The agreement on British aid to Ukraine signed by Keir Starmer in Kyiv yesterday is good as far as it genuinely goes. It is indeed very important that the West go on supporting Ukraine during the forthcoming peace negotiations, in order to reduce the chance of a Ukrainian collapse and encourage the Russian government to compromise.
However, if a settlement is to be reached and an eventual Ukrainian collapse averted, then it will also be necessary for Kyiv to make some extremely painful compromises. The risk of the rhetoric of ironclad and permanent commitment issued by Starmer is that it will reduce Volodymyr Zelensky’s willingness to make necessary concessions. The Ukrainian government, while insisting that it must be part of all talks, has also just repeated that it will not in fact negotiate directly with Vladimir Putin.
This risk is made worse by the Labour government’s record — following faithfully in the footsteps of its Tory predecessors — of encouraging the Ukrainians to believe in fantasies or outright lies. Under the latest agreement, the British commitment to Ukraine of £3 billion for the coming year is achievable. Given the state of the UK’s economy and the pressure on the budget, the statement that this is guaranteed “indefinitely” is absurd: pointless if the Ukrainians do not believe it, dangerous if they do.
Among these fantasies have been the statements that Britain would help Ukraine “win”, and that Ukrainian victory — rather than a realistically achievable peace — is remotely possible. Among the lies has been that Britain is committed to long-term Nato membership for Ukraine — when the UK and every country in the alliance have made clear that they have no intention of ever going to war to defend Zelensky’s nation.
In recent months, a new fantasy has emerged and is being widely discussed: that of a powerful European “peacekeeping force” for a postwar Ukraine, including British troops. This is an example of the total blindness to Russian views that helped bring about the collapse of relations with Moscow before the beginning of the war.
For while such a force would not be formally under Nato, since it would be composed of member states and dependent on the alliance’s command structures and logistics, it is just as unacceptable to Moscow as actual Ukrainian membership. As a result, it will be categorically rejected in the negotiations.
Equally important is that, as European governments have stated, there is no chance of such a force being deployed unless the United States gave a categorical commitment to come to its aid if it were attacked. This, to all intents and purposes, would be the equivalent of a US Article 5 guarantee to Ukraine — which Trump is determined not to give. And of course even if these issues could miraculously be solved, Britain simply does not have the troops for such an operation.
As for the British government’s description of the latest agreement as a “Historic 100-Year Partnership”, what this says about the Ukraine war is perhaps less important — and certainly less depressing — than what it says about the British elites and their incorrigible combination of post-imperial megalomania with historical illiteracy. This mixture led us into the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, places which our own history should have taught us to know better.
The idea that anything in international affairs can be guaranteed for a hundred years is a piece of intellectual idiocy, rooted in a mystical notion of an eternal, unchanging “West” and a Nato forever at odds with an unchanging Russia. It also ignores the probable role of climate change in upending all current strategic concerns.
Over the past 250 years, Russia has been an ally of Britain against France, an enemy in the Crimean War, an ally and enemy of Germany in the First and Second World Wars, an adversary in the Cold War, a partner against Al Qaeda, and now an adversary again. Unfortunately, though, this history has been lost on Starmer and his cabinet — and it is Britain that will pay a heavy price for it.
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SubscribeIndeed. As Lord Palmerston put it “We have no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual”.
However, he was unaware of permanent enemy Keir Starmer who doesn’t understand or recognise Britain’s eternal and perpetual interests. Such a person leading a UK government would have been unimaginable in those days.
Why do we persist in publicly writing cheques we can’t cash? We’ve debased the concept of international intervention so thoroughly over the last generation or so that I honestly cringe on hearing of our latest bombastic international announcements.
Starmer is an enemy of the British people and a traitor. The whole western political class is a catastrophe.
Everybody, except the Guardian, seems to b saying this. But what happens now? A revolution would be correct in civilised African countries.
The good news is people are waking up to this fact.
I’m no fan, but the PM is not a traitor – at least not by any conventional meaning of the word.
Starmer loves a bit of flam.
The British political Establishment has developed an obsession with Russia that it believes will magically restore the UK’s Great Power status.
Meanwhile, the United States’ powerbrokers have duped them into believing the Ukraine is the tool for achieving the above. The only road to dominance is one of economic power for North America’s new international gas market.
Much truth to this article. But as usual you are missing the elephant in the room: Near as we can see Putin’s red line is that Ukraine must be defenceless, obedient, and subjugated to Russia. If that is where you think this should end, could you say it out loud? If it is not, could you consider how one might try to avoid it?
Interesting to see how the author, of Russian aristocratic stock himself, assumes that the West/ UK has reached such levels of cowardice and hypocrisy that whatever Russia under it’s criminal leader wants from Ukraine, it will get. May be true but hopefully not.
Thank you.
Could it be that Starmer is determined to shed Britain’s shameful record as “perfidious Albion”, and instead to revert the Anglo-Saxon, i.e. Germanic heritage of “Niebelungentreue”?
It worked so well for Germany!
Article 5 of the NATO Treaty does not compell any member to use military force but to take such action as it deems necessary. Surely the author knows this.
No US President has ever deemed it necessary to risk damage to the USA for the sake of another NATO member, nor ever will, let alone for Ukraine.
From Britain’s perspective, the Prime Minister has issued a verbal guarantee of long term support which cannot be fulfilled, and from which Britain derives no benefit whatsoever, but only liability.
In keeping with previous Prime Ministers it seems likely that Starmer is guaranteeing his own future prosperity with British taxpayers’ money, which would best be spent on benefiting the British people
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I don’t know how this will play out in the short term, but I know Russia is the enemy of the West now, and I’m pretty sure it will still be the enemy of the West in 100 years’ time. I see no issue with Britain signalling its support for the “good guys”, and its opposition to the “bad guys” by means of this pact.
I’d like the author to flesh out how climate change would change our strategic concerns. Or is he saying our future political response to climate change will change the strategic outlook.
Over the past 250 years, Russia has been an ally of Britain against France, an enemy in the Crimean War, an ally and enemy of Germany in the First and Second World Wars, an adversary in the Cold War, a partner against Al Qaeda, and now an adversary again. Unfortunately, though, this history has been lost on Starmer and his cabinet — and it is Britain that will pay a heavy price for it.
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Let’s kiss Putin below back
Why not make it 500 years and be done with it!? Lack of ambition…Plainly a last minute obstacle to throw in the path of Trump as he attempts peace negotiations. It would be like a cartoon villain throwing a bathtub out of the back of the escape car if it wasn’t so tragic and wicked and stuck in the Crimean War mentality re Russia.
Russia clearly can’t accept our troops in there, so how to undo it?