Brexit didn’t just cost us money: it deprived us of solidarity in a crisis

theguardian.com:

Brexit was always going to be a geopolitical and economic disaster – a once-proud nation cutting off its nose to spite its face. The daily tragedy of Putin’s laying waste of Ukraine has highlighted the shortsightedness of Johnson’s geopolitical misjudgment in leaving the European Union.

As that great one-nation Tory Remainer Michael Heseltine says: “Our continent faces a threat as severe as anything since the end of the cold war. I am ashamed that the country that in my lifetime saved European democracy has now absented itself, and that others must now determine Europe’s response.”

I am sure that my old friend the good Lord Heseltine means no disrespect to the “others” – our former partners in the EU. Like millions, he would like us to be in there as Europe unites itself in the face of the crisis. How ironic that members of the former Soviet bloc, which we encouraged to join the EU, are still there, whereas the bar-room joke is: who is going to join the EU first – the UK or Ukraine?

The UK’s Brexit-induced economic disaster has not gone away simply because attention is understandably devoted to what is happening in Ukraine. And, of course, Pelion has been piled upon Ossa with the extra economic damage wreaked by Putin’s assault: the aggravation of shortages of energy supplies and the concomitant rise in an already disturbing inflation rate. It’s going to be a rough year for the British and many other economies.

The economic damage to the Russian people from this invasion will be far, far worse. In the interests of his wild aims, Putin is prepared to inflict untold damage on his own people, as well as on the Ukrainians.

Now, in order to switch off from such daily horrors I like reading, and re-reading, novels. I have recently