No.236 – Russia Invades the Ukraine
Dear James,
Last night Vladimir Putin declared war on the Ukraine. Early this morning his cruise missiles and other forms of artillery began falling upon this innocent nation. But it’s not just Ukraine that is under attack. Putin, this small man suffering from a Napoleon complex, is also carrying out an assault on the whole of the global post war security structure. The United Nations Security Council can protest but remains toothless. NATO can stiffen its troops and resolve along the borders of the Ukraine but has ruled out intervention. The EU remains frozen. Even the great USA sits uneasily on the sidelines as Russian tanks move across the Ukrainian borders and attempt to destroy its fledgling democracy. The only nations that applaud Putin’s aggression are the other autocracies. China watches carefully as it sees the West’s feeble attempts to stop Putin’s aggression. China has already ‘taken’ Hong Kong and is licking its lips over Taiwan. The generals in Myanmar have crushed that nation’s democracy. Alexander Lukashenka has brutally suppressed Belorussia’s popular uprising against his fake election. The precious structure of post-war consensus amongst nations is in danger of crumbling before our very eyes. ‘Might is Right’ has returned to haunt the world. Something must be done.
But not the thing that was done yesterday by Boris Johnson in the British Houses of Parliament. Our Prime Minister’s feeble response to the Russian build up of sanctioning three individual oligarchs and five minor Russian banks sums up the reasons why Putin is on the march. Johnson is good at parliamentary theatre but it is just the theatre of bluster and grand words. Two days ago, Germany did a very brave thing. It suspended the Nord-Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. Germany imports 41% of its gas from Russia and was taking a big national risk. Compared with Britain, her actions were courageous and admirable. Boris on the other hand performed brilliantly as the MP for Londongrad or the Prime Minister of the London Laundromat. Putin must be quaking in his snow boots.
The suspicion is that Boris, for all his bluster and Churchillian mannerisms, is protecting the Tory Party from damage to its sponsors. Your party James is mired in a system that has welcomed any rogue with £2m to take up residence in London and eventually to get a British passport. The Russian oligarchs have flooded in and the UK and the Tory Party are entangled in the tentacles of the Russian octopus. The City of London is enmeshed in the same tentacles. Law firms, the financial sector and the property sector have boomed on the in-rush of ill-gotten Russian cash. It’s time to call time on this crippling binge.
On Sunday, The Observer revealed that almost 30,000 properties in England and Wales are owned by the Russian elite and are registered to companies and individuals in the British Virgin Islands. Our government has prevaricated and delayed their professed desire to end secret off shore ownership of properties. Money laundering through London has reached pandemic proportions and Boris is loath to cut off your party James from such a lucrative source. The Centre for Public Data, revealed last week that 21,496 property titles to companies and individuals in England and Wales are registered to companies in the BVI and another 7898 to individuals. The absence of transparency feeds straight into Putin’s playbook. It must be stopped.
With the Ukraine, Boris must have been hoping for his own version of Thatcher’s ‘Falklands Reprieve’ in 1982. But ‘Partygate’ still threatens his ramshackle premiership and the stench of corruption and collusion with Russian oligarchs still pervades his government. Boris and your party James, are complicit in the encouragement of Putin. It's time to call the man out. We need real leadership in this moment of worldwide crisis. Not the puffed up, empty simulacrum of that quality that we see in Boris Johnson.
The world has reached a watershed, James. The time for mealy mouthed, half-measures has gone. The Free World must stiffen its spine and stand up against the new fascism. It may eventually involve the nightmare of nuclear confrontation but that is the nature of the world. Today that world has changed. We’re all going to be impacted by the Ukraine crisis for years ahead. We’d better get used to it!
BH - Your Concerned Constituent