LABOUR’S new prime minister Andy Burnham’s first overseas visit was to the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Monday, where he used the opportunity to proclaim his undying support for the Zelensky regime and its imperialist-backed war against Russia.
Arriving in Kiev, Burnham announced he has authorised the release of the blueprints for the British made components for the Scalp missile.
The Scalp is the French version of the UK’s Storm Shadow cruise missile, and the release of hitherto top secret blueprints is designed to allow the Ukrainian regime to work with France to produce its own version of the long-range missile.
France has already agreed to hand over its blueprints for Scalp missiles under a deal struck in July, but the ability of Ukraine to manufacture them domestically hinges on the British decision.
Both France and the UK have been supplying a limited number of these missiles used to strike Crimea and deep into Russian territory.
Ukraine has escalated its attacks on Russia using UK-made drones.
The access to classified missile blueprints and the supply of drones led to Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov accusing the UK of directly participating in the Ukrainian conflict and actively working to prolong it.
This is precisely what Burnham, following in the footsteps of former Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is intending.
Echoing Starmer, Burnham proclaimed on Monday: ‘Ukraine has been Europe’s protector, not a drain on our security, but the frontline for keeping Europe safe.’
Responding to Peskov’s accusation that the UK is fanning the flames of the conflict, Burnham replied: ‘Who started the fire? That’s the question. That’s the question, isn’t it?’
Burnham wants the working class to believe that the conflict was started by Russia and that the entire European continent, including the UK, is under threat of attack and invasion.
In fact, the conflict was deliberately engineered by US imperialism, with the support of the UK, in an attempt to turn Ukraine into a giant NATO military base with nuclear weapons brought to the borders and posing a direct threat to Russia.
US and UK imperialism started the fire and Burnham continues to fan the flames and threatens to expand it into an all-out war.
Ukrainian president Zelensky is not satisfied however with just getting the blueprints for Storm missiles, which experts say could take years to produce in any quantity, what he wants is US Patriot missiles.
Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptor missiles with its supplies from the US going from over 70% to zero this year. The problem is that the US itself has almost totally exhausted its supplies of Patriots in its failed war against Iran.
On average, the US used 225 Patriot interceptors per day in the first four days of the war on Iran while American arms manufacturers made just 620 in 2025.
With not enough Patriot defence missiles to protect the US military bogged down in the Middle East, Donald Trump has dumped his previous offer to supply them to Zelensky.
This hasn’t deterred Burnham who, in an interview with Bloomberg, proudly announced that he and other European leaders would be travelling to New York next month to lobby Trump to supply Patriot missiles to Zelensky.
It is doubtful that Trump, who is already consumed by the defeat of the US at the hands of Iran and struggling under a US debt mountain of over $40 trillion, will be in any position to offer any support despite all the begging from Burnham.
With Burnham and the Labour government leading the charge into a full-scale imperialist war, the time has come for the working class to take action.
World capitalism in its final imperialist stage is at its weakest today, and the working class in the US, UK, EU and across the world have the power to put it out of its death agony by taking power.
The working class must demand its trade unions call mass general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and bring in workers governments and socialism putting an end to imperialist wars with the victory of the world socialist revolution.
