Diane Abbott obviously didn’t get the memo that her party’s support of NATO is “unwavering“. Last night, having already claimed the Ukraine crisis is the result of NATO’s “eastward expansion” – nothing to do with the 100,000 Russian troops on the border, obviously – Diane doubled down on her foreign policy counsel. This time seeming to imply Ukraine could be “peacefully separated” like the Czech and Slovak Republics:

“In this complex mix, the US has decided that it is necessary to send US and other NATO troops to Russia’s borders. As I have said elsewhere, this alone should tell us that the claims that Russia is the aggressor here should be treated very sceptically. The destabilisation of the entire region comes from the continued eastward expansion of NATO.

Instead, we need to find peaceful solutions to a complicated conflict of identities and national rights. This was done elsewhere in Eastern Europe as countries peacefully separated. The Czech and Slovak Republics managed it rather well.”

Of course what this would mean in practice is handing chunks of eastern Ukraine over to Russia. Putin would hardly believe his luck. What was it Sir Keir said last week? “Today’s Labour party* has [a] clear-eyed view of the current regime in the Kremlin”. *Terms and conditions apply.