Tory Europhobia cripples Britain’s attitude to the Ukrainian crisis

Colin Freeman, the Telegraph’s fine chief foreign correspondent, made a remarkable claim the other day that merits wider attention. What, he asked, was Britain’s view on the crisis in Ukraine? The answer was revealing for many reasons, not the least of which being the extent to which eurosceptic myopia has, according to Freeman, caused Britain to misjudge the dramatic events unfolding in Kiev and elsewhere. According to Freeman:

The depth of Euro-scepticism in Britain meant it cared little either way when Ukraine was gearing up last year to sign an EU trade agreement that would have brought it out of the Russian orbit. In Downing Street, the view was that Europe’s outer borders were already quite extended enough. So when Ukraine failed to sign the deal, following pressure from Mr Putin, No 10 deemed it a blow only to empire-builders in Brussels.

If true – and there is little reason to doubt Freeman’s sources – this is, as I say, both remarkable and revealing.