Member-only story
Writing a piece on the invasion of the Ukraine is taking longer than I expected, the big issue is now quite simple, Russia should not have invaded the Ukraine; it’s a war crime and yet the response of British politicians has been, on the whole juvenile, selfish, narcissistic or cowardly.
The Govt’s proposed sanctions were initially diaphanous, and later firmed up to include some personnel, inc. Putin and a couple of banks. The UK is now co-operating with the EU in applying sanctions to Russia inc. to its central bank and to exclude an indeterminate number of banks from SWIFT. The EU have yet again moved on, to ban Russian Airlines and arm the Ukrainian military. This “follow my leader” on both sanctions and other measures show Britain’s post-Brexit isolation and weakness. Of course, Brexit was partly bought by Russia’s money in the interests of Putin’s Greater Russia project. And even today, no-one is talking about accelerating the Registration of Overseas Entities Bill, which would allow us to know who owned what and is seen as an important anti-corruption measure. It’s a private member’s bill; the oppositions should be pressurising the Govt. to adopt it and ensure time in the House[s]. There’s a very limited call for the publication of the “Russia Report” detailing what British Intelligence know about Russian funding of the Tory Party and the Brexit campaign. This…
