Fiction becomes fact; Life imitates Art. How else to describe Appeaser-in-Chief (another accolade to add to Fraudster-in-Chief; Liar-in-Chief; Rapist-in-Chief; Nonce-in-Chief; he can never be deserving of the title Commander-in-Chief) Donald Trump’s ninety minute phone (I think of the chant Leeds United fans would aim at the Peter Ridsdale regime “Ninety Lies A Minute”) call with his bromantic partner, Vladimir Putin to discuss their “peace plan” for Ukraine. A plan which like his Riviera Plan for Gaza disappears the population of the territories in both cases, for prime real estate in Condominium Gaza and mineral deposits in Ukraine. A plan which while resembling the division of Africa’s spoils in the 19th century by Europe’s rapacious colonial powers has an even more sinister and resonant historical echo – the bargaining away of the Sudetenland parts of Czechoslovakia by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to Adolf Hitler over the heads of another European democracy in the Munich Agreement in September 1938.
Now against the background of the European Security Conference in that same city; the leaders of two superpowers seek, in the name of another spurious “Peace In Our Time”, to reward an expansionist aggressor for their crimes by essentially giving them what they want – the permanent loss of Crimea and the Donbass and a permanent veto on Ukraine’s membership of NATO. At this latter day Munich moment; when the leader of the still preeminent world power and the supposedly ‘free world’ has stuck his isolationist middle finger to the rest of the Atlantic Alliance, the US led International Liberal Order (ILO), the much referenced rules based international order lies in ashes; the last rites of which were delivered by Vice President JD Vance’s preposterous “Europe’s Enemy Within” address to the Security Conference. Now that the US has abandoned any pretence of commitment to the defence of the territorial integrity of sovereign, democratic nations at the hands of who commit the supreme war crime of waging aggressive war, it is now time for Europe collectively through the EU and NATO and its component nations to step up to the plate and defend Ukraine or future target of Putin through all means necessary.
The rallying cry was sounded by President Zelensky when he called for the creation of a European army. Speaking as the leader of the country that is the first direct casualty of the rupture between Europe and Trumpian America; he voiced the unspoken fear of those in Europe not persuaded by the magical thinking of those in 10 Downing Street, the Elysée Place and other European seats of government that transatlantic relations can proceed with any degree of normality since the return of the Orange haired Ogre to the White House “that now we can’t rule out that America might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it ..” and in reference to his conversation with Don Diaper where the Orange Ogre refused to acknowledge any role for Europe in his deal with Putin - “The old days are over, when America supported Europe just because it always had.” So, the time had come for the creation of an armed forces of Europe.[1]
Exactly what form a pan-European military force will be chewed over by defence ministers and experts. Can NATO in its present form be a de facto force? Or will there have to be a revival of the Western European Union which existed from 1955 to 2011? Or will the European Union formally up its defence capacities and make the defence of the Union an animating mission statement through a creation of a standing army to which each member state would be required to contribute to? Whatever the format of any putative European defence force, the penny is dropping in European capitals that defence expenditure among EU member states (and in the UK) has to increase substantially; if not to the 5% annual average demanded by Trump (whose betrayal of Ukraine negates the force of the argument that Europe has for far too long piggy backed on US military muscle and willingness to back it with hard dollars). What will not suffice is the wishful thinking of David Lammy, the UK Foreign Secretary, who in his address to the Munich Security Conference argued that the best security guarantee for Ukraine against future Russian aggression was binding US industry, business, and defence capability into its future. In an expression of naivety with the pathos of Neville Chamberlain’s confidence for ‘Peace in Our Time” in the Bavarian capital in 1938, Lammy opined that “That is what will make Putin sit up and pay attention, and that is what’s attractive to a US President who knows how to get a good deal.”[2] Really, when the much vaunted Master Practitioner of The Art of the Deal has already given away his hand before going into the negotiating room by promising Russia can keep its stolen lands and its veto on Ukraine’s NATO membership. Easy deal when it is not his piece of real estate in a faraway continent that his MAGA base of ignoramuses may well never even have heard of, never mind visited. And, to sorry to disappoint David but the US Defence Secretary, alcoholic Private Pike Pete Hegseth, has explicitly ruling out US involvement in any peacekeeping roles in Ukraine as Europe’s security was no longer “Washington’s primary focus. That should be the cue for a collective “F____ You” from all of Europe.
If Trump’s unilateral initiative was the start of divorce proceedings from Europe, then JD Vance’s speech provided the funereal elegy in its specific rebuke of the ideology and values of modern Europe and the putting of ideological flesh on the MAGA project. For Vice-President Vance, Europe’s enemy is not a territorial aggrandising Russia or the technological tentacles of China but lies within. In Vance’s Populist Tale, this foe is the entrenched elite which had instrumentalised the judiciary, eroded freedom of speech to keep their cartel in power and run away from voter’s valid concerns about mass migration, leaving them locked out of political debate. In this Reform UK party political broadcast with a taste of faux erudition, Vance catalogued Europe’s supposed defects – “multiculturalism,” “globalism,” migration, gay rights, liberal “wokery,” censorship of conservative and religious viewpoints. The speech came perilously close to professing neutrality between the values of Russian elites and those of European elites.[3] In his urging for feelers to be out by European leaders to far right parties like AfD with roots in Nazism and fascism, Vance showed a callous disregard for Europe’s cataclysmic history with fascism which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reminded him, pointing out that the Holocaust and the other horrors of Nazism precluded working with the likes of the AfD, not censoring them.
And before we return to the topic of the need for collective European defence of Ukraine, let us look at the evidence that the Bearded Weed put forward for the suppression of the Alt-Right’s golden commodity – free speech. First up, was the “backslide away from conscience" in the UK which has “placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs." This is a reference to the conviction of Adam Smith-Corner, a physiotherapist and army veteran of, the “heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone” and was “sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution”. In fact, Smith-Connor was convicted in October 2024 of breaching a safe or buffer zone of 150 metres, set up under the Public Order Act 2023 around abortion clinics in England and Wales to prevent distress being caused to women by “pro-life” zealots brandishing foetal images. Smith-Connor’s case was brought after a public space protection order was introduced outside the Bournemouth clinic in October 2022, banning activity including protests, harassment, and vigils. The prosecution was brought by Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole council after he refused repeated requests to move away from the clinic and he was eventually given a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay more than £9,000 costs.[4]. Note, Bearded Midget, that Adam Smith-Conner was not convicted for the lawfully articulating his religious faith; he was not dismissed from employment for expressing his views; nor were his views censored by any public authority or private publisher. He broke laws promulgated by parliament; laws which all of us are obliged to obey. Of course, the rule of law is not something which the MAGA movement pay any attention to as the events of 6th January 2021 show.
Secondly referring to the Romania’s constitutional court’s decision in December 2024 to annul the early results of the country’s presidential election, Vance bloviated that former European commissioner Thierry Breton had “sounded delighted” that an “entire election” in Romania had been annulled and claimed that he had warned that if “things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too”. The truth is that the court had intervened after the revelation by declassified intelligence documents that there had been a massive and “highly organised” campaign for an independent far right candidate, Colin Georgescu - who has pledged to stop all Romanian political and military support for Ukraine if elected - on Tik Tok probably organised by a “state actor (Have a guess as to which one. Couple of clues. Think the Brexit referendum and the first election of Trump. You will probably, Dear Reader, be able to come up with other examples). In response, Breton had said “Let us keep calm and enforce our laws in Europe when they are at risk of being circumvented [..]. We did it in Romania, and we will obviously do it, if necessary, in Germany.” For the benefit of JD, the third person plural in Monsieur Breton’s statement refers to the independent judiciary and officials tasked with upholding the integrity of election processes in each EU individual member state. The EU has No mechanism to nullify any election in the EU. Such accusations about nullifying elections of course stick in the craw when one recalls the Orange Ogre’s attempts to violently and illegally nullify the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.[5].
So, there you have it. Free Speech for the Orange Ogre and his sidekick, the Bearded Skunk and for the tech bros Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg with their ready-made bully pulpits and cash cows. But Expensive Speech for the those in their firing range which unfortunately is much of humanity in this hyper-connected world. But whither free speech for the librarians forced to remove books from the shelves of school libraries which discuss LTGB and transgender topics as well as on African history.?Whither free speech for the Associated Press (AP) banned from the White House because it has not changed its stylebook entry for Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America? Wither free speech when Trump pursues lawfare against media outlets to circumvent established First Amendment protections while his allies are using the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to target broadcast news networks whose content they deem unfavourable? Wither free speech or freedom of expression or inquiry when Trump makes a hostile takeover of the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts because, despite not having attended the centre (sound familiar), of drag shows that are “specifically targeting our youth” as well as other “anti-American propaganda.” Trump’s cultural mission is simple: “There’s no more woke in this country.”[6] Truly “free speech” has the same Orwellian lexicological aura as “Work Makes Free” or “Reeducation.”
While Europe is rightly angered by its abandonment by a US administration that has barely conceded contempt for the liberal democratic values which still but rather more tenuously binds the EU and its former member together, European policy makers and defence chiefs cannot claim to be surprised by this moment. The grim portents were there in Trump’s second successful election campaign with his promise to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of becoming President; an impossibly grandiose promise like all of his pledges but in retrospect was a threat to go over the heads of Europe and Ukraine to divide the spoils of Putin’s aggression between the two Mob chiefs. It is hard to believe that Europe’s defence and foreign policy ministers would not have privately stress-tested the EU and its member states (and the new British Labour government as well) for the return of Trump to the White House. After all, Trump 1.0 provided a sneak preview with the Orange Ogre’s obsequious fawning of Putin in Helsinki in 2018, and there was no end of warnings from long-in-the-tooth US foreign policy establishment figures such as John Bolton about the damage his transactional approach would do to traditional US alliances. While Trump’s blaming of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people for the unprovoked aggression visited for them and his assertion that “Ukraine will be Russian again" (sentiments shared by the contemptibles of the far right and far left) is nauseous in the extreme, he and past US administrations have a case when they complain that European countries have contributed less than they could towards the cost of their collective defence. It has taken the thunderclap of the Trump betrayal of Kiev’s leading supporters – Britain, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, Poland’s Donald Tusk and their allies in Scandinavia and the Baltic States – who have wrongly put their trust in US leadership and the undercutting of NATO’s raison d’etre and rule book it was created to uphold. Many at last week’s Munich security conference recalled that NATO members rallied to America’s aid in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan under the “attack on one, attack on all proviso of Article 5 of NATO’s constitution in the face of vociferous protests from many of their citizens to awaken Europe of the need to take charge of its own destiny. Or it should. Will it take Trump’s threatened departure from NATO to make this happen? It could be a good option all round.[7]
So, what practically can Europe and the wider NATO family do to save Ukraine and deter future aggression on it and other democratic nations on the European continent? A good starting point would be to ramp up French President Macron’s repeated call for the EU to develop its own collective, non-NATO defence force, arms procurement, and manufacturing.[8] What Europe does not lack is the resources to protect itself without US help. Russia’s population is about 144 million. The total population of NATO countries, excluding the US, is over 636 million and their combined economic heft is about twelve times that of Russia. But while the means are there, the will is lacking. Last year eight of NATO’s thirty two members were still not meeting the modest obligation to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. By contrast, the latest report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies states that Moscow is feeding more resources into its mincing machine than the entirety of non-Russian Europe is spending on defence. Certainly, frontline NATO states, most notably Poland, have upped their defence budgets in response to the mauling of Ukraine.[9]
Defence spending will soon rise up the agenda of British politics with a strategic defence review led by the former Lord George Robertson, former Secretary-General of NATO and Defence Secretary in Tony Blair’s government, finding that Britain is not adequately resourcing its security, and the current Defence Secretary, John Healey decrying the “hollowed out” armed forces left by the Tories; forces which according to one of his junior ministers would not last six months in a Ukraine-style conflict. In the realm of cyberwarfare, the head of the National Cyber Security Centre has cautioned that Britain’s shields are inadequately prepared to combat myriads of threats from enemy actors. With the heads of the armed forces asking for an additional £10bn a year more than has been budgeted for, the stage is set for a tight tussle with a Treasury which traditionally views the defence sector as a prodigious basket case and with a current Chancellor boxed in by self-imposed tax and spending restrictions plus competing demands for funding of public services and a British public which currently does not see defence and security as a priority (only 1 in 50 voters ranked defence as a top issue in deciding how to vote in last July’s General Election)[10].
As I write this European leaders are meeting in emergency session to unscramble the dramatic events of last weeks and the two villains of the piece (that’s Deceitful Don and Vlad the Terrible and their Foreign Ministers) are meeting in Saudi Arabia to commence their “peace talks” with no participation from Ukraine. In his role as interlocutor between the EU and the White House, PM Keir Starmer has promised to send British troops as part of a “peace keeping” force should peace, hope and joy emerge from Muhammad Bin Salan’s lair. Rain on your parties, folks because, to quote the cardinal principle in health service advocacy “Nothing With Us; Nothing Without Us.” Nothing With Ukraine, Nothing Without Ukraine as President Zelensky says. But Keir, are you seriously going to put boots on the ground to enforce a Sudetenland type peace in our time? Never!
Slavi Ukraini! No Surrender to Putin! No Surrender to Trump! Viva Europa!
[1] The Observer 16 February 2025 p.5.
[2] Ibid, p.4
[3] Patrick Wintour, The transatlantic alliance is dead, split by ideological chasms. The Observer 16 February 2025
[4] Daniel Boffey and Alexandra Topping Has Europe really gone off the rails? What Vance said yesterday – factchecked. Guardian. 15th February 2025 p.9.
[5] Ibid
[6] David Smith A sea is renamed … now Trump is gunning for the arts and media. The Observer. 16th February 2025 pp.26-27.
[7] Simon Tisdall, Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine has emboldened Putin and pulled the rug from under NATO allies. The Observer Comment & Analysis, p.41.
[8] Ibid
[9] Andew Rawnsley, Europeans are right to be angry with Trump, but they should also be furious with themselves. The Observer, Comment & Analysis, p.43.
[10] Ibid
The rallying cry was sounded by President Zelensky when he called for the creation of a European army. Speaking as the leader of the country that is the first direct casualty of the rupture between Europe and Trumpian America; he voiced the unspoken fear of those in Europe not persuaded by the magical thinking of those in 10 Downing Street, the Elysée Place and other European seats of government that transatlantic relations can proceed with any degree of normality since the return of the Orange haired Ogre to the White House “that now we can’t rule out that America might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it ..” and in reference to his conversation with Don Diaper where the Orange Ogre refused to acknowledge any role for Europe in his deal with Putin - “The old days are over, when America supported Europe just because it always had.” So, the time had come for the creation of an armed forces of Europe.[1]
Exactly what form a pan-European military force will be chewed over by defence ministers and experts. Can NATO in its present form be a de facto force? Or will there have to be a revival of the Western European Union which existed from 1955 to 2011? Or will the European Union formally up its defence capacities and make the defence of the Union an animating mission statement through a creation of a standing army to which each member state would be required to contribute to? Whatever the format of any putative European defence force, the penny is dropping in European capitals that defence expenditure among EU member states (and in the UK) has to increase substantially; if not to the 5% annual average demanded by Trump (whose betrayal of Ukraine negates the force of the argument that Europe has for far too long piggy backed on US military muscle and willingness to back it with hard dollars). What will not suffice is the wishful thinking of David Lammy, the UK Foreign Secretary, who in his address to the Munich Security Conference argued that the best security guarantee for Ukraine against future Russian aggression was binding US industry, business, and defence capability into its future. In an expression of naivety with the pathos of Neville Chamberlain’s confidence for ‘Peace in Our Time” in the Bavarian capital in 1938, Lammy opined that “That is what will make Putin sit up and pay attention, and that is what’s attractive to a US President who knows how to get a good deal.”[2] Really, when the much vaunted Master Practitioner of The Art of the Deal has already given away his hand before going into the negotiating room by promising Russia can keep its stolen lands and its veto on Ukraine’s NATO membership. Easy deal when it is not his piece of real estate in a faraway continent that his MAGA base of ignoramuses may well never even have heard of, never mind visited. And, to sorry to disappoint David but the US Defence Secretary, alcoholic Private Pike Pete Hegseth, has explicitly ruling out US involvement in any peacekeeping roles in Ukraine as Europe’s security was no longer “Washington’s primary focus. That should be the cue for a collective “F____ You” from all of Europe.
If Trump’s unilateral initiative was the start of divorce proceedings from Europe, then JD Vance’s speech provided the funereal elegy in its specific rebuke of the ideology and values of modern Europe and the putting of ideological flesh on the MAGA project. For Vice-President Vance, Europe’s enemy is not a territorial aggrandising Russia or the technological tentacles of China but lies within. In Vance’s Populist Tale, this foe is the entrenched elite which had instrumentalised the judiciary, eroded freedom of speech to keep their cartel in power and run away from voter’s valid concerns about mass migration, leaving them locked out of political debate. In this Reform UK party political broadcast with a taste of faux erudition, Vance catalogued Europe’s supposed defects – “multiculturalism,” “globalism,” migration, gay rights, liberal “wokery,” censorship of conservative and religious viewpoints. The speech came perilously close to professing neutrality between the values of Russian elites and those of European elites.[3] In his urging for feelers to be out by European leaders to far right parties like AfD with roots in Nazism and fascism, Vance showed a callous disregard for Europe’s cataclysmic history with fascism which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reminded him, pointing out that the Holocaust and the other horrors of Nazism precluded working with the likes of the AfD, not censoring them.
And before we return to the topic of the need for collective European defence of Ukraine, let us look at the evidence that the Bearded Weed put forward for the suppression of the Alt-Right’s golden commodity – free speech. First up, was the “backslide away from conscience" in the UK which has “placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs." This is a reference to the conviction of Adam Smith-Corner, a physiotherapist and army veteran of, the “heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone” and was “sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution”. In fact, Smith-Connor was convicted in October 2024 of breaching a safe or buffer zone of 150 metres, set up under the Public Order Act 2023 around abortion clinics in England and Wales to prevent distress being caused to women by “pro-life” zealots brandishing foetal images. Smith-Connor’s case was brought after a public space protection order was introduced outside the Bournemouth clinic in October 2022, banning activity including protests, harassment, and vigils. The prosecution was brought by Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole council after he refused repeated requests to move away from the clinic and he was eventually given a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay more than £9,000 costs.[4]. Note, Bearded Midget, that Adam Smith-Conner was not convicted for the lawfully articulating his religious faith; he was not dismissed from employment for expressing his views; nor were his views censored by any public authority or private publisher. He broke laws promulgated by parliament; laws which all of us are obliged to obey. Of course, the rule of law is not something which the MAGA movement pay any attention to as the events of 6th January 2021 show.
Secondly referring to the Romania’s constitutional court’s decision in December 2024 to annul the early results of the country’s presidential election, Vance bloviated that former European commissioner Thierry Breton had “sounded delighted” that an “entire election” in Romania had been annulled and claimed that he had warned that if “things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too”. The truth is that the court had intervened after the revelation by declassified intelligence documents that there had been a massive and “highly organised” campaign for an independent far right candidate, Colin Georgescu - who has pledged to stop all Romanian political and military support for Ukraine if elected - on Tik Tok probably organised by a “state actor (Have a guess as to which one. Couple of clues. Think the Brexit referendum and the first election of Trump. You will probably, Dear Reader, be able to come up with other examples). In response, Breton had said “Let us keep calm and enforce our laws in Europe when they are at risk of being circumvented [..]. We did it in Romania, and we will obviously do it, if necessary, in Germany.” For the benefit of JD, the third person plural in Monsieur Breton’s statement refers to the independent judiciary and officials tasked with upholding the integrity of election processes in each EU individual member state. The EU has No mechanism to nullify any election in the EU. Such accusations about nullifying elections of course stick in the craw when one recalls the Orange Ogre’s attempts to violently and illegally nullify the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.[5].
So, there you have it. Free Speech for the Orange Ogre and his sidekick, the Bearded Skunk and for the tech bros Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg with their ready-made bully pulpits and cash cows. But Expensive Speech for the those in their firing range which unfortunately is much of humanity in this hyper-connected world. But whither free speech for the librarians forced to remove books from the shelves of school libraries which discuss LTGB and transgender topics as well as on African history.?Whither free speech for the Associated Press (AP) banned from the White House because it has not changed its stylebook entry for Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America? Wither free speech when Trump pursues lawfare against media outlets to circumvent established First Amendment protections while his allies are using the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to target broadcast news networks whose content they deem unfavourable? Wither free speech or freedom of expression or inquiry when Trump makes a hostile takeover of the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts because, despite not having attended the centre (sound familiar), of drag shows that are “specifically targeting our youth” as well as other “anti-American propaganda.” Trump’s cultural mission is simple: “There’s no more woke in this country.”[6] Truly “free speech” has the same Orwellian lexicological aura as “Work Makes Free” or “Reeducation.”
While Europe is rightly angered by its abandonment by a US administration that has barely conceded contempt for the liberal democratic values which still but rather more tenuously binds the EU and its former member together, European policy makers and defence chiefs cannot claim to be surprised by this moment. The grim portents were there in Trump’s second successful election campaign with his promise to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of becoming President; an impossibly grandiose promise like all of his pledges but in retrospect was a threat to go over the heads of Europe and Ukraine to divide the spoils of Putin’s aggression between the two Mob chiefs. It is hard to believe that Europe’s defence and foreign policy ministers would not have privately stress-tested the EU and its member states (and the new British Labour government as well) for the return of Trump to the White House. After all, Trump 1.0 provided a sneak preview with the Orange Ogre’s obsequious fawning of Putin in Helsinki in 2018, and there was no end of warnings from long-in-the-tooth US foreign policy establishment figures such as John Bolton about the damage his transactional approach would do to traditional US alliances. While Trump’s blaming of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people for the unprovoked aggression visited for them and his assertion that “Ukraine will be Russian again" (sentiments shared by the contemptibles of the far right and far left) is nauseous in the extreme, he and past US administrations have a case when they complain that European countries have contributed less than they could towards the cost of their collective defence. It has taken the thunderclap of the Trump betrayal of Kiev’s leading supporters – Britain, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, Poland’s Donald Tusk and their allies in Scandinavia and the Baltic States – who have wrongly put their trust in US leadership and the undercutting of NATO’s raison d’etre and rule book it was created to uphold. Many at last week’s Munich security conference recalled that NATO members rallied to America’s aid in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan under the “attack on one, attack on all proviso of Article 5 of NATO’s constitution in the face of vociferous protests from many of their citizens to awaken Europe of the need to take charge of its own destiny. Or it should. Will it take Trump’s threatened departure from NATO to make this happen? It could be a good option all round.[7]
So, what practically can Europe and the wider NATO family do to save Ukraine and deter future aggression on it and other democratic nations on the European continent? A good starting point would be to ramp up French President Macron’s repeated call for the EU to develop its own collective, non-NATO defence force, arms procurement, and manufacturing.[8] What Europe does not lack is the resources to protect itself without US help. Russia’s population is about 144 million. The total population of NATO countries, excluding the US, is over 636 million and their combined economic heft is about twelve times that of Russia. But while the means are there, the will is lacking. Last year eight of NATO’s thirty two members were still not meeting the modest obligation to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. By contrast, the latest report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies states that Moscow is feeding more resources into its mincing machine than the entirety of non-Russian Europe is spending on defence. Certainly, frontline NATO states, most notably Poland, have upped their defence budgets in response to the mauling of Ukraine.[9]
Defence spending will soon rise up the agenda of British politics with a strategic defence review led by the former Lord George Robertson, former Secretary-General of NATO and Defence Secretary in Tony Blair’s government, finding that Britain is not adequately resourcing its security, and the current Defence Secretary, John Healey decrying the “hollowed out” armed forces left by the Tories; forces which according to one of his junior ministers would not last six months in a Ukraine-style conflict. In the realm of cyberwarfare, the head of the National Cyber Security Centre has cautioned that Britain’s shields are inadequately prepared to combat myriads of threats from enemy actors. With the heads of the armed forces asking for an additional £10bn a year more than has been budgeted for, the stage is set for a tight tussle with a Treasury which traditionally views the defence sector as a prodigious basket case and with a current Chancellor boxed in by self-imposed tax and spending restrictions plus competing demands for funding of public services and a British public which currently does not see defence and security as a priority (only 1 in 50 voters ranked defence as a top issue in deciding how to vote in last July’s General Election)[10].
As I write this European leaders are meeting in emergency session to unscramble the dramatic events of last weeks and the two villains of the piece (that’s Deceitful Don and Vlad the Terrible and their Foreign Ministers) are meeting in Saudi Arabia to commence their “peace talks” with no participation from Ukraine. In his role as interlocutor between the EU and the White House, PM Keir Starmer has promised to send British troops as part of a “peace keeping” force should peace, hope and joy emerge from Muhammad Bin Salan’s lair. Rain on your parties, folks because, to quote the cardinal principle in health service advocacy “Nothing With Us; Nothing Without Us.” Nothing With Ukraine, Nothing Without Ukraine as President Zelensky says. But Keir, are you seriously going to put boots on the ground to enforce a Sudetenland type peace in our time? Never!
Slavi Ukraini! No Surrender to Putin! No Surrender to Trump! Viva Europa!
[1] The Observer 16 February 2025 p.5.
[2] Ibid, p.4
[3] Patrick Wintour, The transatlantic alliance is dead, split by ideological chasms. The Observer 16 February 2025
[4] Daniel Boffey and Alexandra Topping Has Europe really gone off the rails? What Vance said yesterday – factchecked. Guardian. 15th February 2025 p.9.
[5] Ibid
[6] David Smith A sea is renamed … now Trump is gunning for the arts and media. The Observer. 16th February 2025 pp.26-27.
[7] Simon Tisdall, Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine has emboldened Putin and pulled the rug from under NATO allies. The Observer Comment & Analysis, p.41.
[8] Ibid
[9] Andew Rawnsley, Europeans are right to be angry with Trump, but they should also be furious with themselves. The Observer, Comment & Analysis, p.43.
[10] Ibid
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
AfD leader Alice Weidel is a lesbian and married to a woman from Sri Lanka. Not sure what Barry's definition of Nazism is but I am fairly certain they weren't too fond of the gays in Nazi Germany.
ReplyDeleteChungus, I never said AfD are Nazis although they have their origins in it. One's race, sex or sexuality is no vaccine against racism or facism.
DeleteThere's almost a mania behind your pieces Barry, they'd be a lot more cutting without the incessant caricature of Trump or your other protagonists.
ReplyDeleteVance's speech was all for US domestic consumption. Trump is rattling cages to get deals, as that's all he cares about. I'd be more wary of Putin getting the eastern Ukraine region and the US annexing Greenland in some sort of under the table shenanigan's. South Korea should be worried too.
In that scenario it is starting to sound ominously like the Stalinist-Nazi pact to carve up Poland.
DeleteThose are exactly my worries as well, Steve. Trump blaming Ukraine for starting the war makes my blood boil over
ReplyDeleteI don't know why Barry. He lies about everything else so will obviously lie about Ukraine. What should perhaps annoy you more is the support a Trump-Putin pact is likely to receive from some claiming to be on the Left. Not, however, the first time that a section of the Left has been in bed with the far right.
DeleteAbsolutely, Anthony. Trump is spouting word for word the pro Putin line of both far left and right
ReplyDeleteStalinists and Nazis just choose different pathways to power. I suppose that is what makes a strategic symbiosis that much easier.
DeleteLove him or hater him...The Donald is great box office...
ReplyDeleteAnyone disagree with me now about The Donald being box office....?
DeleteTo paraphrase a line from the Godfather----"Rambo isn't a war time consigliere"...
All he had to do was sign the deal and the war stops.
Great box office for those in Ukraine who have seen tens of thousands of their compatriots killed and disabled by Trump's buddy and for the thousands losing their jobs at the hands of Musk
ReplyDeleteBarry, for people like Frankie who see little to choose from between Biden and Trump, then Trump puts on a circus. OK, people are losing their jobs but the genocide has at least been paused.
DeleteUntil Trump empties Gaza of its people.
ReplyDeleteThat's true but until it happens . . . we can't blame Trump for what he might do but for what he has done. We can most certainly blame Biden.
DeletePeople like Frankie laugh at the absurdity Trump brings not at the people he victimises. If you recall Sean Spicer from the first Trump admin - it was hilarious watching him wriggle and writhe.
Trump can't empty Gaza of it's people, absolutely no other Arab nation wants them. The biggest wall around Gaza was built by the Egyptians who state repeatedly they don't want them. Unless Trump is prepared to allow them all to move to the US, this like most other things he says is an escaped brainfart.
DeleteHis obsession with the Hunter Biden laptop, Fauci and the USAID abolition suggests the oppositem
ReplyDeleteI think what he does is flag up the hypocrisy of the Biden admin
DeleteI don't think he cares for Trump any more than I do but he is not willing to be deluded by the Democrats and pretend that they are much better.
DeleteBarry do you honestly believe there isn't anything untoward with Hunter Biden's lap top, Fauci's antics or the eye-opening waste of USAID?
DeleteThe older I get the more I believe all politicians are self serving amoral sociopaths, and at the highest levels of public service they are adept at being held unaccountable. Your comments/articles seem to exist in a binary worldview were delineation is clearly marked. The Democrats are/were no better or worse than Trump. Thinking on it some more I can't remember ANY politician who was beyond reproach.
Barry,
DeleteHis obsession with the Hunter Biden laptop, Fauci and the USAID abolition suggests the oppositem
If Happy Hunter's laptop belonged to any person in The Donald's family not only would you and Christy be saying......."the laptop proves everything, he is a puppet for both Russia and China"........... Every Main Stream Media Organisation and every weak, wank, woke, leftist vegan would be saying the same.
Truth is, it was the Biden crime family who laundered tens of millions of Russian and Chinese money via Ukraine and into offshore bank accounts. Here Zuckerberg explains to Joe Rogan how the FBI told him that all stories about Happy Hunter's laptop, had to be shut down and spin the yarn it is Russian disinformation, because the FBI knew it would alter the 2020 elections if the contents became public knowledge.
Fauci is a fraud and he was one of the faces of one of the biggest psyops the world has seen.---the Bat Flu Psyop. That's why Creepy Joe gave Fauci a preemptive pardon. And in the letter explaining the pardon Creepy Joe had this to say...
I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing. Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong—and in fact have done the right thing—and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.
(Isn't that what the Deep State looney left have been doing with The Donald and his family since 2016?)
You could listen to Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan explaining why he ended Fact Checking and being pressured by the Biden Administration to cancel anyone who dissented against Fauci.....
As for USAID, simply go back and read my comments, open the links I provided in this piece recommended by Christy Walsh .
Steve, the contention is that all politicians are the same is a poison that has seeped into our discourse under the guise of so called elitism. It's basically the graffiti of populism particularly of the far right. I am sick of it and I make no apology for calling Trump and MAGA far right filth. End of.
ReplyDeleteBarry, you seem to subject anyone you don't like to a plethora of flowery adjectives while ignoring information that contradicts your narrative such as my comment on AfD leader. The constant brow-beating amd outrage has worked for the past decade. Now people have stopped caring.
DeleteBarry,
Deleteall politicians are not the same but Steve is right in his inference that the common denominator is that none of them can be trusted. Nor is it a charge specific to the far right. The accusation that there is no difference between any of them is timeless and has its origins in people being shafted equally by them all.
There should be no surprise here given that the structure of the liberal democratic system works incessantly to shape politicians so that they acquiesce in the establishment so that the establishment never acquiesces in them.
You support Keir Starmer yet he advocated war crimes in Gaza. You make your choice not because you support war crimes but you feel that Starmer might be better, even marginally so, than the next bollix. But always remember that the difference is only ever marginal.
Why should people see an appreciable difference between Biden and Trump when Biden sponsored and armed genocide? What is ethically worse - the sacking of huge amounts of workers or the slaughter of huge amounts of children?
You are entitled to your view on these matters but so too are those who have a different opinion for very good reason. You ranting at them does nothing for your view and merely makes people more interested in theirs.
Barry,
DeleteI note that you, like most adept politician's, have not addressed my question.
"“Always remember that when you're pointing your finger at someone, you've got three pointing back at yourself.”
Be careful you do not become the thing you profess disdain for.
Chungus, the AfD's personal life is irrelevant to the toxicity of its anti migrant discourse. Pim Fortuyn founder of the Dutch Freedom Party was gay
ReplyDeleteTrump this week endorsed Russia war crimes including the supreme one on waging aggressive and unprovoked war through his brazen lies about Ukraine and it's President
ReplyDeleteYou are spot on. But Biden through his lies endorsed Israeli war crimes which are on a much grander scale than those perpetrated by Russia. Don't delude yourself that Biden supported Ukraine out of any sense of human rights commitment or out of concern for international justice. Had the Israelis been attacking Ukraine rather than the Russians Biden would have been arming them. You might start considering that people have good reason for not embracing your virulence towards Trump. I happen to agree with your take on him but don't think Biden was any better.
DeleteFrankie, bearing in mind Trump's betrayal of Ukraine and Europe last week; I am not interested in engaging with those who parrot his lies and that means you. Just wallow in your drug addled paranoia and conspiracist.
ReplyDelete.
The ‘left’ that backs Trump / Putin on Ukraine – and laughs
ReplyDeleteJim Denham Biden, Boris Johnson, Campism, Conspiracy theories, Democracy, Dictatorship, Far Right, Human Rights, Imperialism, Putin, Reactionary "anti imperialism", Red-Brown, Republican Party, Russia, Stalinism, Stop the War Coalition, Trump, Ukraine, War February 25, 2025 5 Minutes
Trump Putin
[File: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP]
By Jim Denham
The Morning Star, like the rest of the Stalinist and campist ‘left’ that in reality backs Putin’s invasion, has been proved wrong about Ukraine time and again.
Remember, these people assured us in the weeks prior to 24 February 2022, that no invasion would happen. Then they opposed the provision of arms, arguing that Ukrainian resistance was futile. Then they argued that ‘negotiations’ would bring an end to the war, as though Putin was open to genuine negotiations.
Most frustrating for the Putin-appeasers in the UK, has been the refusal of most of the labour and trade union movement to listen to them. Resolutions and statements from trade unions supporting Ukraine have been either completely ignored or scolded as right wing or “warmongering” by the Morning Star.
Finally, Trump has come to the Stalinists’ rescue by offering Putin everything he wants while denouncing Zelenskyy as a corrupt dictator who started the war!) The MS’s immediate reaction was to gloat that “It is an indictment of three years of Western policy that it should take a Fox News host and extreme white nationalist [Trump’s drunken defence secretary Pete Hegseth – JD] to spell out the truths about the war in Ukraine … Indeed the peace plan as outlined echoes the calls made by some on the left ever since the outset of the war”(editorial 14 February).
(By “some on the left” the MS clearly means the Putin-appeasing “left” like itself, the Communist Party of Britain and the Stop the War Coalition).https://shirazsocialism.wordpress.com/2025/02/25/the-left-that-backs-trump-putin-on-ukraine-and-laughs/
Has there been a working class or progressive struggle yet that has not been shafted by the various CPs?
DeleteFrankie, so Zelensky should have signed over his violated and raped country over to two superpower gangsters like Trump and Putin,? Like the division of Poland by Hitler and Stalin. What a knob you are.
ReplyDeleteOr like the Scramble for Africa or the Yalta division of Europe
Delete