From delusion to surrealism – UK political discourse

UK political discourse on international affairs has been fully delusional for many years. There is no theory, no recognition of facts, or, rather, facts are recognised, but then, somehow, they are not allowed to inform the narrative *; no history, no analysis and zero ability to consider the point of view of the other side. Amazingly enough, adults, many with post-graduate University qualifications, are willing to accept discourses which are sub-rational; Russia bad, “unprovoked invasion”, “Russian meat grinder”, “invade Europe by 2029”, “take them 3 years to move another 100 km in Ukraine” and so on. All of this is detached from reality. There is no attempt to understand Russia’s point of view, even though, it is, basically, that of any other Great Power, such as the US – being concerned about neighbouring countries drawing too close to a strategic rival. The starting point of the Western discourse is that Russia is irrational; Putin is supposed to have woken up one day and all of a sudden decided to recreate the Russian Empire – or there was a plot lasting 15 years during which hundreds of members of the elite secretly planned to do this, while talking about how NATO expansion was a threat, as a cover story. The alternative explanation; Russia is acting rationally, in terms of their interests, as they see them, according to the expected behaviour of a Great Power, and entirely in line with everything they have been saying consistently since 2008 – i.e. the obvious and straightforward explanation, simply can’t be accepted. All of this means that Western media-political discourse, (in the UK, which I observe, there is no essential difference between the media and the discourse of the political class; both are puppets of the same forces), is, and has been, delusional for many years.

In recent days, this discourse is becoming positively surreal. Consider this:

Russia has called a plan for European troops to be deployed to Ukraine “dangerous”, dousing hopes for a speedy end to the near four-year war. [1]

‘Dousing hopes’. I am struggling with this one. Did anyone seriously “hope” that Russia was going to accept this absurd plan for UK and French troops in Ukraine? The Russians, for example Foreign Minister Lavrov, have been saying for months – absolutely no way, total red-line, will be targeted. What can one say?

This is another one. The UK’s Nigel Farage – leader of the leading in the polls Reform political party, which mixes strong policies on reducing immigration, with pragmatism on key areas like nationalisation and the NHS, has, in the past, made the heretical comment that the West provoked the Ukraine war by expanding NATO to Russia’s doorstep. Naturally, the main response is just to call him “Putin’s stooge” and leave it at that. Under pressure UK Prime Minister Starmer is already regularly deploying precisely this “reds under the bed” scare story against Farage and his popular Reform party. Farage recently cautioned against the non-starter idea of placing UK troops in Ukraine, not, it seems, because he recognises the folly of reintroducing one of the prime causes of the war as part of a proposed peace settlement, but on pragmatic grounds that the UK, with its standing army of only 70,000 is simply not in a position to support an indefinite deployment of the required size. He cautions the UK has neither the manpower nor the equipment for this proposed mission. Well; that is some kind or realism. Starmer’s Cabinet Minister said, commenting on Farage’s position: “It’s in the British national interest that we do that, and that’s why it’s so concerning to me to see some politicians, like Mr Farage, for example, immediately come out [and] parrot the Kremlin line and say that he wouldn’t support this.”. [2] We are supposed to be adults, capable of rational debate. For a start, Farage was not, in fact, “parroting” the Russian line. His reasons for not thinking this is a good idea were completely different from the Russian position, and related to UK capabilities. It is a smear, not an argument. They, that is the government, lay it on really thick:

A Labour spokesperson said Farage’s comments were the “behaviour of Putin’s puppet”. They said: “Nigel Farage’s equivocation on support for Ukraine is an insult to those who have fought to defend freedom.

When Farage shrugs at support for Ukraine, a country that has been brutally invaded, people are entitled to ask who he is really speaking for, because this is not patriotism, it’s the behaviour of Putin’s puppet.

Anyone who was waiting for a rational response – explaining why the UK could, in fact, support this deployment, for example, by enumerating how low other troop commitments are at the moment, explaining how budget increases in defence spending could cover the costs of new equipment, talking about the benefits in terms of troop training and so on – will still be waiting. Farage is a “Putin puppet” and that is that. I am surprised they didn’t send him a white feather. It is interesting to observe how, given an opportunity to make some rational arguments in favour of their policy, the Minister and the spokesman both avoid making any attempt to do so and resort, in fact, to playground level name-calling. What does that tell us? It tells is that there is no rational basis to the policy. As this site frequently points out, policy, including Foreign Policy, is made on the basis of how the posture will play out in tomorrow’s media. This is indeed a surreal kind of situation. The true surreality of it all will become apparent when, if, Russian ballistic missiles start falling on UK heads. (However, as we have previously noted, it is quite conceivable that they know full-well there will never be UK troops on the ground in Ukraine, and the whole thing is a media posture for instant gratification; this would explain why they feel no need to engage with Farage’s point about capabilities, they actually know it isn’t going to happen).

Parallel discourses

It is a feature of the British establishment that they like to be legally in the right. Thus the government was at great pains to make an argument that the seizure of a Russian registered oil tanker, the Marinera, in international waters was compliant with International Law. [4] In International Law, (a contestable web of treaties and agreements, of course), the general position is that a state can, under certain circumstances, intercept a stateless ship. The British government’s position seems to be as follows; the ship was falsely registered to Guyana while in the Caribbean. It then, under what was a legal hot pursuit, reflagged at sea to Russia – but, (either because it was done at sea, or because it was done while already being pursued), this is invalid. No doubt they found a lawyer to provide them with this opinion. A fine legal nuance which seems to have been lost on Russia. Meanwhile, and it is quite amusing, Starmer, himself an ex head of the Crown Prosecution Service, declined in a TV interview to say that the US’s ‘capture’ of Maduro – an operation which killed dozens of people, civilians and security services, was illegal. [5] I am not a lawyer but everything I read suggests that even if the US had a strong case that Maduro was actively involved in drug-trafficking, and that seems arguable, then there are principles of sovereignty enshrined in the UN Charter which mean that one country cannot just extend its jurisdiction into another. “Even when the target is an authoritarian ruler, such actions raise serious concerns under the United Nations Charter and fundamental principles of international law that prohibit the use of force and protect national sovereignty.” [6] Starmer, could, at least, have mentioned this concern rather than waffling about ‘more time needed to get details’. More surealism.

Let’s send commandos down onto all the Russian “shadow fleet”

Here is the Guardian’s Defence Correspondent, Dan Sabbagh, apparently getting excited about how the seizure of the Marinera could be just the start:

Two oil tankers under US sanctions are sailing east through the Channel towards Russia, prompting speculation over whether the US and UK would be willing to seize further vessels linked to Moscow. [7]

This is surreal. Is Sabbagh seriously proposing that squadrons of SAS troops abseil down from helicopters in the North Sea and Baltic and start seizing Russian tankers en masse? The tone of the article is that he wants this to happen. This is the same writer who, the other day, was boosting the thoughts of retired US general Hodges – a keen advocate of war with Russia – in relation to how the proposed UK force, (the one which they have apparently just realised Russia isn’t going to agree to), should be more “robust”. One gets the impression that Sabbagh, like other commentators, have lost sight of the fact that war is a two-way thing. Not all operations will go as “smoothly” as the capture of Maduro.

* A good example of this is the situation in Donbas. You can find plenty of evidence in mainstream Western media that a) there is a strong Russian ethnic minority in Donbas and b) in general, there are plenty of people in that region who are, loosely speaking, ‘pro-Russian’ – or, at least, not mono Ukrainian nationalists. (Professor Richard Sakwa talks about people who envisaged a pluralist Ukraine [3]- and I have seen an interview, on DW – not known for being ‘pro-Russian’ – where an elderly gentleman said mournfully that he wishes the Ukrainian and Russian leaderships could just sit down and work it out – why do we have to be divided?) (I have even seen on Western media a telling video clip of a Ukrainian soldier using a derogatory term to refer to the ‘pro-Russian’ people in Eastern Ukraine – and a explanation of how they are seen as ‘backward’ by the modern, Western, Ukrainians). And, yet, somehow, this significant fact – the whole story about the millions of people in the East of Ukraine who feel disenfranchised by the mono-Ukrainian nationalist policy emanating from Kiev, how polls show far lower support for joining the EU and NATO the further East you go in Ukraine, is blanked out of any thinking about the situation. And the Ukrainian nationalist cover story about all the trouble in the East being due to Russian provocations, is accepted. But – all the facts are there. In their own media and sources. This takes a special kind of blindness, a refusal to face facts, a preference for self-serving media-ready narratives, over honest discourse. But, it explains, why, when given a chance, they cannot articulate their policy in rational terms. It isn’t rational. it is pre-rational. It is, frighteningly enough, at the level of magical thinking. And to any rational observer is all beginning to look quite surreal.

Notes

From delusion to surrealism – UK political discourse

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