“However, the implication that a country seeking a Western-focused future can be construed as having brought its fate upon itself because of the assailant’s paranoia is an odd argument to be advanced by a champion of national sovereignty. The Russian bear may well have been poked, but history has taught us that despotic dictators cannot be appeased.”
An editorial in the Daily Telegraph (£) today. The author is bemused by Reform leader Nigel Farage’s continued assertion that someone (NATO/EU/West/insert as desired) are to blame for encouraging Putin to invade a sovereign nation state. As the leader writer observes later on, it seems rather curious that a champion of national sovereignty, as Mr Farage claims to be, should regard Ukraine as little more than buffer defence terrain for Russia, and that its own diplomatic ambitions as a nation should be dismissed. I find it more than a little odd, and it is one of the reasons I won’t vote Reform on 4 July.
Perry de Havilland wrote back when Russia invaded Ukraine that there is, on the Right as much as much of the Left, a curious desire to make things like wars to be always matters that are about us, which in a way also denies moral agency and choice to actors in many countries around the world. This is a reflexive thing, and ironically, often held by people who claim to hold hard-headed realist views on foreign policy, and yet there is a sort of naivete to it, in my view.
Mr Farage said that he ‘admired’ Mr Putin,
This was said some years after the Litvinenko murder by poisoning with Polonium. But read in the round, it looks like Mr Farage is simply a realistic operator who can be taken to have known all this and the context of his comments was that he was perhaps ‘in awe’ rather than ‘admiration’ of Mr Putin and his ability to survive in the murky world of his politics.
80% of the population do not care a hoot.
But I have noticed a tendency in some on the Right to see in Putin a ‘Prester John’ rather than to see him for what he is.
Sadly an independent sovereign Ukraine does not seem to be on the agenda of anyone in power – not Moscow, not Kiev, and not the Western capitals either.
Mr Putin reacted to the removal of a pro Russian government in 2014 with measures to secure Crimea – seen as a vital Russian interest since the 1700s (the administrative change in the 1950s was under the Soviet Union when the idea that Ukraine was “independent” was a legal FICTION – in reality Ukraine was very much under Moscow), but Mr Putin did NOT secure the land route to Crimea via Russian speaking areas in Ukraine – so he left Crimea exposed.
Due to the utter incompetence of Mr Putin in 2014 Crimea was left exposed (no secure land route via the Russian speaking areas) – and Mr Putin spent the next eight years running round in circles like a headless chicken – as the Americans and British armed and trained Ukrainian forces. When Mr Putin finally acted in 2022 he seemed to be trying to reverse the events of 2014 and get a pro Russian government back in Kiev – but it was eight years too late for that, the Ukrainian forces were weak in 2014, but were much stronger in 2022 – thanks to being armed and trained by Western powers.
Mr Putin then, after terrible Russian losses (terrible Russian losses caused by following a plan he had personally drawn up – in spite of having zero military experience) changed cause and decided to just try and secure the Russian speaking areas – as opposed to Kiev, thus giving a secure land route to Crimea. But there has been great difficulty in doing this – very large scale casualties on both sides.
My own opinion? I would like to see an independent sovereign Ukraine – not a puppet government under Moscow, or a some government signed up to various “agendas” of international “governance” either.
It would be nice to see the Ukrainians left alone, to practice their own culture in their own independent country – but no one in power, anywhere, seems to support that.
As Mark Steyn has pointed out, the Ukrainian population was in steep decline before Mr Putin’s invasion of 2022 (an invasion I condemn) indeed even before the 2014 coup (or event – if the word “coup” is not correct) and other events.
Over the last several decades Ukraine has suffered something close to a demographic collapse – to recover Ukraine must reject the ideology of Soviet times – which, since the 1960s, has also been the ideology of the West (feminism, abortion and so on are NOT new – they were present in the Soviet Union as far back as the 1920s).
Motherhood and the traditional family must be restored – or there will be no Ukraine, not as a national community, rather than just a geographical area subject to the colonisation (colonialism and imperialism) of “Diversity” and the other buzz words of international governance (of the “international community” – which is deeply malevolent)
Mr Putin poses as a social conservative – but he is NOT, he is been in power for 25 years (he became Prime Minister back in 1999 – and President Yeltsin’s addiction to alcohol meant that real power was in the hands of Mr Putin) – and he has done nothing to restore the Russian population, abortion and all the rest of it just carries on.
Mr Putin is NOT an alternative to the post 1960s Western cultural (even biological) decline.
Mr Putin likes to present himself as another Alexander II (perhaps the greatest leader of the 19th century – for example Alexander II freed more people than Lincoln did – and WITHOUT a terrible war that killed over half a million people, he also freed whole countries, peoples, from the despotism of the Ottoman Empire) , but Mr Putin is NOT Alexander II – Mr Putin is a back ally KGB murderer, play acting as a defender of Orthodox Christianity and Russian culture.
Alexander II also knew when to retreat – for example, Alaska could not be defended – so Alexander sold it, rather than risk a war that (given geography) Russia could not win.
Mr Putin would never have had the foresight, or the courage (the courage to face down critics) to do that.
If only Alexander had stayed in his bomb proof carriage (a gift from Napoleon III) – rather then getting out to try and help the wounded.
But then Franz Ferdinand made the same mistake some decades later – insisting on visiting wounded people in hospital – and getting ambushed on the way back.
Mr Ed – quite so.
Mr Putin is NOT a conservative alternative to the nightmare that the modern West is becoming (and which the international establishment elite wish to inflict on Ukraine), he is very much part of the nightmare himself.
Mr Putin poses (poses – he is NOT really) as a defender of traditional culture, traditional society, and desperate people clutch on to him.
But a person who clutches on to Mr Putin is a like a drowning man – grasping at a poisonous snake.
I completely agree. I have done with Farage. He isn’t a serious thinker. I am also about done with the comments sections in the Spectator and Telegraph, where I seem to be in a minority of one in supporting Ukraine.
If someone is really looking for a “Prester John” – a foreign leader to admire, do not look to Moscow, look to the President of Argentina.
And, by the way, President Milei condemns Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Graham – perhaps you would nor be in a “minority of one” in the comment sections of the Spectator and Telegraph (the main conservative publications in the United Kingdom), if the government in Kiev (let us leave aside for a moment that President Zelensky’s term of office has expired – expired without any new election taking place) made it clear that it wanted an independent, sovereign, Ukraine.
No more of this – we want to be global citizens stuff, no more we want to join XYZ, and no more signing up to agendas of international governance.
However, to be fair, some people tell me that a lot of the stuff that comes out of Kiev is insincere – that they really they DO want an independent, sovereign, Ukraine and are only pretending to go along with the agenda of international governance of the “international community”.
In their place I myself might feel fully justified in pretending to support the evil international agenda – if that was the only way to get arms and ammunition. And other military support.
“Tell the sick Westerners what they want to hear, “Trans Rights” for children, “Diversity”, whatever….. till we win the war with Mr Putin”.
As the late Mr David Rockefeller said (said about many governments – including the British and American governments) after the Rio Conference of 1992 – we-have-got-them-to-sign-up-to-world-governance-and-they-do-not-even-know-it.
Whether the excuse is “the environment”, “health” (hello World Health Organisation), “anti racism”, “Trans Rights”, or whatever, the true objective is always the same – power-and-control, in the hands of international organisations and Partner Corporations.
Ukraine must reject all this – so must every other nation. Otherwise nations, national communities, will no longer really exist – they will be legal fictions, like the various Republics of the old Soviet Union (although more in line with the ideas of Henri Saint-Simon rather than Dr Karl Marx).
Even pretending to support it (whilst privately rejecting it) is a dangerous tactic – although, perhaps, a necessary tactic, given the military situation.
The fact that the Tories, along with it’s few remaining loyal media assets – Telegraph, Daily Mail, Spectator etc- are pushing so hard against Farage just shows how desperate the Tories are now Reform are beating them in polls. They can’t even say Reform are splitting the Tory vote, as now it’s more like the Tories are splitting Reform’s vote. Is this project fear 2.0? 3.0? (I’ve lost count).
As Farage has said his views on the matter aren’t that different to what Boris Johnson’s were before he became PM, and while many on the left still call BoJo a Russian stooge, i don’t recall any of the esteemed Tory rags calling him out, probably because they all supported him.
The Tories- having bankrupted the country,
let in millions of third world immigrants, and presided over 15 years of defence cuts and undermining what’s left of Britain’s industrial base- are on thin ice when trying to impugn anyone else’s patriotism. Especially when their leader is married to an Indian oligarch heiress (who’s family had actual business ties to Russia) and couldn’t be bothered to stick around for D-Day commemorations.
Other Tory desperation is shown by their tactics of now claiming they have to avert a Labour landslide. If they fear this, it begs the question why Sunak called an election early? If they fear a Labour landslide, why have they brought it forward. Methinks it just shows Sunak and his advisers are cocky but stupid prats. The other is them warning the fear that Labour will get a stonking majority on a small vote. Well the Tories have long supported FPTP despite it having this potential for a party to win 500 seats with 37-38% of the vote. Seems late in the day to suddenly moan about rules they have long supported.
Fingers crossed Farage wins in Clacton, and Sunak loses in Richmond and come July 5th he and his family clear off to California.
As Mark Steyn has pointed out, the Ukrainian population was in steep decline before Mr Putin’s invasion of 2022 (an invasion I condemn) indeed even before the 2014 coup (or event – if the word “coup” is not correct) and other events. – writes Paul Marks.
Well, invading Ukraine, displacing tens of thousands of people, and taking Ukrainian children and re-settling them in Russia, as part of an ethnic population shift/cleansing operation, does not seem a great way to halt that decline. Wars tend to be poor for population growth.
Martin, whatever. I am focusing on the transparent absurdity of Farage’s views on Ukraine and Russia, and the blame-shifting he is engaging in. Dislike of the Conservatives – a view I thoroughly share – isn’t the same as giving Farage, who is too much of a loud circus act for my liking, a pass. Let’s judge issues on their merits. (Yes, incredibly old-fashioned of me.)
I am starting to think that Farage, like Trump, has become a weird sort of cult.
What the hell is going on here?
Commenters who I have learned to respect over many years are clutching their pearls about the only man with a chance, any chance at all, of at least starting the country on the road back to sanity.
Johnathan Pearce – I never said that the invasion of 2022 was helpful. I said the opposite.
As for Mr Farage – he is a rather more dogmatic than Donald John Trump. Once Mr Farage has made up his mind, which he did long before 2022, he tends to stick to his position. I would argue that a major event, such as Mr Putin’s invasion of 2022, means that one has to fundamentally re-examine one’s position – but Mr Farage simply replies “I warned you years ago that if you kept provoking Russia – there would eventually be a reaction, horribly regrettable though that reaction is” (or words to that effect).
President Trump is open minded – rather too open minded, for example he would have been much better off sticking to his guns on Covid rather than giving in to government scientific advice. President Trump – assuming he is not murdered and assuming the 2024 election is not rigged as the 2020 election was, will probably be open to arguments (for and against) for continuing the war in Ukraine. So it will up to pro war people to politely make the pro war case – but certainly President Trump is open to such arguments.
Mr Farage is also rather worried about the danger of thermonuclear war.
People round here are a bit too quick to ignore this danger.
Even if the chance of thermonuclear war is low, the horror of thermonuclear war is such (many tens of million of people dying) that it must be treated with respect.
Certainly the talk of breaking up Russia (to steal its natural resources – so the Western Credit Money bubble might carry on for a bit longer) has to stop.
And the future of areas that are overwhelmingly Russian in population, such as Crimea, has to be considered carefully. Just as the rights of areas where most people are Ukrainian need to be respected – such areas must NOT be under Moscow, especially not under the government of Mr Putin (a murderer).
This is all a bit more serious than threatening Uganda to spread “Gay Rights” – Russia has large numbers of thermonuclear weapons.
And, leaving aside the murderer Mr Putin, Russia is a power that has vital interests in this area that go back many hundreds of years – indeed before (for example) the United States of America even existed.
John – it is the heat of an election campaign, abuse of politicians (“cult” and so on) is still regrettable, but it is to be expected.
Here in Kettering the only thing Mr Farage and the Reform Party are doing is making it harder for a “Spartan” Member of Parliament to hold his seat – I would not be expected to be happy about that (and I am not happy about that) – but, I hope you will agree, I have been polite and fair in relation to Mr Farage.
As for people who supported the Reform Party turning on Mr Farage over his policy on Ukraine (of all matters) – well let us leave that to them.
I doubt that Reform would have got more than one or two seats even before Mr Farage fell out with some of his former supporters – Clacton, and (possibly) Boston (Boston and Skegness).
In the rest of the country, sadly, their effect (regardless of their good intentions) seems to be to give Labour a massive majority – which Labour will use to de facto outlaw dissent (not a good outcome). Let us hope that I am mistaken – and the Labour Party have a road-to-Damascus conversion on Freedom of Speech.
Martin – you ask why Mr Sunak called an election at this time.
I do not know Sir – I am utterly baffled by why he did so.
Normally I can think of some theory or other – but, in this case, I just do not know.
By the way the Conservative candidate for Kettering is a strong supporter of Ukraine – and is on Mr Putin’s banned list.
So if this matter is really important to people and they would like to help here….
But I must drag my fat self (dodgy ankle and all – yes I fell off a ladder and landed on the concrete, like something out of a comedy film) about, to deliver more letters.
Politicians have a responsibility to be realistic and not take actions that have immense cost with no certainty of the preferred outcome.
That is all Farage was saying and any other interpretation is disingenuous in the extreme.
Paul – your MP could have defected up to a couple of weeks ago. No sympathy.
“Politicians have a responsibility to be realistic and not take actions that have immense cost with no certainty of the preferred outcome.”
See also ‘climate crisis’.
Stephen Kotkin’s article “The Five Futures of Russia” on the Foreign Affaires site, provides the best thinking on the Ukraine war, I have seen.
When it comes to international politics and the power struggles, national sovereignty for smaller states is nice and all, but those states live and die at the whims of diplomats from the major powers. We save it with Germany’s annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, we saw it with all the arbitrary lines the British and French drew to create states in Africa and the Middle East, we saw it with the US and the annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and we’re seeing it now with Russia and Ukraine.
Farage is right. The big powers matter and the smaller states are merely pawns in their game.
Paul:
The Democrats will certainly attempt to rig the election. They did it last time, they will do it again. The Republicans need to be a lot smarter about challenging the steal this time. I am not hopeful. But I am not sure if America can survive two stolen elections, especially when the Democrat candidate is clearly a dementia case.
As for Farage, he was merely pointing out that attempting to place a NATO member state on the very border of Russia would just be a provocation too far, and so it has proven. Ukraine has every right to join NATO, and the EU (if they feel they must), but Farage was observing that they are next door to a paranoid, nuclear armed state which does not accept that that can happen. Ukraine was a bridge too far for NATO. Russia had no right to invade, Farage was making that point that in this cruel world, they would. And they did.
That might be, but as he is standing on a manifesto that includes continuing to fund the BBC, and a track record of the last 14 years, what is the point?
And I can only assume that Mr Sunak called the election for July 4 so his children could settle into a new school in the autumn with the most time to prepare.
Mr Ed:
The Spartan was standing for a party with the policy of Net Zero. Unacceptable.
I think Sunak might have called the election for 4th July because the first Rwanda flight was due to take off on 24th July, and I think it would have been empty. Sunak failed to make his “Safety of Rwanda Act” lawyer proof, which prompted the resignation of Robert Jenrick. Having the election before his policy is shown to have failed allows him to campaign on the assumption that it might have worked. I can’t think of any other good reason for a July election, other than making a few quid down the bookies.
With regards to Kettering UKIP and Brexit Party at several previous elections didn’t contest it due to the Eurosceptic views of the sitting Tory MP. Nonetheless, given it has seemed the Tories received almost all the gains from such arrangements in the past and given the utter repulsive record of the Tory government since 2019, it seems understandable why Reform no longer want to repeat such arrangements. Under Tice whenever Reform looked like Tories 2.0 they usually underperformed in by elections, so disassociating Reform with the Tories may well be good politics. It’s interesting that some recent polling suggests Reform are the 2nd most popular party with 18-24 year olds, while the Tories are 5th behind the greens (if I recall correctly the only age demographic where the Tories are more popular than Reform is pensioners enjoying their Tory triple locked state pension payments).
I am amazed that people are inclined to give Farage a pass for saying he admired Putin as a political operator. Putin’s ‘political operations’ are theft, oppression, murder and the invasion of one of his neighbours. Admiring him for that is appalling.
Marius:
I imagine what Nigel was impressed by was the ability of a middle ranking KGB man to end up as President of Russia. I have read about this as much as I can, but there is still no good answer to it. I think that, like Hitler, he convinced more powerful people that he would be a safe pair of hands they could control.
Implicit in Nigel Farage’s theory of Western provocation, is the (obviously delusional) assumption that Ukraine joining the EU and NATO is not a Ukrainian choice, that in fact Ukrainians have no choice in the matter, these decisions are taken in Brussels.
It strikes me that this has obvious parallels in the (equally delusional) Farage theory of the Greek crisis: according to Farage, the Greek government had no choice about adopting the euro: the decision was made in Brussels, and so was the decision not to let Greece leave the Eurozone.
To be fair to Farage, he did not say that Putin was provoked by Western expansionism: he said that Putin always wanted to invade the Ukraine, the West just provided the pretext that he needed.
Unfortunately, this nuance is lost on both those who agree with him, and those who disagree. But perhaps it is lost intentionally.
Who needs nuance when we have confirmation bias?
@JohnK
The Democrats will certainly attempt to rig the election. They did it last time, they will do it again. The Republicans need to be a lot smarter about challenging the steal this time. I am not hopeful.
FWIW, on this point I am actually rather hopeful. When McDaniel was in charge at the RNC it would have been a disaster but the new leadership there, including Trump’s daughter in law, seem to be EXCEPTIONALLY focused on this including spending gobs of money training an army of poll activists and lawyers to deal with this. Of course nothing is perfect, but from what I can see they are doing a good job. Election night is going to be quite a sight.
But I am not sure if America can survive two stolen elections, especially when the Democrat candidate is clearly a dementia case.
But I think that the expectation that Trump will come in and fix everything is very mistaken. First of all Trump doesn’t really have the right policies to fix the most broken stuff. Some stuff he is good on, but Trump is a debt guy, and one of the biggest threats to America is the out of control spending and debt. He will do nothing to fix that — in fact he likes spending money to buy loyalty and legacy. Remember that pre-covid he was the biggest spending president in history except Biden.
And second of all, it will be all out war between Trump’s people and the administrative state. Trump will handle it better this time but they will be FAR more aggressive this time. And there will be constant rioting in the streets as it was in Summer 2020.
And third, he has only four years, which will decrease his negotiating power with foreign leaders who will be happy to wait him out.
Trump will be better than Biden for sure, but he is not going to rescue America and the West from the brink. The west is beyond the point of saving. The picture I have in my mind is Wiley Coyote hanging in mid air with his feet trying to run, and a safe about to crash on his head. And the safe is full of dynamite. And when the dynamite blows up, it knocks the ledge off the cliff so a thousand tons of rock crash on his head. However, as he is running in mid air, he sure feels like he is going to get that road runner.
Smart people need to make a plan to deal with this inevitable collapse. And you Brits? You are going to be going first starting from July 4th.
Fraser:
I hope you are right about the RNC. Fingers crossed.
I know Trump is far from perfect, and debt will kill us all. But if the Democrats steal two elections in a row I really fear civil war in the USA. There is only so much bullshit an armed population will take.
Did you give Boris Johnson a pass when he was accused of being a Putin apologist? Were BoJo’s views back then transparently absurd? Did they put you off voting for either leaving the EU in 2016 or voting Tory in 2019?
The purpose of Reform is to delenda est the Factio Conservativa. Don’t worry about Farage’s views on something he’ll never have any influence over. We need to clear the ground of Tory knot weed so something new can grow.
Fraser:
Not to mention that, this year, it seems likely that massive fraud will be needed in many more States for Biden to win.
Isi3:
Quite right! Farage is not going to be PM, no need to worry about that… at least not this year.
But as i commented previously, you Brits ought to vote tactically.
Fraser Orr
June 25, 2024 at 6:39 pm
“FWIW, on this point I am actually rather hopeful.”
I’m not.
Our election systems really won’t benefit from strict oversight on election day. Our steals aren’t the result of anything that happens on that day.
The steal opportunity is baked in by the passage of the various mail-ballot laws and no-ID laws that were passed back before the 2020 election. And virtually no jurisdictions have repealed those changes. To the contrary, those changes have been widened and improved in the intervening years.
Our best shot is to incentivize the casual voters of the country. We need to get the conservative ones to show up. We’ve failed at that task for a few decades. Our GOTV efforts have been dismal.
We’re going to have election judges all over the country this November, but they’ll not be able to see anything that they can address. The laws guarantee this.
Once you add in a fungible ballot form to the pile, it cannot be pulled out. Our efforts must be toward limiting the mass-distributed forms and the month-long voting period.
John R writes:
What the hell is going on here? Commenters who I have learned to respect over many years are clutching their pearls about the only man with a chance, any chance at all, of at least starting the country on the road back to sanity.
What is “going on” is that Mr Farage, who says some things I agree with, says things I disagree with on Ukraine, and does so in a way that seems illogical, even downright odd. He is not a saviour of the UK, and it takes far more than one political figure to change course. In fact I am annoyed that he undermines his own case by giving the impression he is making light of Ukraine’s desire to achieve independence and craft its own course. As I wrote, it is difficult to reconcile this with his support for UK independence outside the EU. If Ukraine wants to join the EU, or whatever, then let it make its own mistakes as a sovereign nation, just as the UK has done. This isn’t hard.
Steven R: The big powers matter and the smaller states are merely pawns in their game.
And yet Mr Farage supported the UK leaving the EU, even if it might mean we become more exposed outside a power bloc. Again, where’s the consistency? (For what it is worth, I don’t recall Mr Farage having much time for “great power politics” stuff whenever it was used by Remainers as to why the UK had no option but to stay in the EU, however vexatious that was.)
Martin: Did you give Boris Johnson a pass when he was accused of being a Putin apologist?
No. I don’t recall when he was so accused, but my guess is that, assuming the accusation was based on fact, that I would have condemned him for it.
I see too many people on this thread, and elsewhere, going for the excuse that Ukraine/Russia is marginal as an issue for voters, or the “whataboutery” line about how other politicians have been bad on this or that issue. The fact is that Farage, as Paul Marks notes, has been consistently making this claim that somehow it was the possibility of NATO/EU membership that “provoked” Putin’s criminal invasion, never mind that there is zero evidence that NATO/EU powers pose any sort of military threat to Russia, or wish to invade or conquer it. It ignores the 1994 Minsk Accord, in which the West agreed to back Ukraine’s independence in exchange for its removing nuclear weapons. The way that Western leaders have behaved is not that they have “provoked” Putin, but rather their weakness (Georgia, Crimea, etc) has tempted him to think he can invade Ukraine and get away with it.
Mr Farage wants to dislodge the Tory Party. Presumably he wants Reform to be the main opposition to Labour. If he is only running for a laugh, he should say so. Elections in the UK are a serious business. The UK is a NATO member, part of the Five Eyes alliance, etc. If the leader of a party that seeks to displace the Tories is led by a man who, in my view, is giving cover for Putin, or giving the impression he is doing so, I am going to call him out for it. I am not going to do what far too many do today, which is to look the other way, or say that making criticisms is somehow unhpelpful. Not on this blog. This isn’t a Reform Party website.
@bobby b
I’m not.
Really? Dude I’m grasping at straws of hope and you’re going to snatch that away from me too? 😀
You are a lawyer, so I don’t know much about how these things get reviewed. However, there is a lot more to their planning and work that just election night challenges. They have a pretty extensive “ground game” as they call it to get reluctant voters to the polls.
But who knows, you might well be right. I honestly think it won’t make all that much difference who wins, but I hope it is Trump because he will slow the decline a bit, and he might reduce my taxes a bit, and probably most of all because of the lawfare. That is so outrageous it needs to be firmly stomped on.
Fraser:
Keep in mind that bobby is a successful lawyer; which means that he is a pessimist.
But, to be successful in politics, one must be an optimist.
In the case of Trump, optimism is bordering into megalomania — which is why i think that you are grossly under-estimating what Trump can achieve.
There are a lot of questionable assumptions in this statement. I would worry about Mexico and Canada making warlike noises towards the US even though I know they stand not a snowball’s chance in hell of prevailing. Your implication is that Putin had no issues with NATO next door in Ukraine. I question that. So does Farage.
I am an ex-lawyer, which is the most successful kind of lawyer. 😉
But I remain pessimistic about our upcoming national election for the same reason I was pessimistic in 2020. Several states changed their laws in 2019 in ways that immediately damaged our chances of a fair election. I knew then that there would be no successful court actions against whatever they did, simply because I knew that the courts would view it all as a political hot potato and would refuse to void the results – plus the way in which the steal was accomplished left nothing for ballot-watchers to catch. We could maybe prove the possibility of fraud – but the court burden is to prove actual fraud.
And nothing has really changed since then. Sure, we can have people at the polls, watching and challenging people who seem sketchy. But the damage has already been done through the mass-mailing of ballot forms which can be returned as votes without verification. Until we reduce absentee mail voting to people who are deathly ill or on military deployment, we have no control over our ballots.
And the states that made those voting law changes have little incentive to change back. The people who run their legislatures tend to the left or anti-Trump, and they WANT the steal.
I would worry about Mexico and Canada making warlike noises towards the US even though I know they stand not a snowball’s chance in hell of prevailing. Your implication is that Putin had no issues with NATO next door in Ukraine. I question that. So does Farage.
But they are not making warlike noises, are they? Mexico and Canada are members of NAFTA.
I don’t recall Ukraine making “warlike noises” leading up to Putin’s invasion. I must have missed the bit where Ukraine called for invasion of Russia.
NATO is a defensive pact. It’s a reason why formerly neutral countries such as Sweden and Finland, having seen what has happened, applied to join. For that matter, it is a reason why Turkey, with all its many faults, is a member. It knows Russia too well.
Russia is a massive country and it borders 14 nations, at the last time of checking. Are all these countries to be told they must be nothing more than “buffer zones”, or whatever that is meant to be?
Again, can people give me an example of a NATO member state invading Russian territory? Or do anything that is a clear threat that would justify or explain what happened? Because I cannot.
My criticism of Farage stands. He’s unfit to be a Prime Minister. Fortunately, that is a very unlikely eventuality.
This article by Col. Richard Kemp, Daily Telegraph (£) gets closer to the truth of what motivated Putin to invade Ukraine:
“Alongside Putin’s imperial ambitions is trepidation about economnic development in eastern European countries as a result of their alignment with the West. He is worried that greater prosperity, especially in his next-door neighbour Ukraine, will be looked at with envy by his own population, whose consequent dissatisfaction might lead to unrest that could eventually distablise the regime. So, to that extent, Farage comes somewhere near the truth; but surely the Reform leader would not argue that any sovereign country should be denied membership of an economic union or even a military alliance because an authortarian rival vetoed it.”
As Kemp also notes, on Farage’s logic, the Baltic states should be out of NATO, as should Poland, Roumania and other Eastern European states, because Putin considers independent-minded countries as threats to Russian security (despite Putin’s knowing that this is nonsense).
It’s the major institutions and especially the civil service that needs the knotweed removal.
Without that, it will never matter who sits in No 10.
This general election is about the UK, not the Ukraine. It’s about time the voters of this country put this country first.
It won’t help the Ukraine if the UK becomes Pakistan 2.0, or if the brain drain continues apace to the point where we can’t help them even if we want to, if our economy is in the toilet.
The priorities of this election should be sorting out the rot at home. Foreign affairs matter, but should not take priority over domestic ones.
Russia is a massive nation.
Geographically yes, something like 25 times the area of the UK.
With only around twice the population (much of which is not actually russian) and a GDP around a tenth of the US.
It borders China and various dodgy central Asian and Caucasus republics….
I don’t envy anybody in Moscow looking outwards.
It’s not a matter of supporting putin (or any other Russian leader) but being pragmatic in any dealings.
Ukraine seems determined to join toytown Austria-Hungary and the wannabe Hapsburgs seems to want them in.
Wonder what Marie le Pen will be saying when the infinite bill for farm subsidies and rebuilding is mentioned?
I do not think Farage was saying that. He was saying that actions have consequences. Ukraine is unlucky in that its neighbour is ruled by a paranoid ex-KGB officer. He did not seek to hide his intentions. When Georgia tried to join NATO, he invaded it. He still holds South Ossetia. Ukraine is far more important to Russia’s security than Georgia. NATO might see itself as a defensive alliance, but Russia never has. All these things need to be considered before making decisions. That’s what used to be called statesmanship.
Putin’s action achieved the seemingly impossible by pushing Finland & Sweden (Sweden!!!) into abandoning long standing neutrality. If Putin wanted Ukraine as a ‘neutral’ state outside NATO the way Sweden & Finland previously where, all he needed to do was not grossly interfere in Ukrainian internal affairs as there was previously no majority supporting Ukraine joining NATO. EU yes, but NATO? Not at all. Ukraine was a defacto neutral buffer state & would have remained that way for the foreseeable future.
But after 2014, when the Kremlin’s favourite oligarch started gunning down protestors & even members of his own political party voted for his removal, the meaningful pro-Russian political constituency withered to single digits (pro-Russian being a term to be used with great care as the vast majority of “pro-Russian” Ukrainians pre-2014 were not arguing for union with Russia, just more Russian & less EU oriented trade policies).
It was Putin trying to impose his will that drove this entirely. Indeed, far from NATO/USA/EU ‘poking the bear’ (a term much favoured by Russian bots btw), it was justified Russian perceptions of NATO/USA/EU political & social weakness that drove Russian aggression, cumulating in their second invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
To (over-)simplify what Perry wrote: Putin had issues with the EU next door, not NATO next door. That is what “provoked” the 2014 invasion. And the 2014 invasion is what made NATO membership so desirable for Ukrainians (but also a tricky issue, because of the ensuing territorial dispute).
And once again, Farage did not say that Putin had issues with NATO next door; not even that Putin had issues with the EU next door. Farage said that EU expansionism gave Putin a pretext to invade, which he wanted to do anyway.
The issue I might take with Farage is over whether Putin is a clever “operator”. He might have been once, but not now. His invasion of Ukraine has been a disaster for Russia economically, politically, and demographically. Half a million casualties to conquer Ukraine’s rust belt?
Putin is the classic case of a dictator surrounded by sycophants. After 20 years they lose their grip on reality. Our problem is that he has thousands of nuclear weapons.
Foreign affairs matter, but should not take priority over domestic ones.
Who is saying they do?
Farage was bound to be asked about this topic. And the answer he gave was sufficiently poor that he gets called out on it. It is an opinion coming from a man who, let’s not forget, would like to be PM of the UK, and therefore of a NATO member state. So I am not going to let him off.
The issue I might take with Farage is over whether Putin is a clever “operator”. He might have been once, but not now.
A lot of people got impressed by his whole schtick of being this cunning ex-KGB man, and those who scorn the messy compromises of liberal politics are among their number. A lesson to be learned.
Farage was simply stating a view that is commonly held across a large section of the military & intelligence community. Enough of them have had their opinions published If you want the details, suggest you go there for them. It’s nothing to do with supporting or not supporting Ukraine in the current war or Ukraine’s right to exist as a free nation. And which, needless to say, his detractors have picked up on & using as a means to discredit him.
As for the merits of Putin. It takes a very shrewd man to get to the top of Russian politics & stay there. Worth recognising & not dismissing as a fool or a madman. He’s the guy you’re having to deal with. Yes the current “Special Military Operation”is obviously a serious blunder on his part. But he’s still in power & still a real threat needs respecting.
It’s the error of people constantly seeing things in moral terms in situations where morality really doesn’t apply. Your enemy also thinks he is in the right & a good man.
JuliaM
It’s the major institutions and especially the civil service that needs the knotweed removal.
Without that, it will never matter who sits in No 10.
Voting Conservative, the default option of the “Never Farage” contingent on here, will do bugger all to help achieve that.
But there appear to be people who will cast their votes primarily to keep out Britain’s equivalent of Orange Man because he has said some things they disagree with. Or have I misunderstood?
This article on Breitbart starts off with:
(My emphasis.)
But if you read on, you’ll find that the “sentiments” expressed by Jens Stoltenberg and Oleksiy Arestovych are in fact very different from those expressed by Farage. The resemblance is superficial.
I won’t go into details, but you can find the differences by reading critically the relevant quotes in the article.
The links documenting the Stoltenberg and Arestovych quotes provide useful context.
During the Cold War, NATO was entirely a defensive alliance – NATO carried out no military operations (outside of exercises) during this time, presumably because the Warsaw Pact nations didn’t attack any NATO states. Any military operations carried out by NATO members (eg Vietnam, Korea, Falklands, Algeria, etc etc) at the time didn’t occur as NATO operations.
From the 1990s though, NATO has carried out a number of military operations, a list of which is here. Some of these were or at least could be argued to be defensive in nature. Others you could perhaps make a case in favour of them, but would need a very generous definition of the word to claim they were defensive. The military operations against Serbia in the 1990s and against Libya in 2011 in particular. Neither government, no matter how unpleasant, were threatening any NATO country at the time.
So, does this mean that Reform is no longer a viable choice for y’all? Who’s left? (Or, I guess more accurately, who’s right?)
No.
Meaning: it could be a viable choice for me, depending on the candidates in my constituency.
But i don’t count, because i don’t get to vote in the UK, and belong to no constituency therein.
Yeah, my “y’all” was overinclusive.
(Although, if the UK ran elections like we seem to run them here in the US, you could probably call someone and get a few mail ballots sent out to you anyway, as a “stakeholder”.)
You have to be aware (although I’m sure you are) that anything Nigel Trump says MUST be construed as him being the anti-woke housepainting, baby eating, strength through joy, slavery loving, victorian mill owning, feudal satan incarnate.
And that believing anything else makes you a half witted, racist imp of said satan.
I must say though, the delicate and subtly nuanced way this is being subliminally fed to us makes me so embarrassed to have voted for them.
I’ll just be relieved when lammy is foreign secretary, a man so stupid that he believed that when black smoke comes out of the Vatican it means the new pope will be black (I’m not making that up)
Bobby
My guess is that Reform will be just fine although predictably the UK establishment has been working overtime to discredit, misinterpret and scaremonger barely pausing for breath to report on a number of Conservative MPs placing bets on when the election would take place – as if any of them had access to the inner plans of their party!
Thankfully as a country we have pretty much learned to ignore the bbc led media but next weeks voting will tell if I’m correct or merely indulging in wishful thinking. Not long to wait now.
P.s. your debate last night was pretty damned surreal. The rabbit everyone was expecting remained firmly in the democrat hat. Not even the media can spin that one!
Judging by his comments in the debate, Trump has a better grasp of reality than Farage.
Although, Trump did not mention the tribute that “Biden” gave to Russia and Iran, by raising energy prices. Trump does not seem to be too dumb to understand that, but maybe he thinks that most of the audience is too dumb to understand that?
Martin,
I’m not so sure about Serbia/Kosovo but Libya is about the clearest example of where NATO stepped across the line.
Chalk that up to Cameron and Sarkozy.
In general terms, though, it’s hard to see why a Russian president in charge of such a vast nation, and who has gone public about his desire to restore the boundaries of the Soviet Union, should think NATO membership isn’t something that certain east European and Baltic state countries would be interested in.
Snorri – as I have said in above comment, President Trump is much more pragmatic on foreign policy than Nigel Farage.
If the pro war people explain why war with Russia in Ukraine is in the interests of the United States then President Trump will listen to their arguments with an open mind – after all President Trump gave a lot of military aid and training to Ukraine over four years.
But Nigel Farage? No – his mind is made up. So if people want to carry on the fight in Ukraine they need to vote Conservative – not Reform.
By the way – I suspect that Labour would quietly forget about Ukraine.
As for Mr Putin – he tries to have it both ways, bewailing the end of the Soviet Union (although not saying he will restore its boundaries) as a “terrible tragedy” – whilst, at the same time, claiming to be a Russian patriot and Orthodox Christian.
The Soviet Union was Marxist – it was atheist, it hated Christianity. And the Soviet Union slaughtered many millions of Russians – and hatred Russian patriotism.
So you are caught in a contradiction Mr Putin – you can not weep over the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and be a Russian patriot and Orthodox Christian.
Which are you Mr Putin – the heir to Lenin and Stalin, or the heir to Alexander the Second? You can NOT be both.
I suspect that Mr Putin is NEITHER – he is not a Marxist, and he is not a Russian patriot and Orthodox Christian either. Mr Putin is, in my opinion, a criminal who has been overpromoted.
Johnathan:
I emphatically agree.
With Gaddafi stabbed in the back after giving up his WMDs, Putin obviously felt entitled to stab Ukraine in the back after they gave up their WMDs.
Paul:
Agreed.
We have seen what Trump can do in foreign policy; we haven’t seen what Farage can do.
And while we are at it: although i disagree with some of JohnK’s remarks, this deserves to be emphasized:
I should think it is usually more like 10 or 15 years.
But my main disagreement is over the way to deal with this situation.
It wasn’t in the back, but a bit lower. Most grim but very hard to feel sympathy for the monster. And I think his WMDs weren’t much more than a pile of semi-refined ore from the Sahel.
However, he does appear to have not been the worst option for Libya.
The Blairites/James O’Brien type/centrist dads etc who love Starmer continue to be heavily invested in narratives about Putin being the root of many things they contend to be evil, such as President Trump and Brexit. They largely follow narratives set by the democrats in the United States. The only way I see how Labour will ‘forget’ Ukraine is if a democrat led administration in the US were to ‘forget’ Ukraine (and thus their British lackeys will just follow suit) or if Starmer were to feel heavily under pressure from Corbynite MPs. So I don’t think they’ll abandon Ukraine, at least rhetorically. Physically, Labour will likely continue running down Britain’s armed forces and military industrial capacity, meaning help to Ukraine will likely be reduced simply due to incapacity.
Andrew Bridgen, who in Parliament exposed first the Post Master scandal (the persecution, indeed imprisonment, of many Post Masters because a computer system of the Corporate State was held to be more reliable than the sworn word of these Post Masters) and then exposed the Covid “vaccine” mass atrocity, has made some serious charges.
Mr Bridgen has alleged, in public, that Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, knew the Covid “vaccines” were killing people – and helped cover it up.
For the lawyers – I must stress that I am NOT making this charge – Mr Bridgen is.
This is a rather more serious matter than the position of Nigel Farage on Ukraine.
Martin.
Yes – both the British and American armed forces continue to decline in effectiveness, and under Labour this decline will go into overdrive – the armed forces will become less and less effective.
A grim prospect this Armed Forces Day.
This makes talk about Ukraine artificial – as soon the West will not have the capacity to continue to intervene, even if it wanted to.
But I return to the charges of Andrew Bridgen against Nigel Farage and Richard Tice (the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Reform Party).
If, if, these charges are true (if Mr Farage and Mr Tice really did know that the Covid “vaccines” were killing people) it is a very serious matter indeed.
Did they know?
Bridgen’s allegations against Farage are based on something he claims happened 18 months ago, yet only now he says something about it, and provides just allegations and no hard evidence?
The evidence against Tice (and I’m a lot less favourable to Tice than Farage) is based on some anonymous ‘security service’ source.
Seem to be very weak claims that should be ignored until Bridgen actually provides evidence.
Simply untrue. Even without USAF, European air assets are entirely capable of gaining decisive air superiority over VVS in less than a month. With USAF, NATO will gain air supremacy in a week or two given the SEAD/DEAD disparity, plus the fact even Russian sources bemoan that stockpiles of SAMs is barely adequate to restrain aggressive attacks by the fairly primitive Ukrainian air force, let alone its well chosen missile deep strikes. Unlike other kit which has been sent to Ukraine, many types of NATO air weapons stocks (usually the most modern stuff) have barely been touched.
Rock Ape – Western societies are falling apart (and this is a deliberate process – it is not happening by accident, the West is being systematically destroyed), and, sadly, the armed forces are not immune from this cultural decline. This is Armed Forces Day in the United Kingdom – but the “Woke” agenda of destruction never sleeps and will soon get vastly worse. As for the United States – its basic conflict is internal, the enemy is in America.
Martin – yes it is time for Mr Bridgen to produce hard evidence, he has made some very serious charges against Mr Farage and Mr Tice and he needs to back them up.
It is quite true that thugs, with firearms and paramilitary battle armour, break in to American homes – bringing terror to American families, and dragging people to absurdly rigged trials (if the trial ever comes at all – the victims being abused for years in prison). To prop up a regime based on rigged elections and pushing an agenda of destroying both the economy and society itself – including destroying the family and other aspects of the culture (as traditionally understood).
But those thugs do not work for Mr Putin (bad man, very bad man, though he is) or even for the People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship (horrible regime though this is) – the thugs who terrorise Americans work for such organisations as the FBI.