UK PM Keir Starmer is planning to send the British army to Ukraine—because apparently, he's out of ideas.
the UK wishes to stop the war with imperial delusions a memories of a more powerful past.
Good day, spectators,
And today, Keir Starmer, the UK’s prime minister and selective human rights lawyer, has announced he’s ‘ready and willing’ to send British troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping mission.
But before I continue, let’s pause for a moment to appreciate the pure absurdity of this statement.
The UK armed forces, once the pride of a globe-spanning empire, are now a shadow of their former selves. As of July 2024, the British Army comprises a grand total of 74,296 regular personnel, 4,244 Gurkhas, and 25,934 reservists. That’s 109,086 troops—on paper. In reality, the UK’s military is old, rusty, and stretched thin.
Remember the scandal where the Royal Air Force didn’t have enough planes for its new aircraft carriers? Or the fact that the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, the most expensive ships in British history at nearly $8 billion combined, are now under review for indefinite storage—or outright scrapping—because they are that bad.
And let’s not forget the perhaps most important and relevant fact about all this: no one is joining up anymore. Young British people have no interest in fighting for what many consider imperialist Britain, and who can blame them? Patriotism is hard to muster when your country is held together by chewing gum and dreams of a ‘glorious’ past. No, a lot of young people are well aware what the UK is and they don’t subscribe.
what peace do they want to keep anyway?
Starmer claims that his plan is about securing a ‘lasting peace’ in Ukraine but I don’t buy it at all. From what I can see, it’s clear as day that this is about prolonging a war that has already cost Ukraine a third of its population—dead, displaced or now under Russian control. It’s about propping up a failing strategy that relies on Ukrainian soldiers dying by drone in cold foxholes as Russia pushes steadily on.
NATO chief Mark Rutte says Ukraine must negotiate from a ‘position of strength.’ But what is that even supposed to mean at this point? After three years of war, Ukraine is running out of soldiers, resources, and time. The idea that NATO can somehow turn the tide without some kind of direct intervention now is pure fan fiction.
And don’t let anyone kid themselves: sending UK troops to Ukraine wouldn’t bring peace—it would obviously only escalate tensions. You don’t have to be a geopolitical expert to see this. Russia has made it clear it won’t tolerate NATO troops on its borders, and it won’t hesitate to kill foreign soldiers it sees as hostile. When that happens, the ball will land squarely in the UK’s court.
And there would be no NATO to back them up. NATO’s Article 5—which says an attack on one member is an attack on all—wouldn’t apply here. Ukraine isn’t a NATO member, and any British troops deployed there would be acting outside of NATO’s umbrella. If Russia retaliates, the UK would be left alone in a war-torn country, facing off against a nuclear-armed superpower with no guarantee of support from its so-called allies. Especially the US.
Let’s not forget, the UK’s ‘special relationship’ with the US is now hanging by a thread… if that. With Trump in the White House and firmly opposed to prolonging the war, Britain can’t count on American backing anymore. Trump has made it clear he wants peace in that region, even if it’s an unfavourable deal for Ukraine. That leaves Starmer and his European friends isolated, clinging to a war they can’t win and a strategy that’s already failed. Have a read:
what’s going on?
To put it bluntly, this isn’t about protecting Ukraine. It’s about protecting Western influence at a time when it is faltering. Starmer and his European counterparts are currently being side-lined as Trump and Putin make plans for peace talks and don’t invite them to the table. This is intolerable for the EU and UK and so they’re desperate to maintain the illusion of relevance in a world that’s rapidly moving on without them. Russia, from its side, wonders why Europe should have a place at the table at all:
Watch: Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov says he suspects that European leaders want to manoeuvre a temporary freezing of the conflict and eventually continue the overall war.
The reality is that this war is ending soon. Russia didn’t wage three years of war to prevent NATO expansion, only to end up with NATO troops on its borders. The peace being discussed—whether we like it or not—will involve concessions, compromises, and hard truths. This is what happens when one side of a war outmatches the other.
And when that happens, the UK and EU will be left scrambling to justify their role in a conflict they helped prolong for so long. This is also why many European war hawks like Kaja Kallas and von der Leyen are trying to frame this as a war for European existence which is quite humorous as we have been told for years that Russia is incompetent and falling apart but simultaneously, we are expected to believe that Russia is capable of taking over Europe—a concept which I have dubbed Schrödinger's Russia:
Schrödinger's Russia.
or how a country is simultaneously on the verge of collapse and poised for European domination.
the big picture.
This isn’t just about Ukraine. What you’re witnessing here is the death throes of the collapsing Western imperial project. The UK, like the rest of Europe, is a fading power clinging to the remnants of its former glory. Sending troops to Ukraine won’t change that. It will only expose the hollowness of their ambitions.
This is all happening at a time when the United States is holding peace talks in Saudi Arabia to which Ukraine's President Zelensky initially rejected the invitation. This morning, however, he has said that he will take part. So what are Keir and the rest of the EU doing here?
The real tragedy is that this war could have ended sooner. Instead, millions have suffered, and thousands have died, all so global leaders could play geopolitical chess with poor people’s lives. I say, if Keir wants to go to war then let him, Ukraine is going through a major manpower crisis now and it’s crying out for foreigners to go and join the meat grinder. So, with that in mind, he and his ilk should take the next bus to Lviv.
But it will never be like that, it’s never the kids of the rich and political class who are riled up and sent to die by drone in these cases, it’s the poor people’s kids.
And on that thought, I will let you go. Do let me know what you think about this development in the comments,
(As always, thanks for reading, and please give this post a ❤️ and restack below.)
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Read more from the spectacle…
Peacekeeping? What about stopping his blind support for the murderous Zionist entity.? Hypocrite doesn’t cover him anymore. He’s a Genocide enabler, a supporter and a rationalizer of murder and rape.
This was always a proxy war between the US and Russia with the European minions hanging onto mummy's apron in case there was some US crumbs from the table in the event of victory. Well, the US has finally, after 3 years and thousands dead, maimed and injured realised that's its Imperial project in Eastern Europe against Russia has failed. It's Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan et al - all over again. We should thank Trump for the wake up call. There is no 'special relationship' between the US and UK, or Europe, Canada, Mexico, China, Greenland, Panama - add to the list as you see fit. The neo-liberal Brexit project exposed the UK to even greater headwinds economically and Trump has now left us stranded on our island militarily and politically. The Tories, Labour and Reform would sell their grandmother (and yours) to take any role, no matter how subservient, in Trump's new world order. Starmer and Sunak before him ripped up the rules based world order the moment they became complicit in the genocide in Palestine. Bombings, killings and total destruction of a whole nation and civilian population is promoted, protected and encouraged by Starmer and Labour. No one is going fight on the beaches to defend such hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy to help the war machine rake in billions while ordinary British families cling on to the little they've got left. No-one is going to line up behind a PM and government that promotes war on the one hand and total war on the other. That's the choice. If ever we needed a Statesman (or woman) to come to the fore and determine a path that promotes, peace, equality and decency it is now. The British people need to recognise that Starmer, Tories and Reform are poisoning the UK from the inside out with their deference to Corporate donors, Zionist lobbying, media lies and migrant racism. We need to turn away from this and forge a new way before it's too late.