I was First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw 1994-98. While that was a long time ago, I knew personally many of the people at the heart of the current crisis, such as Donald Tusk and Radek Sikorski.
1) The first thing to say about Poland is that the current crisis is unlikely to turn violent, certainly not in a sustained way. There will be a lot of yelling and name-calling and a lot of references to obscure old feuds and scandals, but Poland is not Ukraine or even France, and will muddle through as usual with some kind of woolly compromise to see us through the next few years.
General Jaruzelski, the last major leader under Communism, used to be the neighbour who shared the boundary fence at the bottom of my garden. He oversaw martial law and a secret service which was pretty vicious – but looking back with the perspective of history, the remarkable thing is not how much, but how little, violent repression was used against Solidarność in 1980 to 1983. Some 120 people were killed and thousands imprisoned, but for a revolution that triggered world-shaking political change that is remarkably restrained.
Then with Wałęsa in power as President, Jaruzelski used to go about Warsaw quite openly, and I would say “Dzień Dobry Panie Generale” to him in the mornings as he walked past my gate. Violence is not natural in Polish politics.
2) The second thing to understand is that Polish politics is split between the right and the nationalist right. The left is now almost insignificant – the mildly social-democratic Nowa Lewica is a small junior partner in Tusk’s governing coalition and polls about 8%. That is pretty well the only “left”. Elements of the governing Civic Coalition – such as Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, are very right by British standards. Sikorski was in the Bullingdon Club with Osborne and Johnson and is a bit to the right of either on social or economic policy.
The opposition nationalist right are socially conservative and religious: abortion remains the touchstone defining issue, which directly relates to the current dispute about the Constitutional Tribunal. There is no significant economic division between the right and nationalist right, with the latter perhaps slightly more socially minded in matters like welfare spending.
It is a great mistake to try to shoehorn the divisions into a classic economic policy-related party alignment of left and right, or even into the liberal vs populist model. Poland is sui generis, a thing unto itself.
3) The crisis about the Constitutional Tribunal is Superficially Meta. It is about the composition of the Constitutional Tribunal rather than any case currently before the Court. But it has become the totem of the deep divisions in Polish society.
Poland has a hybrid system that is neither an executive presidency nor a parliamentary democracy. The power of legislative initiative lies with the Parliament (Sejm) and the Prime Minister appointed by the Sejm. But the President has an active power of veto and controls important appointments.
The Constitutional Tribunal ensures the constitution is properly followed and thus judges disputes between the President, Prime Minister and Sejm. The tribunal also ensures that the rights of citizens enshrined in the constitution are respected. It also – and this is a major difference from the UK where there is no such judicial power – ensures Polish legislation is compatible with international law and Poland’s treaty relations.
The most important recent decision of the Constitutional Tribunal was naturally on abortion, which it limited in 2020 by abolishing the health-related exemption which had provided for most abortions. The history of abortion in Poland is again very strange to a non-Pole. When I was in Poland in the mid-1990s it had both the highest rate per capita of Catholic church attendance in the world and arguably the highest abortion rate per capita in the world. It is a complex subject for another day.
4) As usual in Poland, both sides are entirely unreasonable. At the moment Poland has a PiS (nationalist right) President Nawrocki versus a right Civic Coalition Prime Minister Tusk. The longstanding problem with the Constitutional Tribunal is that its members must be appointed by the Sejm but sworn in by the President. When neither are prepared to compromise – as is frequently the case – this has led to impasse after impasse.
The immediate crisis began on 30 October 2026 when Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska — elected by the present Sejm majority but never sworn in by Nawrocki — ordered the suspension of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski (a PiS appointee) and declared herself in charge. Tusk’s government then deployed riot police to secure the building in support of her move; Nawrocki abandoned a trip to Senegal to return, and PiS supporters gathered outside. Each side accused the other of a coup.
The conflict dates back to 2015 but every legacy media account I have seen gives a false account of how it started.
In 2015 the right Civic Platform government, a direct predecessor of Tusk’s coalition, knew it was losing power. It therefore sought to pack the Constitutional Tribunal. It appointed five new judges. Three of these fell due just before Civic Platform left power, but it also passed a law allowing it to appoint in advance two further judges whose terms fell due under the incoming PiS government. Civic Platform thus attempted to appoint five new judges, to attempt to limit the scope of the incoming PiS Sejm and Presidency.
The new PiS government immediately sought to cancel the appointment of all five new judges and appoint its own judges in their place. This was indeed of dubious legality. But in truth it was a reaction to a profoundly undemocratic action by Civic Platform to pack the court with its own supporters as it left power which, while it may have been legal, was outrageous.
The Constitutional Tribunal itself eventually decided that the first three Civic Platform judges were appointed legitimately, and that the next two Civic Platform judges whose appointments should have fallen due outwith that Sejm’s term were not legitimate. They therefore also approved two of the PiS judges.
This was an obviously correct decision which the politicians had been incapable of agreeing. But it was Civic Platform not PiS which first tried to fix the court, a point completely misrepresented in current legacy media accounts and by the European Commission.
Subsequently the PiS made further changes to the composition and powers of the Constitutional Tribunal, which were ruled illegal by the European Court of Justice, the judicial body of the European Union.
5) The EU is at the heart of the division. Donald Tusk himself has tried to spin the conflict this way. His address to the nation after his coup was made in front of a plethora of Polish and EU flags. He had repeatedly claimed over the previous two days that the PiS was seeking to take Poland out of the European Union. The PiS counter that Donald Tusk wishes to join the Euro, the European Central Bank and transfer Poland’s gold reserves to the EU (which the pre-coup Constitutional Tribunal would seek to block).
Both sides have a point. Donald Tusk would like to join the Euro, and frequently said so in the past – though joining the Euro does not actually entail transferring Poland’s substantial gold reserves. The PiS would like to leave the EU. But neither side currently has their inward desire as a stated official objective, because both positions are unpopular.
PiS President Nawrocki’s senior adviser on EU affairs is Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, a man with whom I worked closely on Polish EU accession. For decades in the national and European parliament he was the face of Polish EU enthusiasm. Saryusz-Wolski is however now deeply disillusioned that the EU of von der Leyen, Merz, Macron and Kallas is not the body he dreamt of. He views the present EU as deeply undemocratic and overbearing. He has, in short, gone through exactly the same transformation in his views on the EU as I have.
The EU was seen as central to Polish nationalist identity because it guaranteed Polish independence, which given Poland’s traumatic history of occupation and foreign domination was central. EU membership led to two decades of outstanding economic growth. But a number of factors have eroded the EU sheen with time. These include a fear of German domination, the EU’s social liberalism and the undemocratic nature of EU institutions.
When I knew them in the old days, I would have thought it impossible that Jacek Sarusz-Wolski would be on a Eurosceptic nationalist right while Radek Sikorski would be on an opposing Europhile right. The opposite was plainly the case back then. To understand the switching of allegiances you need to consider something Western legacy media is blithely ignoring: the centrality of Ukraine to current events in Poland.
6) Ukraine is central to this. Simply put, the nationalist right has had its fill of Zelensky, whereas Tusk is a devotee of the von der Leyen/Kallas/Merz war-hawk line.
For British people, Ukraine is another “far-away country of which we know nothing”. To Poles it is a neighbour, of which they know a very great deal indeed. Poland probably houses more Ukrainian refugees than any other state, both in absolute numbers and per capita. Part of the antipathy from the nationalist right is anti-immigrant resentment.
But Ukraine really is an extremely corrupt state, and the Poles understand this very well. Poles contribute to the vast sums which the EU has poured into the Zelensky regime, and Poles also have a close-up view of Ukrainian regime-aligned figures in supercars buying top-end properties. Ukrainians are the largest foreign buyers of Polish real estate. This is simply true.
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski ended up on the Civic Coalition side of the equation, because his primary loyalty is, and always was, to NATO, as befits a member of the Bullingdon Club and husband of crazed Russophobe Anne Applebaum.
A combination of events in Ukraine and the advent of President Nawrocki have caused a shift of the nationalist right to a much more sceptical position on Ukraine. Nawrocki is of a younger generation of politician – he is 43 and was only 15 when I left Poland. But his entire professional career prior to becoming President was connected to World War II commemoration.
Zelensky had been given Poland’s highest award. The Order of the White Eagle. Nawrocki cancelled the award and made Zelensky return it, due to Ukrainian official commemoration of Nazi-allied figures and units who had participated in the massacres of Poles during World War II. Other senior Ukrainians also returned their Polish decorations. That is a pretty startling diplomatic split, hugely under-reported in the West.
The most prestigious Ukrainian TV production at this moment is “Winged Lions”, a series about the Galician Division which was formed in the First World War to fight primarily against Poland. This was not only in the field against Poland as a second front in Poland’s defining national war against the Soviet Union in 1921, it was also the predecessor of the Galician Brigade of the Waffen SS – the continuing commemoration of which is a running sore between the two countries.
To add insult to injury the series is filmed in the former major Polish city of Lvov.
Naturally at time of war Ukrainian nationalism is running amok, and its insensitivity and – in Polish eyes – ingratitude towards Polish sensibility is a real problem.
Poland is itself a traumatised state. The Poles lost their state completely in the eighteenth century. Polish states re-emerged at times under French and Soviet domination; but I broadly accept that, apart from 1919 to 1939, a truly sovereign Polish state did not return until the 1990s.
Add to that the fact that until 1946 Western Ukraine was a part of Poland and integral to Polish identity. Lvov was a major centre of Polish architecture and culture. It is hard to find a fitting simile, but to Poles it is as though Canterbury and Norwich, Kent and East Anglia, were taken from the English by France in the 1940s.
There is no serious movement to reopen boundary questions, not least because so much of Poland was Germany until 1946. But the fact that the parts of Poland where the Ukrainians massacred tens of thousands of Polish civilians, are now Ukrainian territory, naturally has an impact on the Polish psyche.
7) This was an attempted coup. That is a fair description. All Hallows’ Eve is a massive thing in Poland. People return to their ancestral graves and light candles in red glass lanterns, keeping vigil. Families leave the cities and return to ancestral villages to do this. It is an official Catholic church festival, so naturally it is disproportionately PiS supporters who are occupied in this. Choosing the Friday a day before All Hallows’ Eve to move physically against the Constitutional Tribunal was clearly a deliberate tactical choice when the least resistance might be expected.
It also has the classic ingredient of a coup that President Nawrocki had just left the country on an official visit.
Nawrocki’s decisiveness in turning around the Presidential plane and returning to Warsaw, forcing his way through the cordon of riot police around the Constitutional Tribunal, has changed the situation on the ground towards him.
There is the fog that surrounds highly contested events in real time. It is widely claimed that Tusk attempted to have Nawrocki’s plane denied landing at Warsaw airport. It is hard to judge yet if this is true.
It is also widely claimed that major portions of the massed riot police Tusk put around the Constitutional Tribunal displayed no numbers and did not speak Polish. I am not inclined simply to dismiss this, because there are so many eyewitness reports, including from Polish MPs and MEPs.
Widely circulated footage allegedly showing German police convoys inside Poland is hotly disputed. Again a little time may be needed to determine the truth.
What does appear highly probable is that the European Commission had advance notice of the coup, because the speed with which they jumped in to support Tusk and Pietrowska’s takeover of the Constitutional Tribunal was remarkable, given the complexity of the situation. Personally I cannot see any argument whatsoever that Pietrowska’s action was legal.
8) I expect this to fizzle out. It may appear like the most massive bust-up, but I know many of these people and they all know each other. The bitterness does not really extend far into personal relationships.
Tusk probably expected to win control of the streets with his riot police and because his supporters are very much urban. A much higher proportion of the Polish population lives in rural areas than is the Western norm, and that is where the strength of the PiS lies. It is therefore much harder for the nationalist right quickly to mobilise an urban crowd than for Tusk’s right, even when it isn’t All Hallows’ Eve.
But PiS supporters did turn out to confront the riot police, whereas there has been a distinct lack of people pouring onto the streets to support Tusk.
So far it seems Tusk’s gambit has failed spectacularly. He is left in the position of appearing to have attempted to use physical force and the riot police, against the Tribunal and the President, on behalf of von der Leyen, Merz, and EU interests which are a cipher for Germany.
The videos of German police convoys add to this impression, irrespective of whether they are genuinely in Poland or not. The extraordinary footage of the police on All Saints’ Day leading away in handcuffs, from the grave of their two-year-old child, the husband of popular nationalist-right journalist Danuta Holecka, is an image that will haunt Tusk’s future. Nothing could be more shocking to Polish sensibility. The official explanation of a traffic violation is extraordinary. It could of course just have been apolitical and coincided with the capital’s events, but the damage is done (and anyway I doubt it).
The Constitutional Tribunal ruling from 2020 on abortion has been followed as law in Poland, irrespective of who has been in power and irrespective of what the European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights have said. So in spite of all the wrangling, it is not a dead institution.
We will see how the power struggle plays out. My expectation is that it will calm down, there will be long-running inquiries but nobody will go to jail. I do expect that Tusk, the EU and Zelensky are all weakened by this, and it has been a good weekend for the PiS.
When I was in Poland, I immersed myself in the culture and language, and spent time in every single region. I had learnt the Polish language, including at the Catholic University of Lublin and in Sopot. I believe I was the only Western diplomat to predict correctly that Kwaśniewski would defeat Wałęsa in the 1996 election. My Ambassador sent an urgent telegram to London to contradict my final campaign report because it said Kwaśniewski would win. I knew, because I had a real knowledge of provincial Poland that other Warsaw-focused Western diplomats lacked.
But while I have a deep love for Poland and its people, I very seldom write about its politics or its politicians – because frankly I find both exasperating. Polish poIitics consists almost entirely of unreasonable men with foolish opinions yelling at each other about points tangential to their real disagreements. I do hope that my explanation of current events is helpful to your own thoughts on the matter.
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Thank you Craig for this highly informative post. I had seen some reports but I was unable to make sense of them.
Thank you Craig for your informed assesment. The summary was excellent, it is nice to find such clairity in a news report.
Your explanation is very helpful indeed, Craig. Thank you.
“(…)
I expect this to fizzle out. It may appear like the most massive bust-up, but I know many of these people and they all know each other.
(…)”
Exactomundo.
p.s. Also illustrative of the same performative nature that has replaced serious politics in Europe is following tiny news item from Germany today:
Former German minister for economy and energy, Robert Habeck, who was the main driver to end Russsian natural gas to Germany, recently in an interview:
“(…)remarked that he did not understand why Russian President Vladimir Putin had not “turned off the gas” immediately after the war in Ukraine began—“because then, to put it bluntly, we would have been completely screwed.”(…)”.
In case this fairy-tale of RU turning off the lights in Germany comes up again.
Thanks for the orientation in what would otherwise be a confusing situation, as if Tories vs Reform plus multiple constitutional disputes and even crises summed up UK politics.
In many democracies there has been a political tribalization of people, which I will call for want of better terms progressives vs regressives. In many European countries (Poland, Germany, Estonia, Moldova, Ukraine) it tends to be the geographically Eastern parts that are socially conservative and look to Russia, and the Western parts (the “progressives”) that look to the EU, whereas in Britain it is Brexiters who are “regressive”, as are Republicans in America. Even outside Europe these differences often reflect geographical and historical divisions in the past, so that the Deep South is Republican country.
Anne Applebaum has written the Pulitzer prize-winning Gulag (ISBN 9780140283105), an academic complement to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s well known The Gulag Archipelago, and many other interesting books. She should exert a good influence in Poland in the future.
There needs to be a movement in Poland to promote dialogue between the “tribes”. It shouldn’t be impossible, perhaps along the lines of the American film The Work in Progress
Just excellent – hugely impressed.
You seem to have learnt more about Poland in 4 years than I did in 20.
” I very seldom write about its politics or its politicians, because frankly I find both exasperating. ”
Indeed – it is not so much hard to follow, as just plain exasperating.
Sikorski – to add his first job was as a “journalist embedded with the Mujahadin in Afghanistan”. So I think we all know who he really represents. And then he managed to go from being Minister of Defence for PiS (ie team Nawvrocki) to Foreign minister for PO (now team Tusk) in the same year!! 2007. Clearly he is the US cabinet appointment.
You reference the ww2 slaughter of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists which has always been a keen issue for Poles as many have relatives that died in then Polish Galicia. Nawrocki has pushed this point hard and Poles have followed it.
But there is still a weird understanding of WW2 History.
Poles still hate the Russian’s most, then Ukrainians, and mostly the Germans least.
Yet Soviets killed 100-200k Poles in WW2, and then saved the country from the Germans.
Ukrainian nationalists killed 100k Poles + 100k Polish Jews.
Germany killed 3 million Poles and 3 milion Polish Jews and had intended to kill a total of 11m until the need for a slave workforce intervened.
Funny kind of remembrance, no wonder Polish politics is so exasperating
On Poles and WW2. I spent time in Poland back in the 1980s (interesting times…) and recall accounts of the war from an older generation that were grimly unforgettable, but also a joke which maybe illuminates the war conundrum, viz. ‘If attacked simultaneously from the east and west, which border should be defended first? The west, because duty comes before pleasure’.
Want to cheeze off a poie? Want to send a Jarek or Gosia into a spitting mad Donald Duck mletdown?
Remind your pole that, whatever bad things the Soviets did, the only reasont aht there still are polish people alive today in Poland is because of the Red Army.
And I do not know a polish family that did not suffer at the hands of the Ukrainians (or the germans). But poles embrace both wholeheartedly, because that’s what it takes to keep the Americans happy.
fwiw:
1) Le Monde Diplomatique had a piece in its latest edition on the Polish/Ukrainian fights and small and large genocides committed against each other here:
“Neighbors with bitter memories”
by Catherine Gousseff
English machine-translation
https://monde–diplomatique-de.translate.goog/artikel/!6216426?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
German original
https://monde-diplomatique.de/artikel/!6216426
And historian Michael Jabara Carley with a not very charming look at Polish elites favouring Nazi Germany over the USSR thwarting a potential anti-German coalition between USSR, France, GB pre-1939.
“What Poland Has to Hide About the Origins of World War II”
Januar 12th 2020
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2020/01/12/what-poland-has-to-hide-about-the-origins-of-world-war-ii/
Would it be off the mark to say Sikorski is Mi6 – his wife’s surely CIA, I take it Nawrocki is pro-USA and Tusk is pro-EU.
I’ve also read that Nawrocki was a pretty good amateur boxer, back in the day, which he’s kept going – I’m sure there’s a clip of him online sparring with the legendary Manny Pacquiao.
He should knock Tusk out.
EU/Demparty’s proxy vs Trump’s proxy, and yet somehow this is all Putin’s fault. You don’t need to watch Game of Thrones when you have Poland.
I know poland and ples well. In poland any bad thing that happens anywhere, ever is ever always only the fault of Russia.
Bad weather delayed the harvest? Russia did it.
Piotr got drunk and crashed his car? Russia did it.
Stasiek failed his exams? Russia did it.
Little Aniuszka fell off her bicycle? You guessed it….
Polish politicians left right and center jockey frantically as to who can hate Russia more, in rhetoric that makes Goebbels and Vyshinskii look calm. measured and dispassionate, as well as eminently fair-minded by comparison.
The irony is that, take away Russia and poland goes from the Special Little Buddy of the empire to a rather yappy backwater satrapy of no particular utility or importance.
“and yet somehow this is all Putin’s fault”
In politics, it’s always Putin’s fault. He is the international blame sponge.
“Poland is sui generis, a thing unto itself.”
The long-term alliance between the Catholic church and the Polish United Workers’ Party was unusual to say the least…
We should view what is happening in Poland, as a harbinger for when we have the Tories and Reform (Right and Nationalist Right) running the asylum here.
Here is an interesting dynamic. There are very few comments about this article here on my blog. But there are literally hundreds on twitter, under my tweet putting out this post, and almost all by people who have clearly read the article.
What is the problem?
I myself have posted it elsewhere already and will do so further, as have others.
Besides it´s a brand new text. Do grant readers some time.
Just today there are dozens of important links up on other issues too.
People need time to sort and digest.
And often articles that are of high value do not invite for mediocre comments.
I for one have been waiting for you to comment since this crisis started.
I don’t think it’s a problem so much as a puzzle. I don’t think there’s an unusually small number of comments here (although Craig is in a far better position to know, of course!), especially as it’s a Monday, and a lot of readers or potential readers will be at work, and it’s an unusually long article. But all these factors would also apply to comments on Twitter, yet there do seem to me to be an unusually large number of those (especially in view of the suppression Craig so often has to complain of there), and as Craig says many of them show evidence of having read the whole article. If there’d just been a lot of troll responses on Twitter, that would be unpleasant but less puzzling. (I don’t have any comment to make myself, other than that the article is informative, fascinating, and well-written.)
Świetny tekst dla słabo ogarniętych w tym naszym śmiesznym polskim kotle. U nas na podobny komentarz stać właściwie jedynie polskich komunistów
Jest w polsce jeszcze komunistow? Naprawde?
From an article from FOCAL POINTS:
‘ Bentley Kiev third place retail seller in Europe ‘
” Bentley Kiev has proudly achieved 3rd place in the prestigious “Best of the Best” nomination…. out of 61…”
It was awarded last year..
Only third?!?
Maybe Ukrainian oligarchs are tired of Bentleys?
What archival cards does Poland still have to play? I assume that the value of these may decrease over time, as distance from events may decrease emotional freighting (in some cultures at least). It seems Polish politicians have sought to embarrass other countries before. And was NATO’s nuclear targeting ever influenced by irredentism, in the sense they might have spared some territories from atomic fire if one of their members claimed it?
Thanks for well articulated, balanced and thoughtful words. My wife is Polish and I know Poland well. I have spent at least 20 hours these last three days to assess as much information as possible especially from links on Twitter but also information from friends and relatives in Poland
It seems to me fairly clear that there has been too much EU involvement in this coup which might have serious administrative consequences for both Poland and EU or even Europe. I agree that violence probably wont occur, but we have to wait and see. Poland is an exceptionally important and interesting country in Europe having survived between two giants like Germany and Russia. Today Poland itself is a strong moral and financial force and we are many that are grateful it has not spiralled out of control. We hope for the best
Thanks again!
Dr T. Jackson in Norway
Thanks for these valuable insights. “He has, in short, gone through exactly the same transformation in his views on the EU as I have” – ditto.
Ditto for me as well.
I lived in Poland before and after the EU capture and have recently returned from Lower Silesia on holiday
It is said that one third of the population in the city where I once lived is Russian speaking – up from about 10% some ten years ago.
No wonder the place is screwed.
Superb analysis.
Intelligent commentary. I will share.
That said, “The PiS would like to leave the EU. But neither side currently has their inward desire as a stated official objective, because both positions are unpopular.”
Nobody of influence and authority in poland wants to leave the eu. Poland is entirely dependent on direct and indirect foreign money.
This is such a great account of a fast moving blizzard of deflector nonsense that has been the hallmark of all media these days
Your authority to speak is a breath of fresh air in a fetid swamp of EU slurry
Thanks for this typically lucid and perceptive clarifying article. Mea culpa, I commented on the situation there ( Poland ) after a superficial reading of a short reference to it elsewhere. It wasn’t ( quite ) what I initially thought it was, ie a European Gov not liking it’s opposition’s stance on the current criteria for * acceptability *. * note to self….don’t comment on an issue until/unless you’ve read sufficiently about it 😉
“When I was in Poland in the mid-1990s it had both the highest rate per capita of Catholic church attendance in the world and arguably the highest abortion rate per capita in the world. It is a complex subject for another day.”
Doesn’t seem very complex to me. The Catholic Church condemns contraception = more unwanted babies = more abortions.
Interesting read. I had no idea you had such expertise on Poland. Was hoping to also see your thoughts on the role of its elites in the continent-wide push for open war with Russia. The only names I recognised in the piece I automatically thought warmonger.
Perhaps this is a dry run of how the EU and German elite intend to deal with the AfD, ban them and stop them running in elections by judicial means backed up by dirty tricks.
I would say the AfD is by far the biggest threat to the EU elite at the moment.
It very likely is. This Neu Euro * Democracy * seems intent on excluding ‘ by hook or by crook ‘ any Political Party that doesn’t adhere fanatically to the ‘ Putin Is Satan ‘ quasi-religious dogma. Though given the massive and growing support AfD have, * they * may find it more difficult to pull-off the same meddling to get the desired result in Germany as they did in, eg Romania.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, any development that the establishment of the day didn’t like could automatically be blamed on Jews.
Crops failed? Because Jews. God is punishing us because we don’t hate Jews enough.
Freak storm sank the royal fleet? Everyone knows that Jews not only hate us because we are so noble and kind, Jews also can control the weather.
Foreign invasion? Machinations of Jews.
King’s eldest son and heir turns out to be a rather flamboyant and barely closeted homosexual? Jews, you silly goose!
No evidence needed. Because Jews. What, are you on their side?
Today’s establishment is far more enlightened. They do not blame unwanted election results and social dissension on Jews. Instead, they blame Russia.
Yes, well, there have been various scapegoats over the centuries. Even in British History there have been periods of religious scapegoating, eg Protestants blaming Catholics and vice-a-versa.
It’s been a little surprising to me just how drastically things have changed in the U.K regarding the perception/treatment of Jews. Was it not once the case that particularly amongst the Ruling Class there was pretty virulent Anti-Semitism; we’ve all seen that infamous photo of that ‘ much loved ‘ Royal Matriarch the Queen Mother with her then young children all giving the Nazi Salute. One of those * uncomfortable * glimpses behind the carefully constructed Saxe-Coburg/Windsor facade.
Maybe those attitudes still prevail within that strata of Society; but, as you know and we’ve all seen, within the Political Class Jews/Israel have attained a status bordering on the divine.
What happened was WWII. Before WWII, antisemitism was pretty mainstream, both in the uk and the US. After WWII, the taint of Hitler and Naziism made antisemitism no longer socially acceptable.
George Steiner wrote about this in “The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.”.
For the record, I am not saying that the antisemitism of olden days was in any way a good or desirable thing. However, anyone talking about “judeochristian values” would have been looked at as a weirdo.
Feral Finster
November 2, 2026 at 17:35
The claimed analogy between Jew baiting/hating/blaming for natural disasters etc. and blaming Russia fails.
No sane person blames Russia or even Russians for the behaviour of the Russian State and military.
Rather we blame the Russian regime headed by the Little Dictator for Life ©…
For life? Are you getting confused with the British king? The Russian president is elected* for a fixed term, currently six years. And he’s not a dictator.
Note
* And elected directly too, unlike the US president.
“No sane person blames Russia or even Russians for the behaviour of the Russian State and military.”
Glad you think that Donald Tusk isn’t sane. Most people are far too lazy to separate in their minds the state and its government, let alone its government and its people with real power, so they either end up claiming that the whole country or a that a single leader is responsible, when, 99 times out of 100, it’s far more complicated than that, as this blog post shows. Still a politician’s stock in trade is simple answers to complex questions and they know that very few people can be arsed to find out what’s actually going on. As H.L. Mencken put it, “there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.”
Are you sure? Ever read the Russian-baiting int he UK press?
Personally I think Poland should leave the EU. Everybody else will be better off, and the Balts would feel encouraged to leave too.
Craig, thank you for such a refreshingly honest and objective article.
“Polish poIitics consists almost entirely of unreasonable men with foolish opinions yelling at each other about points tangential to their real disagreements.”
So different from our own dear blog comments.
HA! Quite so, B, nuffink short of a veritable ( vegetable? ) Lyceum ‘ere innit?
Thanks Craig, a very informative and interesting read.