EUROPEAN and Nato leaders met with American president Joe Biden to discuss the West's response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, to agree on further sanctions on the Kremlin and the Russian oligarchs who are Putin's little helpers and to expedite means of reducing and ultimately removing European dependence on Russian gas and oil.
It is the sale of gas and oil which props up the Russian economy and provides Putin with the cash to spend on boosting the strength of the Russian army. Cutting Putin off from this source of income would go a very long way towards undermining his ability to launch and then sustain wars of aggression.
However, what was most striking about this week's round of meetings was just how isolated the British Prime Minister is. Johnson cut a lonely figure, with the other leaders only paying attention to him as much as was required by strict diplomatic protocol, but otherwise giving him the cold shoulder.
Johnson is now the Billy no-mates of Europe, thanks to his lies, deceit and intransigence over Brexit, compounded by his shocking attempt in his speech at the recent Conservative Party conference to equate the desperate life-and-death struggle of the Ukrainians to resist a Russian army which is bombing and shelling civilians in an attempt to turn a democratic country into a puppet of the Kremlin, with the UK's decision to leave the EU after Johnson and his cronies lied their way through a referendum campaign.
Surprise, surprise, when you equate the EU with a dictatorship which is suppressing free speech among its own population, which has launched an invasion of its neighbour in which it has been accused of committing numerous war crimes and which has razed the city of Mariupol to the ground, then EU leaders aren't going to want to be your pal.
That's post-Brexit global Britain for you – not so much a leader on the world stage setting a shining example that everyone else looks up to with a mixture of awe and jealousy, but an embarrassing and annoying relative that still has to be invited to family occasions even though no one likes them or wants to talk to them. Not so much awe as "Aw, I suppose we have to invite them”.
After the obligatory photo of the leaders at the emergency Nato summit, a crumpled and unkempt looking Johnson shambled over to have a private word with the American president, only for the French president Emmanuel Macron – who looked as though he had remembered to put on a shirt that had been ironed – to deftly step in between them and rescue Biden from having to exchange small talk with the embarrassing uncle of Europe. The incident provoked audible laughter from the assembled press pack.
Johnson's supporters claimed that he wasn't snubbed and that unedited videos showed him chatting with the other leaders. However, Johnson was unquestionably further snubbed by European leaders because the UK did not receive an invitation to another meeting that same day. Johnson and the UK were not invited to a meeting of EU leaders hosted by the European Council, an EU institution. You might think that this was fair enough given that the UK is no longer an EU member, but Joe Biden was invited and the US has never been a member of the EU.
On Friday it was reported that EU leaders at the summit had agreed to a significantly revised and more muscular military strategy including the creation of an EU rapid deployment force of up to 5000 soldiers. This will be seen as the nucleus of a future joint European armed forces, a step towards further EU integration that the UK, with its own pretensions to military importance, has always fiercely resisted.
It appears that Europe is able to make much better progress towards common goals now that it no longer needs to concern itself with British obstructionism and Anglo-British nationalist exceptionalism.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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