Daily Times

London: Prime Minister Boris Johnson stands accused of trashing the UK’s diplomatic standing since Brexit, just as his ambition to forge a new “Global Britain” met a frosty reception in the Moscow chill this week.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was the latest Western dignitary to emerge bruised from an encounter with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, as Britain presses a hard line on the Ukraine crisis. “To be honest, I am disappointed that this is turning out to be a conversation between a mute person and a deaf person,” Lavrov told a joint news conference, accusing Truss of ignoring Russian demands.

The combative minister also goaded Truss in Thursday’s talks for mistaking regions of Russia and Ukraine, although she denied getting her geography wrong. For her part, Truss said assurances that Moscow has no plans to invade Ukraine needed to be backed up by a withdrawal of Russian troops massed on the border.

But for some UK media, the bigger headline from Truss’s visit was her sporting a fur coat and fur hat, evoking an outfit worn by Margaret Thatcher when she went to Moscow in 1987. Truss, during a visit to Estonia in November, also channelled the Conservative “Iron Lady” in posing atop a British tank.

The arresting imagery was not lost on commentators given Truss is seen as a leading contender to replace Johnson, should he be forced out of office over Downing Street parties held during Covid lockdowns.

– ‘Shredded’ –

After Truss, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was also in Moscow on Friday, after Johnson said he was putting 1,000 more British troops on standby to respond to any humanitarian crisis linked to Ukraine. Johnson on Friday told Western allies, including US President Joe Biden, that he “feared for the security of Europe” and that Russia should face “severe penalties” if it invades its neighbour.

Wallace’s meeting with his Russian counterpart was the first between defence ministers from both sides since 2013. Ruth Deyermond, senior lecturer in post-Soviet security at King’s College London, said the diplomatic offensive risks looking “more to do with the Tory leadership crisis than what is happening in Ukraine”.

“The optics of it are not helpful,” she told AFP, noting also that French President Emmanuel Macron had been given a lengthy in-person hearing in Moscow by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

In a hard-hitting speech Thursday, former prime minister John Major complained that France was taking Europe’s diplomatic lead on Russia, a result he said of Brexit and Britain now going it alone. The Conservative grandee said Johnson’s reputation for mendacity and political expediency had eroded trust and left the UK’s standing “shredded”.

“We are weakening our influence in the world,” Major said, accusing Johnson of breaking promises on Brexit amid ongoing efforts by Truss to cajole the EU into rewriting UK treaty obligations on Northern Ireland.

“A nation that loses friends and allies becomes a weaker nation.”

Johnson hit back that Major’s attack was “demonstrably untrue”, pointing to his diplomatic efforts on Ukraine as he visited Warsaw and NATO headquarters on Thursday.

– ‘Dirty money –

The British government has meanwhile enacted new measures to toughen financial sanctions against the Russian elite if Ukraine is invaded. Lavrov said the possible UK sanctions would be seen as an “act of aggression”.

But opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer accused Johnson of playing a double game, by ignoring huge flows of illicit Russian money flowing through the City of London. “Under a decade of Conservative rule, London has become the home of international money laundering, where kleptocrats and criminals come to clean their dirty money of its stains,” he wrote in The Guardian.

“This isn’t just an issue of financial crime, it’s an issue of national security. Dark money and influence leaves the mark of weakness and shame on our country, and it must be scrubbed clean,” Starmer said.

Under Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, relations with Moscow hit a deep freeze after a former Russian spy was poisoned with a nerve agent in the city of Salisbury.

The Ukraine crisis has only worsened the picture, but Deyermond said that Johnson’s “partygate” problems had also dented his diplomatic credibility. “If there’s a perception that Johnson is on his way out politically, there is much less incentive to maintain a positive relationship,” the Russia expert said.