UK Politics Thread (Part 4)

Starmer’s actual quote was that Britain would be ready to contribute to an international peacekeeping force in the event a peace deal is reached.

As ever, it isn’t wise to draw our response from the headline on the front of the Daily Mail.

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Yes, you’re right. He was writing in the telegraph, but the nature of his quote was very different to you interpretation.

You’ve hit out at him for saying he is ready to send troops to Ukraine.

His actual position is that he would be ready to contribute British forces to a peacekeeping force if a peace deal is forthcoming.

That’s not quite a sensationalist, is it.

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Personally I don’t think a ‘UN’ peacekeeping force is appropriate here. Aided by the fact that it wouldn’t be in place to keep ‘peace’ but to ‘monoitor’ a ceasefire (we saw how Israël just brushed such a thing aside). More commitment is necessary. Russian will use any ceasefire to ‘rebuild’ and imo won’t accept that anyone monitors their side. What needs to be envisaged is a buffer force to prevent Russian from having a easy choice. Whilst the buffer défense is in place Ukrainiens troops will have to use the time to dig better defense. If Russian attack it will be war.
I can not this ‘buffer’ force coming from anywhere else than western Europe.
Of course I doubt this will happen and it will be a complete clusterfuck instead. We’ll have casque bleus obliterated within 6 months and Ukraine at the mercy of a USA backed invasion.

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To those saying that they still believe in the wisdom of Brexit: don’t you think that it is a dangerous thing to be all alone in such a dangerous world? One has to chose allies very carefully as everything is changing right now, and very fast. So, and that’s a question for the medium term: would you prefer to take side with the US or the EU if a genuine conflict starts to develop between the two sides?

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We’re not all alone.

I was told oven-ready trade deals with everyone from New Zealand to the USA to the Galactic Trade Federation were all but guaranteed.

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I’m not disputing that. I’m just saying Starmer’s comments were a lot more nuanced that presented in the headlines.

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Which “segment” of society do you fall into?

I came out, completely unsurprisingly, as…

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I am the same as you apparently. Except when it comes to grammar. Not sûre I understood the questions but surely got the right answer. :grinning:

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Same here.

I see it was designed in 2020. I answered based on current events of course. Would love to see an updated version.

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Although I’m not UK citizen, I took part for fun. I don’t need to say what result I got. :wink:

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They have a similar thing for the elections in Germany, tells you which parties you align with the most. Turns out I’m basically Danish. I think this is the second time/election in a row I got the Danish Minority party I can’t even vote for where I live.

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Took the best part of 17 years, but thanks :grin:

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From the trusted Guardian.

So not quite £100bn a year. £100bn is our trade deficit with the EU, which has been quite stable.

As, Iv stated I don’t believe rejoining the EU would create a massive expansion of trade. Why, because apart from Minerals and Nuclear reactors we don’t manufacture anything. We are a predominantly service based country, which has continued to grow despite the scare mongering of the Remain campaign.

Germany is thriving….

Germany’s industrial slump continued in October | snaps | ING Think.

Last year trade with Germany grew. Exports up 0.5% imports down 0.1%.

Last year also saw an improvement on our positive trade deficit with the US.

Sorry, I am not a mind reader, also I didn’t know it was upto me to both prove your point and contest it.

I am well aware of the UK’s positioning but Britain’s opposition to a European Army - which you didn’t refer to in your OP - is completely different to being the major reason for “no military co-operation in Europe before Brexit”

It took Germany and France until late 2024 for them to meet the 2% of GDP contribution to NATO on defence. The UK has consistently been above that threshold. If the Two biggest voices in Europe can’t meet its obligation to NATO, what hope do we have with them financing a EU Army? How reluctant/slow were Germany to help support Ukraine?

Has an EU Army been created since Brexit? Who do you want to blame for this?

So did Russian money and Social media influence contribute to Biden getting elected and Labour being in power?? When did Russia annex Crimea? It was 2014.
So after annexing Crimea in 2014, Putin decided to stop his march into Ukraine as he thought it was more important to get Trump elected? He then forgot to invade Ukraine for the length of Trumps term, forgot to make sure he got re-elected and then decided to go, oh fuck my bad, let’s just attack anyhow, Biden might croak it!

So Yes, until you can provide me with a more believable story, I would still vote to leave. Infact, the only thing that might sway me to Vote remain is if it resulted in you putting away your tiny violin.

Here’s a question for you. How would my life be better for voting Remain?

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All alone in a dangerous world. I worry more about being attacked walking my own streets, Brexit didn’t cause that.
Whose side would I rather be on? I say this in Jest but going on recent history we have been at War twice in just over 100 years with Germany and the last War we fought alongside the French half the Country surrendered.
On a serious note, maybe by not being part of the EU we actually have the ability to make our own decision. Rather than toe the line.
On a more serious note, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that :+1:t2:

This is not exactly Crimea 2014. And it was very convinient for Russia to stop it’s fighters in Donbas in 2015 for several reasons.

A) Russia was not officially involved with it’s regular army (yes, they were massively involved but there was a masquerarde to keep up for political reasons).
B) Russia was not prepared for war, had made no such preparations. Annexation of Crimea and Donbas invasion was ad-hoc and reactive to Maidan and Ukraine turning towards the EU.
C) Annexation of Crimea was an “actual” Special Military Operation.
D) The goal in Donbas was to freeze the war with RU created Seperatist Republics in Donbas (Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, you may remember Igor Girkin and other infamous commanders on the Russian side), making NATO application theoretically impossible even if France and Germany would of course block it (only now when bets are off have that been seriously discussedd post 2022).
E) RU had absolutely no intention of sacrificing trade relations with the West.
F) In 2020, Kreml decides that it will invade and starts to prepare for war.
G) The rest is recent history.

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:+1:t2:

Thank you for this.

I don’t deny any of this and was not speaking from as informed position as you. I was just being flippant with David Icke, I mean @Mascot who believes that Russian money/media influence convinced me and the rest of the 51.8% to vote leave and then influenced Americans to vote for Trump, so that they (Russia) felt brave and empowered to start their advance of Eastern Europe. Whilst at the same time, Due to an admin error in their shared calendar, they completely forgot to rig the Election where Biden won and supported Ukraine.

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I have no interest in engaging with you as a poster, so please do not reply to me.

For the benefit of everyone else,

The margin of those victories doesn’t mean that the Russians “forgot to rig” those elections, it could simply be (and probably is) that the margin of the victories and the polling prior to them came about despite these efforts, and/or that they reduced their efforts because they didn’t view it as worth investing the resources into that.

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