The government did two things at once on Tuesday evening. It legislated, for the first time in binding form, the long-promised ban on imports of refined petroleum products made in third countries from Russian crude. This was the ‘refining loophole’ that Chancellor Rachel Reeves had championed back in October. Simultaneously, it carved diesel and jet fuel out of the new ban under an indefinite trade licence.

The government’s framing has been a masterclass in misdirection

The government’s framing has been a masterclass in misdirection

Petrochemicals, naphtha, heating oil and fuel oil made using Russian crude oil in third countries are now prohibited in UK law. The two products that account for the overwhelming bulk of the refined petroleum trade are not. The government has said it is tightening sanctions against Russia. On the question that actually matters to the Kremlin’s budget, the opposite is true.

The government’s framing has been a masterclass in misdirection. The press release led with ‘a new wave of tighter restrictions on Russia’. Sir Keir Starmer, under questioning at PMQs, insisted he was not lifting sanctions ‘in any way whatsoever’. Trade Minister Chris Bryant subsequently apologised for what he gracefully described as a ‘miscommunication from his department’.

Strictly speaking, none of them were lying. The new regulations do introduce real prohibitions – on uranium, on Russian LNG maritime services, and on most refined petroleum products made from Russian crude in third countries. This legislation is, by any technical measure, a tightening. The difficulty is that the products carved out of it – diesel and jet fuel – happen to be the two that make the biggest difference.

This makes the long, slow economic decline that the Kremlin is now resigned to a little less steep

This makes the long, slow economic decline that the Kremlin is now resigned to a little less steep

Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, was less diplomatic than the Prime Minister. She told the BBC that the Ukrainians ‘don’t understand, given that we promised that we would stop this loophole in October’.........

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