Johnson Is A Late Convert In The Battle Of Good And Evil

“I cannot think of a time in international affairs when the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong, has been so obvious,” said Boris Johnson, standing behind a lectern in Estonia.

- Tom Peck

He didn’t look relieved, exactly, but he has good reason to be. This is the way he likes it. No need to write two columns on this one and see which one’s better. It’s all very obvious now which it is. But the trouble is, well, it is possible that it was obvious to other people quite a long time ago, back when it wasn’t so obvious to Boris Johnson.

Say, you know, in 2016, when he was blaming the EU for Putin’s invasion of Crimea. “If you want an example of EU foreignpolicy-making on the hoof, and the EU’s pretensions to running a defence policy that have caused real trouble, then look at what has happened in Ukraine,” he said at the time, in remarks that caused Jack Straw to describe him, entirely accurately, as a Putin apologist.

But things were different back then. That was before things got as “obvious” as they have now. Back then it was fine to blame the EU for Putin’s aggression against a sovereign state, because you had a referendum to win and it really didn’t matter what arrant garbage you had to come out with to win it.