IN ADVANCE of yesterday’s panic meeting of EU and UK leaders in Paris, Labour prime minister Keir Starmer announced that he is prepared to put British troops on the ground in the Ukraine if the US and Russia agree to a peace deal.
Writing in the Telegraph on Sunday, Starmer said the crisis over US president Donald Trump’s insistence on negotiating directly with Russian officials and the fear that America has dumped any defence commitments in Europe was a ‘once in a generation moment’ that posed an ‘existential’ question for Europe.
Starmer insisted the UK is ‘ready to play a leading role’ in Ukrainian security. This leading role includes restating Labour’s commitment to continuing to hand over £3 billion a year to the fascist-supported regime of Volodymyr Zelensky until at least 2030.
In addition, Starmer said that, along with all the billions in military aid, ‘it also means being ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.’
Of course, Starmer insisted, ‘I do not say that lightly. I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way.’
What Starmer didn’t bother to mention was where all the money for his military adventure would come from.
Starmer and his chancellor Rachel Reeves continually demand ‘sacrifices from workers to fill a £40 billion ‘black hole’ in the UK economy – sacrifices that entailed ending the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and keeping the two child cap on benefits.
Alongside these attacks that have caused misery for pensioners and kept 1.5 million children in poverty, the Labour government has committed to slashing public spending and driving forward privatisation of the NHS in order to put bankrupt British capitalism on a ‘stable’ footing.
Now Starmer is proposing to spend billions more, and put the UK on a war footing to keep a war going that has already been lost.
What is clear is that Starmer’s enthusiasm for embroiling the UK in a military conflict is going to cost a lot more than the £3 billion a year spent so far.
Trump is already insisting that European leaders increase their military spending to 5% of GDP – the UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence and Starmer has pledged to raise this to 2.5%.
Still half what the US is demanding.
As for the UK army being up to the job Starmer has set for them, the former head of the army, Lord Dannatt, told the BBC that 40,000 UK troops would be needed and that ‘we just haven’t got that number available’.
Perhaps Starmer is contemplating conscripting the unemployed to make up the numbers required to fulfil his ambition of turning a bankrupt Britain into a military powerhouse.
Certainly his health secretary Wes Streeting is completely onboard with cuts to NHS spending in the cause of keeping the Zelensky regime in power.
Responding to the clamour for massive increases in military spending, Streeting told the press that there is ‘no greater priority’ than national security and refused to say whether this would impact the desperately needed finance for the NHS.
The working class will have no illusions that Starmer intends to dump the cost of continuing the war on their backs through super-charged austerity cuts to public spending and benefits.
Workers have been forced to pay the cost of the US-provoked war in Ukraine designed to weaken Russia militarily and through sanctions that have driven energy costs and inflation through the roof, and will refuse to pay even more to keep this war staggering on.
The time is ripe for workers to demand that the TUC leaders either take action to bring down the Starmer government or be forced out and replaced with a leadership prepared to act by calling a general strike to remove the Labour government and bring in a workers’ government and socialism.
Join the WRP and Young Socialists to build up the leadership required for the victory of the British Socialist Revolution.
