For a long time, Tories have been happy to take Russian money and attack the democratic values they now claim to hold dear
The story Boris Johnson and his colleagues now tell us about Vladimir Putin and his regime is simple enough. The Russian president, Johnson says, is “a bloodstained aggressor who believes in imperial conquest”; he has violated “every principle of civilised behaviour between states”. What is happening in Ukraine, moreover, reminds us of the cruel, amoral way that Putin governs his own country, and its contrast with the ideas that unite the west. The world, it is said, is once again polarising between dictatorship and freedom – and in cooperation with its allies, the government has proudly entered what one Tory MP recently described as a global “battle for democracy”. Johnson, indeed, sees himself as leading the charge, repeating the mantra that “Putin must fail”, and claiming that Britain is “out in front”.
All this might seem welcome, but it is also rather absurd. For a long time now, the Conservative party has been happily backsliding on its commitment to liberal values, and dismantling some of the basic structures of political scrutiny and accountability. Brexit, the reckless project that put Britain on the periphery of Europe and brought Johnson to power, was a huge blow to exactly the kind of multilateralism the prime minister now affects to believe in. As further proof of the ethical vacuum at the heart of Tory politics, Conservative politicians have been happily accepting Russian money while averting their eyes from the Putin regime’s meddling in British politics. Now, though, all of that must suddenly be forgotten: the din of bombs and guns has suddenly awakened the Tory conscience, and the prime minister will soon be telling us that huge hikes in the cost of petrol, gas and food are the price to be paid for values he himself seems to scarcely believe in.
When Johnson bemoans “the Kremlin’s blizzard of lies and disinformation”, the gaff is blown. Clearly, he is no Putin, but that is not quite the point. His time in power, let us not forget, has seen not just serial mendacity, but the unlawful suspension of parliament, attacks on the courts, plans for clampdowns on the right to protest – and, via the government’s cynical insistence that voting will depend on presenting photo ID, new restrictions on our most basic democratic rights. The games the government has played with the Northern Ireland protocol don’t exactly suggest a deep attachment to international rules. And the impression that the BBC is now being victimised for not being as obedient as the government would like has the same whiff of the worst kind of power politics, along with ministers’ seemingly endless “war on woke” and the introverted nastiness of Priti Patel’s Home Office (highlighted on Saturday, when an immigration minister apparently suggested that Ukrainian refugees could attempt to come to Britain using the government’s seasonal workers’ scheme).
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
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