Few things cheer Britons more than the thought of Russian troops being turned to dust with the aid of British ingenuity. At the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Boris Johnson toured the Belfast factory that churned out nlaws, the toddler-size rocket launchers that can whizz a 1.8kg warhead towards a Russian tank at 200 metres per second. It was no coincidence that one of Sir Keir Starmer’s first foreign-policy moves as prime minister was to wonder whether Ukraine should be allowed to fire “Storm Shadow” missiles 250km into Russia.
It should have been little surprise when, on February 16th, Sir Keir said Britain would be happy to send troops into Ukraine as a peacekeeping force. Voters of all stripes hailed the news. While Europe’s other main military powers prevaricated—and Donald Trump threatened to abandon Ukraine altogether and offered a bear-hug to Vladimir Putin—Britain found itself among the most gung-ho on Russia once more.
A tough line on Russia is still the closest thing British politicians have to a one-way bet. About seven in ten Britons think Russia is a threat. Participants in focus groups compare Mr Putin to Adolf Hitler. A common affection for Russian literature and a deep interest in its history are matched by a near-universal contempt for the state from which they came.
It is a casual bellicosity, against an enemy that has played the bad guy from “The Charge of the Light Brigade” through to “Goldeneye”. Britain has less to lose from a firm line on Russia. “Londongrad”, where Russian money poured into the city’s football clubs and galleries, was nice-to-have rather than vital; Britain’s economy did not suck in Russian gas and spit out Mercedes-Benzes. It suffered less than others from Russian crimes. A British citizen was killed by the nerve-agent used in a botched assassination attempt in Salisbury in 2018; the Dutch had 193 citizens shot out the sky by Russia-backed separatists. For Russia hawks in eastern Europe, the country is an existential threat next door; Britain is a nuclear power at the far end of the continent.
Martial might is a point of pride rather than an ugly necessity for British voters. It has had few outlets in recent years. At the end of the cold war, military entanglements became post-modern affairs. In Afghanistan Britain joined a war on a noun; in Iraq Britain invaded a country based on an imagined threat. Young British men came home in boxes for unclear reasons. Ukraine provided a moment of moral simplicity: the villains in James Bond movies turned out to be the villains in real life.
If the cliché that “Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role” is banal, it is because the solution has long been obvious. Britain is a European military power and can help deal with Europe’s main military problem: Russia. The war offered redemption for the catastrophic intelligence failure of Iraq, where Bond, a symbol of geopolitical virility to mask post-imperial impotence, was disgraced. By contrast, mi6’s warnings that Russia was about to invade Ukraine were prescient, when other European agencies dismissed the idea. Bond’s back!
Russia would expect nothing less. “The Englishwoman shits” is the Russian equivalent of “perfidious Albion”. The hand of Britain lurks behind every other setback. “This is a classic British assassination,” said one Kremlin mouthpiece after a Russian general was blown up. For a country that has long moped about its standing in the world, it is flattering. Russians always believe in Britain, even if Britons do not.
War in Ukraine plugged this deficit of British patriotism. Ukraine provided a post-Brexit role that delighted both sides of the referendum. Rather than cajole fellow eu members into action, Brexit Britain could act swiftly, sharing intelligence and donating weapons. For those who saw Brexit as a blunder, Ukraine was a chance to be a good European citizen. This has done strange things. The Liberal Democrats, usually a peaceable bunch, are the most determined that Ukraine should not be forced to take a deal against its will. “Fight on!” cry voters in England’s comfiest parts.
So there is near-total political consensus on Russia. Those who challenge it pay a price. After the Salisbury murder Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s leader at the time, at first refused to countenance that Russia was behind it. When a Labour adviser heard this he kicked a bin, shouting: “That’s fucking going to cost us the election!” Mr Corbyn’s ratings never recovered. Now the main challenge to this consensus comes from Nigel Farage, who (rather like Mr Trump) frames NATO’s eastward expansion as a provocation. At times, Reform uk offer an unpopular form of populism.
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All this comes at a cost. When Britain put troops in a divided Germany, the country was as much a warfare state as a welfare one. Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government built “not only a new Jerusalem but a new Sparta”, wrote David Edgerton, a historian. In the 1950s defence spending matched health and welfare budgets combined. Now, the price is smaller. Britain faces the prospect of increasing spending on defence from 2.3% of GDP to perhaps 3%. In cash terms, it amounts to the increase in the universal-credit budget between 2023 and 2025. Jerusalem grew into a megalopolis; Sparta shrank to a village.
Whether the combativeness of British voters on Russia is matched by a willingness to pay more is the dilemma facing Sir Keir. The government insists taxes will not rise. The alternative is spending cuts in other departments, which would anger voters. Politics is the art of solving such contradictory whims. The geopolitical problems are immovable; the obstacles on tax are entirely self-imposed. Britons will not choose between nlaws and the nhs. Labour must offer both. ■