Yesterday I started to share my thoughts about Ukraine and President Trump’s actions. I also mentioned how Keir Starmer had responded. As a British citizen, I am more concerned about what our Prime Minister is doing and so I wanted to flesh that out more.
There has been one small positive. President Trump has been parroting Putin’s propaganda, suggesting that Ukraine started the war and that Zelenski has no democratic mandate. European leaders including Starmer have rejected this.
However, Starmer has seemed keen to play the statesman, acting as a bridge between Europe and America. In order to do this he has made a commitment to put British troops into Ukraine and attempted to get the US to act as some kind of military backstop.
In so doing, he has forgotten the first rule of statesmanship. You don’t become a statesman by acting the part but by actually doing what is right and necessary.
In this case, he has acted weakly and recklessly. First, although European statements have talked about the need for Ukraine to be involved in any negotiations, they have also added in Europe. This misses the point. Ukraine is the wronged party here. Therefore, the only party to peace talks with Russia required is Ukraine. The only reason why other countries should be involved is to support them.
It is also crucial therefore to recognise that countries are not neutral in this context and cannot morally be neutral between the aggressor and victim. Neither the UK nor the US can pretend to be neutral mediators though this does not mean they cannot play a role in facilitating peace negotiations.
The problem therefore is that President Trump has acted increasingly as a co-belligerent in Russia’s aggression by making economic demands on Ukraine and by parroting Putin’s propaganda and which is intended to destabilise Ukraine. JD Vance’s hectoring of President Zelenski adds to this.
Therefore, first of all, the UK should be clear, publicly and privately with the US that an attempt by them to negotiate a deal with Russia that suits Putin and Trump is unacceptable. Peace negotiations must start with proposals from Ukraine. Indeed, peace must mean nothing less than a full withdrawal by Russia from Ukrainian territory.
Secondly, the UK should not at this stage be talking about providing “peace keeping” forces when an acceptable peace proposal is not in place. This has given credibility to the Trump/Putin proposals. At a minimum Starmer should have made it clear that any involvement will only be to support a peace proposed and agreed by Ukraine. However, better still would have been if he had not mentioned such commitments at all.
Of course, Putin will and has insisted at this stage that Starmer’s plan is unacceptable because Russia will not countenance NATo troops in Ukraine. What this does is keep his options open. He can either compromise on this later, knowing it still suits him or alternatively he can use this as a pretext to keep going with the war effort knowing that Trump is both likely to withdraw military aid to Ukraine and to end US support for sanctions.
As well as emboldening Trump and Putin, Starmer’s proposals will put the UK directly at risk of being drawn into a future, potentially nuclear conflict. If Russia resumed its attacks, our troops on the ground would need to either return fire in which case we become part of the war or we withdraw in which case what is the point of us being there. In fact one gets the impression that our presence would be more about restraining Ukraine from any thought of returning to conflict in order to reclaim lost territory.
It is worth noting that Starmer’s proposals for a very small force fall well short of anything approaching a serious deterrent. Meanwhile Starmer has failed to commit to the kind of defence spending either to provide such a deterrent or to even protect Britain and her NATO allies should the US disengage from Europe.
Thirdly, I think that we are at a stage where Trump’s behaviour on a range of issues, his threats to Greenland, his effective engagement in economic war with Canada and his attempts to manipulate UK domestic tax policy are unacceptable and outside of the spirit of the NATO treaty. Instead of standing with his allies, Trump has sought to weaken them. Trump should be challenged on this.
There may be pressure that we can exercise on Trump. I suspect that our negotiating power with him has been weakened by our giving up of the Chagos Islands. If we hadn’t done this, I would be reviewing legal options regarding continued US lease of the base.
We also need to be explicitly clear that we are not going to put the King in the embarrassing position of inviting Trump on a state visit. Not that I think such a visit should be on the table in the first place.
Once again, we need to be fundamentally clear through words and actions that we stand by our commitment to Ukraine, that anything other than a full withdrawal by Russia is unacceptable.
Faithroots 