One thing that has, above all, surprised Vladimir Putin is the unity of the world in standing up to his murderous aggression. As his armed forces kill innocent people, including well over 100 babies and children, the world has stood as one. Until yesterday. In the most disgraceful speech I have ever heard from a British prime minister, yesterday Boris Johnson directly compared the slaughter of the innocent with Brexit. Ukraine’s fight for freedom was like “the British people voting for Brexit in large numbers. It was because they wanted to be free to do things differently, for this country to be able to do things differently and run itself.” It only went south from there.
Invoking the culture wars weaponised by him and his ministers, he added: “We believe people should be able to do what they like.. as long as they don’t harm anybody else…we don’t need to be woke. We want to be free. That is why talented people are fleeing Russia right now.”
Chancer of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak trashed whatever was left of his self-respect by adding: “People in this country prize their freedom” and that “right now, people in Ukraine are fighting for their freedom. I don’t think the prime minister was saying they were directly analogous either.” Yet that was exactly what Johnson was saying. It appears Sunak has learned well from his master: the ability to mislead, to distort and, doubtless soon, lie through his teeth.
To resurrect the Brexit debate when Ukraine has been virtually begging to join the EU is another example of Johnson’s cynicism and moral emptiness. It’s flippant and it’s grotesque. People dying in their thousands, millions seeking refuge and shelter, though thanks to Johnson and his evil home secretary Priti Patel, few will be allowed to come here, and Johnson wants to score some cheap political points. At a time when the west must stand together, this is the best Johnson can do.
Johnson concluded his speech by adding that the Labour opposition would “raise the white flag” to Putin. Here we see an example of Johnson weaponising the issue through Keir Starmer’s predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, a man who now sits as an independent MP in the House of Commons. In 2019, it could be argued, fairly in my opinion, that some of Corbyn’s ‘top team’ would have taken a far more tolerant view to Putin’s aggression. But this is not 2019. Labour, which unlike Johnson’s Tories is not in hock to dodgy Russian money and didn’t, unlike Johnson, ennoble the song of a KGB officer, has been totally onside with the west, more so than Johnson’s own government which was painfully slow to act against Putin’s oligarchs in the UK. In short, as usual the prime minister was lying, as he always does. While Ukraine burns, Johnson seeks to make cheap political capital. It is the mark of the man.
My guess is that the last thing Britons are thinking about now is Brexit, although many have come to realise that one of its biggest backers was Vladimir Putin. That debate is for another day, maybe even yesterday. Cheap, petty, populist politics for the benefit of the true believers in this awful, squalid little person, a man devoid of any kind of empathy and lacking any kind of leaderships skills. That’s all it is. Meanwhile, Ukraine turns to rubble and the death toll mounts.
Surely we can do better than this? In 2019, voters handed the Conservatives a landslide majority of 80 so that’s the will of the people decided until the next general election, but even in the Tory parliamentary party there are more capable people on the back benches than there are on the front benches. Tobias Ellwood, Tom Tugendhat, Johnny Mercer, Andrew Mitchell and even Jeremy Hunt would all be a vast improvement on Johnson, Patel, Truss, Dorries, Rees-Mogg and all the other clowns and jokers currently in major jobs. It doesn’t have to be like this.
Putin will have loved Johnson’s divisive rhetoric, just as he will have keenly followed Johnson’s destructive and ultimate successful campaign to separate the UK from the rest of Europe. In these dangerous times, always think what and who Putin would love most. Then, do the opposite.
No wonder the UK is the laughing stock of the world, led by a self-styled clown, a vicious narcissist and serial liar. Until Ukraine is free, it would be nice if he could concentrate on defeating Putin, not trying to divide us all. Divide and rule, and the subsequent culture wars, worked with Brexit and have permeated deep into the British psyche. That has to stop now. We are dealing with a modern day Hitler. I doubt that Winston Churchill, Johnson’s supposed hero, would be impressed by the events of the last few days. But then, Johnson would not be fit to clean Churchill’s boots. Or anyone else’s for that matter.
