On February 10, the former British Conservative prime minister, Sir John Major, attacked the current occupant of 10 Downing Street, Boris Johnson, accusing him of undermining the UK’s credibility internationally at a key moment in the escalating crisis between Russia, Ukraine and the West.

 Major’s rare criticism came with extraordinarily bad timing, just as Johnson was visiting Brussels for talks at Nato headquarters and also Warsaw to express solidarity with the populist government of Mateusz Morawiecki and inspect British troops sent there to bolster Poland against possible action by Vladimir Putin.

 It was also bad news for Johnson’s foreign secretary Liz Truss, who was in Moscow on the same day to see her Russian counterpart, the veteran Sergei Lavrov, to discuss the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Truss let him know that the UK  and their allies would impose punitive sanctions on Russia if any troops crossed the border with their neighbour.

 The Truss-Lavrov meeting was characterized by journalists as “distinctly frosty.” And that was before the press conference where Lavrov described their encounter as  “a deaf person speaking to a mute” – not a very diplomatic comment. Truss then icily described herself to attendees as “not a mute.”

 The background to these tense meetings is the mounting anger with Johnson, supported loyally by Truss, and Major’s argument that by behaving irresponsibly at home the Tory premier has “shredded”  Britain’s reputation among both its foreign allies and potential enemies.

 That fury is about what is known collectively as “Partygate” (a lightly-coded reference to Watergate, which spelt the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency) a series of Downing Street and Whitehall parties in breach of the Covid lockdown restrictions made by Johnson’s own government.

 The scandal is not only about making rules for England’s citizens and then politicians and civil servants ignoring them. It also involves Johnson’s blustery, irresponsible behavior in other areas, including Brexit – the controversial decision to leave the EU after 47 years. And his recent targeting, clearly under mounting pressure, of the Labour opposition leader Keir Starmer, who is benefitting from Johnson’s plummeting ratings.

 In an aggressive speech in the House of Commons Johnson accused Starmer, director of public prosecutions at the time, of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, a famous disc jockey and TV presenter, and a serial sex offender. But as many people pointed out, Starmer was not personally responsible for that omission.

 Johnson’s increasing number of enemies were horrified by that accusation. Most damaging was the resignation of his veteran policy adviser, Munira Mirza and her statement that his attack on Starmer “was an inappropriate and partisan reference to a horrendous case of child sex abuse." Johnson, however, refused to apologise.

 Johnson also rejected Major’s attack as “demonstrably false” and insisted that his government “been working for months to warn people about what was happening - and I’m afraid we’ve been sadly proved right in what we were saying,” adding. “It’s the United Kingdom that has been working to bring countries together, not just in the sanctions package that we want to see, but also in making sure that we fortify Nato’s eastern frontier in the way that we are doing.”

 Not everybody  agrees with the prime minister. Many have criticised Johnson as ignorant, hapless and chaotic in his response to Putin. More substantially the prime minister has been condemned for following President Biden slavishly and as a post-Brexit leader sounding especially anti-European in terms of dealing with the worsening Ukraine crisis.

 Johnson’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace even muttered about “a whiff of Munich” (the agreement with Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain in 1938) - the embodiment of appeasement which paved the way for the horrors of world war two a year later.

 Wallace didn’t mention any specific country by name but was likely referring to France, where President Emmanuel Macron has been actively suggesting a diplomatic way to head off Putin’s threat of attacking Ukraine. Macron’s remarks suggesting that the West should offer Russia new security guarantees have rung alarm bells in Whitehall.

 British officials also criticised a French briefing proposing a “Finlandization” of Ukraine (i.e. forcing it to become neutral). But Macron has denied using the term. And Germany too, has also been criticised for prioritising its dependence on Russian energy supplies.

  Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, said the comparison of diplomatic efforts with Russia to appeasement of Hitler was unhelpful. "It's not the best time for us to offend our partners in the world, reminding them of this act which actually did not brought peace but the opposite - it bought war."

 Starmer also reminded the British public that domestic politics and foreign and defence policy are strongly connected. On a visit to Nato headquarters in Brussels on the same day as Johnson he wrote a newspaper article attacking the far-left Stop the War movement. That movement is associated with Starmer’s predecessor as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who was opposed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 That was further evidence that Britain’s partisan conflicts at home only adds to the uncertainty of what will happen next in the Ukrainian confrontation.


 

BY: IAN BLACK