How Putin has saved Boris Johnson’s skin with Ukraine war depsite Tory party’s Russian links and lack of compassion over refugees – David Blunkett

LENIN once pronounced that “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”.

This week, I have been reflecting on the last six years. You may think that the European referendum has little to do with what’s happening in Ukraine today, but it does.

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The UK has had to play catch-up in terms of having a place at the table, playing a part in the response from Europe and the relationship with the United States – which is so crucial.

Boris Johnson during a visit to Merseyside on Thursday - Labour peer David Blunkett believes the Ukraine crisis will save the Tory leader's premiership.Boris Johnson during a visit to Merseyside on Thursday - Labour peer David Blunkett believes the Ukraine crisis will save the Tory leader's premiership.
Boris Johnson during a visit to Merseyside on Thursday - Labour peer David Blunkett believes the Ukraine crisis will save the Tory leader's premiership.

This has shown itself most graphically in terms of the Home Office response to the humanitarian crisis, and the fiasco of thousands of women and children finding themselves vetted as a security risk to the UK.

Of course, we are part of Nato and that does give us a voice.

But, whatever the rhetoric and bombast, the assertions that, somehow, we have been ahead of the game are wrong.

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Two days before Vladimir Putin ordered his vast armoury to invade the independent country of Ukraine, the UK sanctioned three oligarchs.

David Blunkett, a former Home Secretary, describes today what it was like to meet President Vladimir Putin and the feebleness of the West's response to the Ukraine war.David Blunkett, a former Home Secretary, describes today what it was like to meet President Vladimir Putin and the feebleness of the West's response to the Ukraine war.
David Blunkett, a former Home Secretary, describes today what it was like to meet President Vladimir Putin and the feebleness of the West's response to the Ukraine war.

What on earth did we think this was going to do to Vladimir Putin?

As with so much of the Prime Minister’s behaviour since his referendum “triumph”, bluster and synthetic bravado remains the order of the day. In many ways, Boris Johnson has, for all the wrong reasons, been a fortunate man.

The pandemic gave him a profile, leadership role and, a “forgiveness” by many for misdeeds for which he was responsible.

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Covid put him and his ministers on every television screen, radio and social media outlet, via press conferences, night after night, and pronouncements about vaccine roll-out and “saving the NHS”.

Women and children board a train heading to Krakow after fleeing Ukraine, at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Thursday, March 10, 2022. U.N. officials said that the Russian onslaught has forced 2 million people to flee Ukraine. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)Women and children board a train heading to Krakow after fleeing Ukraine, at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Thursday, March 10, 2022. U.N. officials said that the Russian onslaught has forced 2 million people to flee Ukraine. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Women and children board a train heading to Krakow after fleeing Ukraine, at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Thursday, March 10, 2022. U.N. officials said that the Russian onslaught has forced 2 million people to flee Ukraine. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Many may now have forgotten, at least temporarily, the fiasco of Test and Trace, the decanting of elderly people from hospital into residential homes that were ill-prepared and unequipped to be able to avoid Covid – and the handing out of contracts to cronies.

Out of sight and out of mind – the continuing “Partygate” police investigation, the forthcoming penalty notices, and the contempt by the Prime Minister for rules imposed on other people are for another day.

Not to mention the donations to Conservative Party funds from relatives and friends of rich Russian oligarchs, which oiled the wheels of light-touch regulation in the City of London.

If I come across strongly, it’s because that’s how I feel.

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I have been to the Ukraine – to the Donbas region and Donetsk – which saw the first incursion and fighting back in 2014.

I met Vladimir Putin during his first incarnation as President. He is a mercurial individual, who no-one saw, at the time, as being the embodiment of evil.

A man who evokes the memory of the Second World War, but cannot see that he, himself, is engaged in the same tactics, thuggery and military might that Hitler used to intimidate and suppress so many nations.

The same internal tactics and disregard for human life that his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, embodied, not least in the mass starvation of Ukrainian people in the 1930s.

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To describe the response of the West as being feeble would be to misuse the word. “Slow”, “unimaginative”, “ill-prepared” and “totally inadequate” 
go some way to describing how I 
feel.

What matters now is how the Ukrainian people are suffering; that we have demonstrated, tragically, to Vladimir Putin that we, in the West, are weak.

Those oligarchs who were the focus of the first tentative reaction to Putin’s threats will undoubtedly have their money somewhere else.

Putin himself will not only have massive resources squirrelled away, out of reach of Western sanctions, but would also have, somewhere, in some country, refuge from any talk of action by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

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In any case, Russia never signed up to it, and whilst empowered to seek justice for human rights abuse, the ICC has no jurisdiction over the invasion of one country by another.

So, what can we do?

At the very least, we should stop the equivocation which, over the last three weeks, has been so evident from the Home Secretary, Priti Patel.

Gradually, day-by-day, further humanitarian measures have been dragged out of her – highlighting, vividly, the absurdity of the Nationality and Borders Bill, which has been making its way through the House of Lords and includes a two-tier asylum system.

Those fleeing from Ukraine who clearly couldn’t apply for a visa (how could they?) would, under the bill, be disqualified for having the incorrect paperwork and what’s more, be described as “illegals” for entry into the country without prior authorisation! Prior authorisation, which we have been refusing them!

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Due to the public outcry, the horror that is taking place and vast numbers flowing over the border into Poland, Moldova and Romania, any pretence that this legislation could apply now, 
or in the future, has been discredited.

For us as individuals and families, faith groups and communities, all we can do is give as much as we humanly can.

Open our hearts, be grateful that we live in peace and comfort; and perhaps embrace the not yet fully functional sponsorship programme.

When people look back at these weeks and months, I fear that history will reveal us as impotent in the face of military aggression, disregard for human life and international rules.

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Six years on from that fateful vote in June 2016, and the world does indeed look like a very different place. The terrible irony of the present moment is that Vladimir Putin may well have saved Boris Johnson’s skin.

* David Blunkett is a Labour peer and a former Home Secretary.

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