Brexit Britain becomes US colony.

Boris Johnson, who is not given to public self-reflection, has admitted that his initial belief as foreign secretary that he could reset relations with Russia was a mistake. Since the Salisbury poisonings, the UK’s policy towards Russia has been to try to expose Moscow’s activities. There is, though, an argument that the approach needs to be more personal than this: that the most effective way to deter Putin is to make it clear to him that the details of his immense personal wealth will be revealed in the event of any Russian encroachment. Strikingly, a poll suggests that more than a quarter of Russians have seen a Navalny video revealing Putin’s opulent palace on the Black Sea. Putin says it is not his — and his former judo partner claims to be the owner.

Despite everything we know about the Russian regime, and much to the dismay of the Biden administration, the German government is still going ahead with Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that would bring Russian gas directly into Germany, bypassing Ukraine and Poland. Armin Laschet, the CDU’s candidate for Chancellor, has already said he doesn’t see the Navalny case as a reason for cancelling it. Ironically, the best chance for the project being shelved would be if the Greens took the chancellery — which is far from impossible given the current polls. Few would have believed back in the 1980s, when the German Greens were defined by their opposition to Ronald Reagan’s nuclear build-up, that a Green victory could one day remove a major bone of contention in US-German relations.

The situation in Ukraine is threatening to turn into the first European security crisis since Britain formally left the EU. The UK’s involvement suggests that its commitment to the security of the continent has not been diminished by its departure from the bloc. But it is also revealing that the UK position on Russia is so closely aligned with that of the Biden administration. Brexit has reinforced the centrality of the US relationship to British foreign policy.

Forsyth in Spectator