The Consequences of War for Britain

Writing about British politics at the moment feels like sitting in a restaurant complaining about the soup while the kitchen burns down 20 feet away. The very worst problems we have look petty and mundane set alongside the hell Ukrainians are experiencing. Nevertheless, domestic politics does trundle on, and will eventually return to the forefront of our minds. When it does the impact of this war on both the political landscape and a whole range of policy areas will be significant.

We have already seen the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz make a historic speech overturning decades of German defence and energy policy. And, on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron signalled his intention to use the crisis as an opportunity to push his long held views on further EU integration, particularly around defence. The British context is different, we are not as dependent on Russia for energy as Germany, nor are we in the EU any more. But we will still need to rethink our own policies in these areas, as well as on immigration, in the face of the worse refugee crisis in Europe since the Balkan wars in the 90s.

I’ve split this piece into two sections. The first will look at the immediate political impact of the war on e.g. Boris Johnson’s career prospects and Keir Starmer’s reshaping of the Labour party. The second will look at the more long term, and more profound, effects it might have on those major policy areas: energy, defence, EU relationships, and immigration.