Expelling the Russian ambassador would be a mistake

Jacob Rees-Mogg spoke for many people horrified by Alexei Navalny’s death in a Russian prison last week when he suggested that the Russian ambassador to the UK ought to be expelled in response. Labour’s David Lammy and the SNP’s Ian Blackford also advocated this back in 2022. This, however, would be a mistake.

It’s a wholly understandable emotional response. At worst Navalny’s was a direct killing, or else slow-motion murder by putting a man whose system is already compromised by near-death thanks to Novichok in an Arctic prison camp and subjecting him to treatment verging on torture.

Besides, Andrei Kelin, Russia’s ambassador since 2019, has hardly endeared himself to his hosts. He notoriously chuckled when suggesting that the defenders of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol had themselves to blame for their fate by not surrendering when the Russians attacked.