UK DELUSIONS

The crisis over Ukraine, the USA flipping from being a Western superpower and leader of NATO into being a Putin ally, has exposed the inability of the British ruling class to govern competently. Having botched the Brexit negotiations, shown themselves incompetent following Brexit, incompetent regarding border controls and dealing with the invasion across the Channel, and craven in paying Mauritius to take sovereignty of BIOT – now, once again, the British ruling class are failing to properly respond to the looming military crisis in Europe.

When the Russians invaded Ukraine, the West was slow to respond. Bit by bit, military and economic aid flowed in when it was clear that the Ukrainians were prepared to stand and fight. Restrictions were placed on Ukraine as to their usage of the weapons provided, and the weapons made available were also restricted (eg long range artillery), before being made available when they were needed to check the Russians.

Even so, the Ukrainians drove out the invaders from the north and east of Ukraine. However, in the south and south-east the Russians conquered significant territory. Presently, they are inching forwards there. A Ukrainian counter offensive some time ago failed to break through. That counter offensive was delayed and hampered by insufficient volumes of munitions being made available. Meanwhile, the Russians had used the time to prepare substantial defences.

During his presidential election campaign, President Trump said he wanted peace in Ukraine. Two weeks ago, President Trump, having had discussions with Russia, launched into a personal attack on Ukraine’s President Zelensky, who was accused of being a warmonger, being corrupt, and of being a dictator. At a notorious meeting in the Oval Office, to which Zelensky had been invited, Zelensky was attacked and a bad-tempered argument took place. The impression was that Zelensky had been ambushed and bullied – all on live television. Zelensky was then told to leave the White House.

In the previous couple of days first France’s President Macron, and Kier Starmer, the British prime minister, had visited the White House for meetings with President Trump. Those meetings were friendly, although nothing changed. Kier Starmer produced a letter from King Charles which invited President Trump to visit him. This was cited by many as being Britain’s soft power.

Following the row with Zelensky at the Oval Office, Zelensky visited London the next day and there was a hastily arranged meeting of several European leaders. This was all good stuff, although nothing much happened other than a plan to send 5,000 British troops to Ukraine, accompanied by a French force, to enforce a peace deal – the terms of which are not known and which had yet to be agreed.

On the Sunday, Kier Starmer assured, in a television interview on the BBC, that relations with the USA were still good and he hoped things would be OK.

On the Wednesday, it was put to Kier Starmer that the USA was about to stop any further arms shipments to Ukraine. Starmer denied any knowledge of this. Hours later, the arms shipments were stopped. The next day intelligence information to Ukraine was cut off and the UK was instructed not to leak any such information to that country.

Despite a pledge from Zelensky to accept the USA’s progamme for talks and to sign away mineral rights to them, the USA has continued to undermine Ukraine’s war effort. In practical terms, the USA has switched sides and is now backing Russia.

In the past couple of days, the EU (with an 800 billion euro fund), France, and Germany have all taken measures to begin re-arming. Around 1 trillion euros have been lobbed into the fray and the focus is on increasing military productive capacity, and to avoid, as far as possible, importing military equipment. By contrast, the UK has done nothing substantial other than to pledge to increase the Defence budget to 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2027.

Before the row with Zelensky, at a NATO Munich conference, Pete Hegseth, the US Defence Secretary, in simple language, forcefully told the other members of NATO that the USA intended focusing on the Pacific and would be reducing its commitment to the defence of Europe. There was a need for the European countries to increase their defence expenditure rather than continuing to freeload off the USA.

Despite Pete Hegseth’s warning, the British (including all parties in parliament) have continued to witter at the USA about the need for a back stop for the deployment of peace-keeping troops in the event of a peace agreement. The public was told that British soft power, in particular the King’s invitation, would help persuade President Trump to give in to British wittering. President Trump would be flattered and British diplomacy would prevail.

This has turned out to be typical British bullshit. The British ruling class is delusional. Their fawning and grovelling has not been persuasive and has been treated with contempt. For from the British playing Trump, Trump has been playing the British. He has accepted all the flattery and given up nothing. He is not even keeping Keir Starmer informed of US policy.

The wittering is making things worse. It provokes contempt, demonstrates an inability to understand what Pete Hegseth stated, and is an act of weakness. The back stop, namely air power, would not be needed if the Europeans had invested in their own air forces. This blog urged the British to do so a year ago. That blog post stemmed from a House of Lords report from the previous year.

Apart from taking a decision to press back into service some Typhoon fighters that had been recently scrapped, the UK is neither building any aircraft nor any warships. It has a handful of F-35 fighters on order from the USA.

Ukraine’s army is around 1 million strong, the other continental NATO countries have a combined total also 1 million strong (including reserves), and the Russian army is around 1.2 million. What on earth are 5,000 British troops supposed to be doing amongst that lot? One American contemptuously told an interviewer recently that the Royal Artillery has only 36 hours worth of artillery shells!

There is no shortage of ground troops in Ukraine. There is a shortage of munitions and equipment. There is a shortage of air power. If the USA withdraws its warships from the Gulf to concentrate its forces in the Pacific (the Chinese navy is the largest in the world and is expanding rapidly), then there will be a desperate shortage of naval power to escort the oil tankers to Europe.

The £4-5 billion annual cost of deploying 5,000 troops to Ukraine would buy 2 warships and 30 Typhoon fighters per year.

The Labour government remains committed to giving away BIOT to Mauritius along with a gift of £billions, and also determined to close the last two steel furnaces capable of producing virgin (high quality) steel needed for the defence industry, and is paying the Chinese owners £billions to carry this out. Climate change theories are more important than defence.

The UK has very little soft power. It is a delusion. What was once described as gesture military strategy in Afghanistan has become gesture military capability. It is time for the UK to get real. It is time to end the comforting delusions.