Is anyone buying Keir Starmer in his Oscar winning role as ‘Churchill-lite statesman trying to stop a war’?
I’m not – not for a single second. How did it happen that THE most hapless, incompetent, inadequate leader this country has ever had, a man who cannot control his own country’s borders, suddenly finds himself promising to secure the borders of another – Ukraine.
Its farcical. This is the man who robbed pensioners of their winter fuel allowance because we had no money, who is trying to fleece farmers, who is pushing thousands of small business to the brink of bankruptcy with his tax rises, but Hey Presto he can suddenly shake the magic money tree and find billions to mount a peacekeeping force in Ukraine-money no object.
Suddenly there’s billions going spare – and for what?
Not to save Ukraine that’s for sure. Because no EU leader, no peacekeeping force is going to stop the Russia/Ukraine war. Yes there WILL be a peace deal but it won’t be negotiated by the PM or any of the EU leaders who are currently politicking like crazy to make themselves look effective and like they’re an alternative power source to Washington. They’re not. They’re minnows with no clout, no money and no power .
Like it or not – and believe me I don’t like it – the peace deal will be negotiated by Trump and Putin and the EU won’t even have a seat at the negotiating table.
But for Starmer this current situation is a Godsend for his tattered reputation. And what he’s doing is all gesture politics and hot air (albeit supportive hot air for Ukraine) because he knows full well Putin will never allow a peacekeeping force in Ukraine and so he’s playing elder statesman and making promises he knows he can’t keep – just like he did with us Brits before the election.
General Lord Richard Dannatt has already said this country can’t afford to finance Ukraine’s war effort as Britain has only 56,000 deployable troops and our military is in tatters thanks to years of underfunding.
The EU has already said that the whole of Europe can only offer three brigades of 15,000 soldiers at any one time to be patrolling Ukraine. And as Zelensky reckons he’d need at least 200,000 to keep Putin out of Ukraine – how’s a piddling 15,000 going to help? Zelensky has also made clear that no peace deal or peacekeeping force will work without the U.S. involvement and he’s dead right.
Put simply Starmer and Europe’s role here is not to negotiate the peace – because they can’t. It’s to persuade Zelensky to accept Trump and Putin’s carve up of Ukraine.
And no that’s not bloody fair. Its hideous not least because of all the Ukrainians who have fought with heart and courage to protect their country from the tyrant Putin. And it’s entirely morally wrong that Putin can just march into a country and when it’s all over keep a big chunk of it.
Keir Starmer with President Zelensky and President Macron
Getty
But in the REAL world if this war is to stop compromises have to be made.
The cruel, hard facts are that Brits and Europeans don’t want to die for Ukraine. They don’t want their children to be sent to die for Ukraine.
The other indisputable fact is that Yes, a deal will be made but it will be made between Trump and Putin with Starmer and Europe as mere by-standers.
So it really does stick in my craw that Starmer is making personal capital out of the Ukraine tragedy and the impossible position Zelensky finds himself in.
Starmer is milking this for all he’s worth and using it to repair a reputation (HIS) that was in the toilet.
And yet again he is promising things he can’t deliver – the peace keeping force for one as Putin will never accept it. He’s also telling anyone who’ll listen that Ukraine is fast travelling down a road that ends in NATO member when that’s absolute bunkum. Ukraine is a million miles away from that so why is he giving these poor people false hope and over promising them in exactly the same way he over promised the British people.
The man’s disingenuous. He’s using Zelensky’s pain, his humiliation and his desperation to make himself look good. And anyone who’s buying his role as elder statesman and Ukraine’s saviour really needs to give their heads a wobble.
Because the result of him “playing” statesman together with Europe’s leaders will end with absolutely nothing for Ukraine and most importantly it allows him to run away from what’s happening .
And what’s happening here is that the number of migrants coming in small boats has now hit a new yearly high, More than 600 hundred people arrived here on Sunday.
They started coming at 5 am and border security boats ( taxpayer funded taxis? ) went out five times during the course of the day to bring them in. So six hundred more amounts to two more full hotels – and adds to the 38,000 already in hotels. But Starmer doesn’t have to deal with or address that while he’s “saving” Ukraine.
The tragic fact is Britain and the rest of Europe can’t afford to fund Ukraine’s war effort. Nor does it have the troops. Nor is it going to supply the weapons Ukraine needs to win the war. And history also tells us that Ukraine, even with help from Europe and the U.S., still hasn’t found a way to defeat Putin’s troops. Although by God it has tried.
So all that’s left is a negotiated peace deal.
And think about his – what happens if Russia attacks the peacekeeping force? Putin isn’t going to be cowed by a rag bag army of 15,000 EU soldiers. And if he does attack them that’s Europe smack bang in the middle of a war.
And if European troops aren’t going to fight back against Putin – what’s the point of them?
From where I’m sitting Starmer’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. He is promising to protect the borders of another country when he’s proved totally incapable of protecting Britain’s borders against a straggly stream of illegal immigrants who come here on rubber boats for God sake.
Unlike Starmer’s play acting Boris did make a difference to Ukraine. He was the first leader to send funds and weapons and he shamed the rest of Europe and the US into doing the same. But all Starmer is doing now is doing now is playing gesture politics and trying to fix his own shattered reputation.
And his promise to put to “put British boots on the ground” in Ukraine is like all his other promises – its an empty one!