How Brexit ushered in a golden age of British-Eastern European relations

If Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv at the weekend was a surprise for most of us, it came as a monumental shock to those who said Brexit would doom the UK to diplomatic irrelevance.

Since the 2016 vote, breathless Remainers have pounced on every perceived diplomatic slight, from Emmanuel Macron's regular anti-British tirades to Joe Biden's ill-informed repetition of Irish talking points on the Protocol.

Yet in Eastern Europe, far from damaging relations, Britain’s exit from Brussels seems to have only made them stronger. Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Glinski, interviewed for my video above, says that without the shackles of the EU, his country and the UK successfully formed a trilateral agreement with Ukraine. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also offered warm words toward Britain in recent weeks, praising the “historic” leadership of Boris Johnson in particular.

Britain’s role as a leading military power in Europe has ensured its place as a key ally for nations concerned about the threat from the East with British troops forming a vital part of Nato’s contingency in the Baltic states and beyond. Since 2014 the British army has trained upwards of 22,000 Ukrainian troops, and provided thousands of the now-famous NLAW anti-tank weapons, along with much other military equipment to Kyiv.

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