As tensions rise between Brussels and Eastern Europe Britain has become a major ally in the region
Source - Daily Telegraph - 11/04/22
If Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv at the weekend was a surprise for most of us, it came as a monumental shock to those who said Brexit would doom the UK to diplomatic irrelevance.
Since the 2016 vote, breathless Remainers have pounced on every perceived diplomatic slight, from Emmanuel Macron's regular anti-British tirades to Joe Biden's ill-informed repetition of Irish talking points on the Protocol.
Yet in Eastern Europe, far from damaging relations, Britain’s exit from Brussels seems to have only made them stronger. Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Glinski, interviewed for my video above, says that without the shackles of the EU, his country and the UK successfully formed a trilateral agreement with Ukraine. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also offered warm words toward Britain in recent weeks, praising the “historic” leadership of Boris Johnson in particular.
Britain’s role as a leading military power in Europe has ensured its place as a key ally for nations concerned about the threat from the East with British forces forming a vital part of Nato’s contingency in the Baltic states and beyond. Since 2014 the British army has trained upwards of 22,000 Ukrainian troops, and provided thousands of the now-famous NLAW anti-tank weapons, along with much other military equipment to Kyiv.
Boris Johnson’s recent efforts in Ukraine can be seen as a continuation of Britain's historic role in Eastern Europe promoting freedom and liberty from outside aggressors.
Towards the end of the Cold War, Margaret Thatcher was a vocal supporter of the liberty-loving Solidarity movement in Poland, and her mettle earned respect from Communists and freedom fighters alike in the country. In 1988 Mrs Thatcher became the first British PM to visit Poland since the Second World War when she laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Warsaw. The monument commemorates battles where British and Polish troops fought side by side, including at Tobruk, Monte Cassino and the Battle of Britain, and Mrs Thatcher's gesture helped to heal at least some of the wounds left by what is widely perceived as Britain's failure to save Poland from the Nazis at the beginning of the war.
While Britain builds bridges in Eastern Europe, other powers are busy burning them. Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has shattered the international standing of the foreign leaders so revered by the British Remainer Left. Angela Merkel's reputation lies in tatters as the entirely foreseeable consequences of her country's close economic ties to the Kremlin become ever more apparent. President Macron's attempt at diplomacy with the Russian president has failed, derided by Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki as akin to negotiating with Hitler. (Macron's response, describing Poland's premier as "a far-Right anti-Semite who bans LGBT people", is hardly the "grown-up behaviour" supposedly so beloved of British centrists.)
As for the EU itself, Brussels has remained embroiled in a long-running row with both Poland and Hungary over disputes regarding the rule of law. Whatever the technicalities, to have been sanctioning these countries just as they were taking in millions of Ukrainian refugees has shown the EU as the self-obsessed, myopic institution that many in Britain have long known it to be.
Faced with this backdrop, Brexit Britain has a unique opportunity to expand even further its influence in Eastern Europe.
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