Whenever Boris Johnson is in the doghouse at home, there’s one place he can always expect a warm welcome. So it is perhaps no surprise he abandoned a planned speech to restless northern Tory MPs in favour of flying to Ukraine last week, for another firm handshake with its heroic wartime president. Yet, cynical as the timing of this particular photo opportunity looks, Johnson’s warning of the dangers of “Ukraine fatigue” setting in as the war grinds on was salutary and fair. What he has yet to do, however, is spell out exactly what being in it for the long haul – which could now mean years, according to Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg – actually involves.
The days when solidarity with Ukraine meant putting a blue and yellow flag on your social media profile and watching TikToks of farmers merrily stealing Russian tanks are over. Britain is not strictly speaking at war, but ours is now a wartime economy. This country has entered a new and unfamiliar form of conflict which does not risk the lives of British soldiers, but effectively puts our economic wellbeing on the frontline instead. Withstanding the economic storm now buffeting us, as war pushes the price of both oil and wheat ever higher, is the contribution most ordinary Britons didn’t quite realise we were going to be making to the war effort.
