Boris Johnson continued to favour ‘patient diplomacy’, he said. But from his tone, it was obvious that hopes of peace were now a pipe dream.
The Prime Minister was making a statement on the Ukraine crisis. His voice dripped with exasperation and sorrow.
He stopped short of describing Vladimir Putin as deranged – but only just.
The Russian president had spent the past week hurling ‘false accusations and aspersions’, said Boris.
Boris Johnson (pictured) continued to favour ‘patient diplomacy’, he said while making a statement on the Ukraine crisis
Russian president Vladimir Putin (pictured) had spent the past week hurling ‘false accusations and aspersions’, said Boris as he warned that ‘we must steel ourselves for a prolonged crisis’
Putin’s reasons for ordering troops into eastern Ukraine were ‘absurd and mystical’ and the PM warned: ‘We must steel ourselves for a prolonged crisis.’
His words were received in sombre silence. The PM pondered with dismay that in 2022 a national leader could ‘calmly and deliberately’ plot the ‘destruction’ of a peaceful neighbour.
‘Yet the evidence of his own words suggests that is exactly what president Putin is doing,’ Boris said.
Around the eerily hushed chamber, which prickled with tension, the message was clear – diplomacy had failed. Once again, war was casting a terrible shadow over Europe.
On the frontbench, Boris’s cabinet stared forlornly. His chief of staff Steve Barclay absent-mindedly tapped his feet.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss gazed into the distance as though examining an object on some distant horizon.
We heard that Moscow would now face a ‘barrage’ of sanctions.
‘A dark day for Europe,’ said Sir Keir Starmer (pictured). The Labour leader pledged his support for the Government
Five Russian banks would be blacklisted. As would three ‘high-net-worth’ individuals – Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg. Crikey.
Names savage enough to make the eyeballs of a passport control official tingle.
The PM’s announcement was met with enthusiastic nods of agreement from Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman David Lammy. A parliamentary first?
‘A dark day for Europe,’ said Sir Keir Starmer.
The Labour leader pledged his support for the Government.
‘We must show Putin we will not be divided,’ he said.
On top of economic sanctions, Starmer demanded the UK ban the state-sponsored RT (formerly Russia Today) news channel which pumps out Kremlin-approved gibberish here each day. Someone on the SNP benches shook his head.
His former gaffer Alex Salmond remains in RT’s employ.
Mr Johnson welcomed Starmer’s spirit of co-operation.
But the PM also gently lobbed a pebble into this calm millpond by noting Labour’s change in attitude towards Russia over the past couple of years. This was ‘massively beneficial’, he said.
Cue embarrassed murmurs and an awkward shifting on Labour’s benches.
Watching them recoil over the wayward Jeremy Corbyn era is like an old duke squirming over an ancestor who frolicked with the chamber maids and spanked the family fortune.
Mr Corbyn, incidentally, was not present for either Johnson or Starmer’s speeches.
Nor John McDonnell, Diane Abbott or any of his other Stop the War Coalition cronies.
Fifteen minutes into the debate, Corbyn’s angry white beard eventually appeared through a side door where he purposefully plonked himself in a corner.
He briefly examined the PM’s statement in the way a bored child inspects the in-flight safety instructions. Moments later, he skedaddled.
The mood of the House was unanimously hostile toward the Russian dictator.
Theresa May described the battle in which the Government must now engage as ‘nothing short of a defence of democracy itself’.
Strong hear-hears. Disappointingly, the former PM then scuttled off for an early lunch. Some members who remained said Boris’s sanctions didn’t go far enough.
‘Hit them with sanctions hard and hit them now!’ cried Iain Duncan Smith (Con, Chingford and Woodford Green). ‘They need to feel the pain!’
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey (pictured), his paunchy frame thrust forward in a prize fighter’s pose, demanded the man in the Kremlin be made to pay a ‘terrible price’
And Ben Bradshaw (Lab, Exeter) demanded more Russians in London be slapped with unexplained wealth orders.
Certainly, Belgravia’s long-suffering residents would be unlikely to complain if there were fewer Russkis splashing their cash around.
Though you might hear a bit of wailing coming from Bond Street’s clothing emporiums.
We heard some striking language occasionally from surprising quarters.
Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda) labelled Putin a ‘bloodthirsty liar’.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, his paunchy frame thrust forward in a prize fighter’s pose, demanded the man in the Kremlin be made to pay a ‘terrible price’.
Davey urged the PM to reverse the Government’s decision to cut 10,000 troops.
Wowzers. When even the drippy Lib Dems are calling for increased defence spending, we really are entering troubling times.
