As Boris Johnson announced the sanctions against the Putin regime on Tuesday in the House of Commons, he almost seemed to surprise himself by the feebleness of the words he read out. That confusion was not made much clearer when he defended the package to Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions.
At the heart of the matter was the prime minister’s claim that further measures were being “held in reserve” in order to deter Vladimir Putin from further aggression in Ukraine. As Sir Keir said the next day: “The prime minister promised that in the event of an invasion, he would unleash a full package of sanctions. If not now, then when?”
Given that Ukraine’s allies have said that any Russian deployment in the eastern provinces of the country would amount to an infringement of its sovereignty – a toecap across the border, in Mr Johnson’s phrase – then this should be the moment for a significant response. Sir Keir was justified in saying, in effect: is this it?
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