Friday, 11 March 2022

The Ukraine crisis has humiliated the EU says Camilla Tominey

"Bitter Remainers refuse to accept it, but Brexit Britain deserves credit for standing up to Russia"

Yes, folks, Camilla has dusted off her strawmen and ridden into battle against the European furrins and the remoaners who sully our sceptred rouble land.

The usual risble bile but here's the article anyway (as a service to the 99.9% of the population who won't subscribe to the Telegraph).


I had already had it up to here with unrepentant Remainers refusing to admit that they might have got it a little bit wrong about the bully John Bercow.

Apparently, it is all Priti Patel's fault that the former Right-wing headbanger turned "progressive" referendum reverser was hurling mobile phones at staff, when he wasn't too busy abusing his power as Commons Speaker to say "b******s to Brexit".

The silence from those who happily overlooked the pint-sized prig's personality defects in the interests of delivering their own unique brand of "democracy" has been deafening. Yet now we are once again being subjected to the same embittered group of usual suspects when it comes to Britain's response to the war in Ukraine.

On Wednesday we had Brussels's foremost fangirl, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, decrying the UK's response to the crisis. The former prime minister of Denmark smugly told Question Time: "You said something that almost made me chuckle before, when you said that 'Putin will think that the UK's leading the efforts against Russia right now'. Of course it's not. The European Union is leading the effort against Russia so I don't think they'll see Boris Johnson as a particular leader in this field."

Yes, because of course French President Emmanuel Macron achieved so much by being humiliated for 90 minutes at the end of Putin's socially distanced dining table, returning to the bloc with less than Neville Chamberlain's piece of paper.

Thorning-Schmidt, who is married to the Labour MP Stephen Kinnock – son of Neil and Glenys, who have made millions from the EU – may want to get her own house in order before criticising others. The Danish government was this week accused of hypocrisy for welcoming Ukrainian refugees with open arms, while simultaneously urging Syrian refugees to return to Damascus and the surrounding countryside, despite the ongoing civil war and President Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime being propped up by Russian jets.

There is no doubt that the Home Office has spectacularly bungled the Ukrainian visa scheme, but it is complete nonsense to suggest that Britain hasn't led the efforts on Russia, having pushed forward plans to ban its access to the Swift banking system while Brussels dithered and delayed, as well as sanctioning more Russian assets than the US and EU combined.

While we were training 22,000 Ukrainian troops, providing 2,000 anti-tank missiles, and ordering warships to the Black Sea, the Germans were prevaricating over whether to send 5,000 helmets to the Ukrainian army. We closed sterling clearing to Russia while Brussels was still permitting Russia to access euro clearing.

Some of the criticism of the Government this week from the FBPE (follow back, pro-EU) brigade harks back to when they supported Sergey Lavrov against Liz Truss before the first missiles landed on Kyiv. I'm not suggesting the Foreign Secretary has always got it right – her suggestion that British citizens should fight in Ukraine was certainly misjudged. But you'd have thought she deserves more of our respect than a Kremlin stooge who dismisses the horror and revulsion at the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol as a "pathetic outcry".

As one of George W Bush's senior aides correctly identified some years ago, the bloke is a "complete a---hole" and anyone who sides with him over members of our own Cabinet deserves a similar epithet. And if you are really so bitter and full of self-loathing that you can't bring yourself to admit that Britain has lead on Russia – can you not accept that Boris Johnson's clearly close relationship with President Zelensky is precisely why the likes of Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics now look to our Prime Minister for leadership? On Wednesday night, Johnson and Zelensky spoke in what one Downing Street insider described as a "very emotional" telephone conversation which left some of those listening in with tears in their eyes.

The Prime Minister apparently ends all calls to his Ukrainian counterpart – already the subject of numerous assassination attempts – with the words: "Stay safe, I'm sure this will not be the last time that we speak." As evidenced by the warmth with which Zelensky referenced "Boris" in his historic Commons address, they appear to have forged a better bond than most. That counts for a great deal in a horrific situation like this, regardless of what the detractors might have you believe.

And where else exactly is the leadership coming from for these Eastern European nations desperately worried that they might be next?

Poland can hardly look to the US for support after it rejected its offer to send two dozen MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine in a move that has only served to remind Putin that Nato can indeed be divided. Nor can it seemingly rely on the EU. Despite the Poles being among the true heroes of the Ukrainian invasion, taking in more than a million refugees, the European Parliament still voted to sanction Poland earlier this week as part of their rule of law dispute. It comes after the European Court of Justice last month dismissed a Polish and Hungarian challenge to a new law which would allow the bloc to cut funds to member countries found to have violated democratic rights and freedoms.

Despite everything that is going on in the wider world, 478 MEPs voted for the sanctions and 155 against, despite both countries having to shoulder the burden of the economic cost of a war unfolding on their doorstep. If the EU had any morality, it would surely be plowing billions of euros into Poland to stop the refugee crisis there becoming a pan-European one – not least because most of those refugees will not want to be far from Ukraine, desperately hoping they can one day return to their homeland.

Instead, EU obsessives are continuing with their petty quest, as all the while Russia shows the true meaning of disregarding the rule of law.

Moreover, the Poles were actually ahead of the EU on Russia. While Germany was still busily pushing ahead with Nord Stream 2, the Polish Prime Minister wrote perceptively in this newspaper of Putin's evil plans for domination.

In June 2021, the European Council tasked the European External Action Service (EEAS) with creating a package of potential restrictive measures on Russia. Ironically, it took no "action" whatsoever, with no paper produced, and very little discussion of the issue among EU member states. Yet we can be in no doubt that Brussels will still use this crisis to entrench its powers and further the cause of integration. There has already been talk of an EU army – a direct threat to Nato.

The truth is the EU has beenat best an irrelevance during this catastrophe. It has been excruciatingly slow to react (in part, because so many of its members are compromised by their links to Moscow).

Even in the face of crippling energy bills, it has been sloth-like in its response to its own short-sighted and naive euro-bombing of the Kremlin, fuelling a cost-of-living crisis across Europe akin to the global financial crash.

While the UK has pledged to phase out its reliance on Russian oil, which accounts for just 4 per cent of our supplies, by the end of the year, how has the EU proposed to reduce its 40 per cent dependency?

It has advised anyone wanting to heat their home without needing to remortgage it to turn down their thermostats by one degree celsius.

This isn't leadership – it's laughable.

So, no, this crisis hasn't shown how great the EU is, as some deluded Remainers have alleged. On the contrary, it has shown the extraordinary power and value of nation states, like Britain, like Poland and like Ukraine.


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