should flow there “for as long as it takes,” according to a British Foreign Policy Group survey in July.
There is ample precedent for Britain trying to steady a wavering United States in international conflicts. In 1990, when President George H.W. Bush was struggling to build a United Nations coalition to oppose Iraq after it invaded Kuwait, Margaret Thatcher famously told him, “Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”
Many Britons view the war in Ukraine — just over three hours away by plane — as almost on their doorstep, and their support reflects fears a Russian victory would pose an existential threat to the security of Europe and Britain.
Addressing the Ukrainian Parliament this month, Sunak described military aid as “an investment in our collective security” and said, “if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will not stop here.”
Britain has taken a hard line against Russia ever since Winston Churchill warned of an “Iron Curtain” after World War II.