The Sovereignty Scam: How Brexit Played Right Into Putin’s Hands

Putin planted his seed long before Brexit, now Britain is reaping the chaos he sowed

By Sean Ash

For years, voters in the United Kingdom were told that Brexit was about one thing above all else: sovereignty. Reclaiming control of borders, laws, money, and national identity. Leaving the European Union was sold as a great liberation, a proud return to self-governance after decades of being shackled to Brussels.

But what if that promise was never delivered? What if, instead of reclaiming sovereignty, Britain simply handed it from one set of foreign hands to another? From an alliance of democratic European nations to the shadowed influence of Vladimir Putin’s Russia?

In May 2013, Nigel Farage met with Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian Ambassador to the UK. A photograph of the meeting was published by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the time, it seemed unimportant. But looking back, it marks a turning point. This was the moment Russian policy began shifting toward its campaign of disruption across Europe, laying the groundwork for the invasion of Crimea and the long game of dismantling Western unity.

Farage would later lie about this meeting, claiming in 2018, “I’ve never met the Russian Ambassador.” This denial came at a time when Russia was under intense scrutiny for interfering in Western elections and stoking division. But the meeting had happened, and Yakovenko was no passive diplomat. He was part of a deliberate Kremlin strategy to cultivate Eurosceptics and undermine the European project from within.

Farage’s image was broadcast across RT, the Russian state-controlled media outlet, which paid him for appearances and promoted his speeches in the European Parliament. RT even offered him his own show following the EU referendum. These were not random gestures of admiration. They were tactical investments in a man who could help fracture the EU from the inside.

While Farage and others claimed they were reclaiming Britain’s independence, they were in fact opening the door to a different kind of influence. It was not Europe’s shared rules and institutions that threatened the UK’s freedom. It was the slow, methodical reach of Russian soft power, creeping in through media, diplomacy, and opportunism.

The truth is this. Britain was not liberated by Brexit. It was destabilised. A nation that once led in European diplomacy now finds itself isolated, economically weakened, and scrambling for relevance on the world stage. The so-called sovereignty we were promised was never about power for the people. It was about dismantling alliances so others, far less democratic and far less friendly, could fill the void.

Reform UK, the latest political vehicle championed by Farage, continues to capitalise on that narrative. It waves the flag of independence but peddles the same rhetoric that mirrors Kremlin talking points. It attacks the EU, undermines trust in democratic institutions, and paints international cooperation as betrayal. But who benefits from this chaos? Not ordinary British people. Not our workers, our nurses, our farmers, or our children. The only winner in this prolonged crisis is Vladimir Putin.

When Ambassador Yakovenko returned to Moscow in 2019, he was awarded the Alexander Nevsky medal and placed at the head of Russia’s diplomatic academy. At a dinner celebrating his service, he is said to have declared, “We have crushed the British to the ground. They are on their knees, and they will not rise for a very long time.”

That is the real price of Brexit. Not freedom, but subservience. Not control, but confusion. Not sovereignty, but surrender. Only this time, not to a democratic European union of allies, but to the influence of a regime that seeks to divide, weaken, and control from the shadows.

It is time to face the uncomfortable truth. We were not taking back control. We were handing it over.