So, before the Russian recognition of the two breakaway Republics and their sending troops, PM Johnson was talking big about sanctions, but in the end, they were fairly minor.
The irony is that Britain could really hurt Russia, because a lot of Russian money is stored there, invested in real-estate, and many important Russians have homes in Britain, especially in London.
Various people have noticed this, for example:
Roman Abramovich – described as having a "father and son" relationship with Vladimir Putin – has amassed a British property empire worth £200 million.
Not a penny of that is being touched by Boris Johnson's announced sanctions.
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) February 22, 2022
But thing to understand about the UK is that it has almost nothing left that the world wants. It offers:
1) The City for money laundering and access to world financial markets.
2) London itself, still a world class city.
3) UK law, for disputes — people trust UK law more than they trust their own law (or US law, the other common third-party option).
The UK doesn’t have a significant manufacturing sector any more. It has a few high-tech companies, but is not a leader in tech. It has some North Sea oil (being depleted), and it has some very pretty real-estate and that’s, well, that’s it.
Britain mishandled the post-war period and did not upgrade its manufacturing sector. Then Thatcher decided, quite deliberately, to liquidate it and concentrate on financial services and real-estate. That’s what both Labour and Conservative governments have done for the last 43 years.
There’s basically nothing left now but the “City” and real-estate games which are based on air. Without more money coming in from outside and from financial games, there’s no reason to be in London or Britain — except that London’s already a great world city with a big financial center. But there’s nothing else; no real industry, no high tech, and the great universities are being systematically defunded along with everything else.
So Britain can’t impose real sanctions because Britain’s one real product is, “Bring your money and yourself here and your money and your self will be safe and you’ll even make more money.” That’s now the central column of the entire economy; nothing else can replace it.
“Your money is safe here unless you do something nasty we don’t like,” isn’t safety. It means political whims can destroy rich people’s lives, and that’s the exact opposite of what they’re paying for when they take their money to the City and Britain. They can get that elsewhere; if they want to be “safe except for sanctions” then hell, go to the US, Canada, or Germany.
Or, if they want to be “safe from sanctions but our rulers can fuck you up any time they want on a whim and will,” then there’s Abu Dhabi.
London, the City, and Britain offer safety to all but the very very worst rich people in the world. Without that, what is left of Britain collapses. Maybe even past middle-income status (where they’re already headed).
There was a last “out” offered. His name was Jeremy Corbyn. UK Elites colluded and lied (at a rate of about 80 percent) to make sure he wouldn’t take power, because he would have redistributed some money away from them.
So now the course of the UK’s decline is set, and if the comfortable classes want a chance of living out their lives comfortably while the rest of society decays around them, the foreign, corrupt cash must flow.