Message to Our Leader

OK Mr Putin, you’ve won.

You sent your buddies to buy our mansions, spread their money around and seduce half of our establishment to the point that they didn’t dare say anything when you helped to tip the balance in favour of our leaving the EU. So now we’re off, without a plan, in fact without a clue as to how we were going to make a future for ourselves with a fast-diminishing circle of friends and minimal influence with your other buddy, Donald Trump.

When we got a bit uppity you sent your assassins after the Skripals to remind us that you can do what you like to us and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it. We clearly hadn’t learned anything after Litvinenko.

Now we’re moaning because you gave Boris a helping hand in 2019 so that he could get Brexit done, and, even better, send us crashing into the wilderness with no deal. No need to get cross at our bitching about it, it’s just for form’s sake. Words mean nothing, as you of all people know. The job is done. As your Ambassador to the EU recently implied, we’re now neutralised for the foreseeable future.

OK. We admit it. We’re neutralised. One down, twenty-seven to go, I guess.

One request. After we’ve sacrificed our trade relationships with the EU for oceans of red tape, and look forward to a decade of post-EU and post-COVID penury, will you now be so kind as to leave us alone with our misery?

No, no, I don’t mean that. By all means send your McMafia chums over here to keep our housing market propped up, and yes, keep funding our politicians, because they’d be bereft without their duck ponds. Perhaps you can fund a museum or two, and make sure our bling suppliers stay in business. All we ask is that next time you host the World Cup, you fix it so that we win this time.

We, in our turn, will flock to your country to visit the Hermitage and the Kremlin, make Russian compulsory in our schools, and erect statues of Stalin, Zhukov and, of course, yourself, once we’ve taken down all the slave-owners and colonisers.

Now that we’re your playground, perhaps also you would’t mind bashing the Chinese for us, because they’re trying to take us over as well, and you wouldn’t want their rough elbows getting in the way of our role as your chief money-launderer. Allow us a little dignity, and tell the Chinese to leave our aircraft-carriers alone, so that we can continue to pretend that we still mean something in the world.

Worried about our nukes? Don’t. They’re controlled by the Yanks, and you’ve got them sewn up too, provided you can get Trump re-elected in November.

So we know when we’re beaten. And we look forward to a long and profitable relationship with the Russian Federation and, more importantly, with you, Mr President. Now that the Russia Report is out, no need to be coy any more. We know who your agents are.

But please, no more poisoners, hackers and little green men. We’re yours now. Just keep sending us your oligarchs, and we’ll make sure they have regular dates with the Queen for tea. When she goes, don’t worry about Prince Charles. He’s a Romanov too. Well, sort of.

And if your people get tired of you, you’ll always be welcome to make the UK your safe haven. But we all know that won’t happen. You have decades ahead of you. So let’s get that trade deal sorted so that you can sell us some hypersonic ballistic missiles, a bit of your gas and a few potatoes if we run short. And in return, we’ll send some of your deep implants – you know, the ones who’ve become Brits – to the House of Lords.

As for the European Union, from now on we have a common objective. Together we’ll bring those nasty foreigners across the channel to heel.

Nastrovje, Esteemed President!

Oh, by the way, you don’t happen to have any nifty 5G kit lying around doing nothing, do you?