I read somewhere that Russian diplomats have been lamenting the drop in intellectual standards at the UN. They say they used to be able to quote literature but now they have to dumb everything down so their Western counterparts can follow. This is British Foreign Secretary David Lammy making a complete fool of himself.
We have the usual charge sheet; Russia, and Putin personally, shoots into hospitals, kills his opponents in Europe, persecutes the “courageous” Navalny (actually himself a nationalist who described central Asian immigrants as cockroaches), sends mercenaries into Africa, and so on. On the last one I am really not sure why Mali should not be allowed to choose to work with Wagner rather than the French military if they want. If he is talking about Wagner presence in Libya – he is making an even greater fool of himself. It was the West who, in 2011, destroyed Libya as a functioning country with then British Prime Minister promising everyone a future of freedom and prosperity only to see it slide into chaos. But the main point is that all this is incidental. What is at stake now is Ukraine; there are very serious questions about NATO membership, Russian red-lines, and the fate of the Donbas region. Lammy would do better to talk about these matters rather than rehearse “Western talking points” about how awful Russia is. (Maybe the Kremlin has authorised a few assassinations in Europe of their traitors. On the scale of things, the hundreds of thousands of casualties in Ukraine and a very real risk of nuclear conflict, that really is besides the point. Putin might reply, “at least we didn’t provoke a war and then drag it out for three years even though there is no realistic path to winning”).
Lammy accuses Russia of trying to “wreak the UN’s future”. He is referring to a UN document agreed last week, Pact for the Future, which puts forwards some aspirations; a rather typical UN document, long on idealism and low on implementation. But, stop. Isn’t Russia allowed to vote against a document they don’t agree with? I thought that was the idea of voting. Is he angry because Russia didn’t follow what the West thinks they should have done?
“Russia runs roughshod over International Law”. How do these people say these things with a straight face? Do they go on special training? The 2003 invasion of Iraq was no less illegal that Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. NATO’s attack on Serbia at the end of the 90s was illegal and in fact terroristic in nature since the idea was to force Serbia to withdraw from their own province of Kosovo by targeting the homeland. In the middle of the Libyan adventure France simply went ahead and air-dropped weapons to the rebels in direct violation of a UN Resolution forbidding arms transfers. Who cares. And we haven’t even talked about Israel’s horrible war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, directly supported in all possible ways by….. David Lammy. Lammy then goes on to blather, in his posh voice, about his ancestors being enslaved. He “knows imperialism when he sees it”. This might work in the Student Union, but this is the world stage. The fact (?) that your ancestors were mistreated by the country you now apparently represent is an interesting personal history, but that doesn’t in fact establish as true the proposition that Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine is “imperialistic”. (Nice try, David). I assume he tries this because there is in fact no credible evidence that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are driven by some kind of imperialistic ambition. Lammy, for one. doesn’t cite any. What has the Russian representative at the UN got to do with the British Atlantic slave trade? It boggles belief that Lammy can think this is a line that means anything. The Russians will just be bemused, maybe even feel sorry for him.
Lammy adds “mafia state” and “empire built on corruption” and “robbing the Russian people” to his charge sheet. Firstly; this is not especially accurate. Putin has established a certain order in Russia. Corruption, while present, is much reduced from how it was in the 1990s. These are all catch-phrases from a certain genre of books about Russia which straddle the line between fiction and journalism, but they don’t reflect any kind of serious analysis of the state of contemporary Russia. Meanwhile the last UK government spent 50 billion GBP on useless PPE (10 billion) and a Track and Trace system (40 billion) which a commission found made “negligible” difference to the spread of the pandemic in Britain. His government has opened an inquiry into where 600 million went! Talk about a “mafia state”.
If we want to talk about “spreading disinformation”, we could start right here with Lammy’s speech. There are real reasons for the Ukraine war. The push to put Ukraine into NATO despite this being a known Russian red-line. The West allowing the nationalists in Ukraine to block the fulfilment of the Minsk accords despite their being many in that region who did indeed want autonomy. But he just rehearses the usual “talking points” about “mafia state” and so on. This is disinformation. But more than that; the undercurrent behind the “Putin is robbing his people” line is, of course, the ever-present threat of regime change.
Lammy denounces Russia for “redrawing borders by force”. This is the only valid point he makes in the whole speech. We can point out though that there was an alternative. Had the West pushed Kiev to implement the Minsk agreements and backed off vis a vis NATO then Russia would not have “invaded”. Furthermore; the fact is that millions of people in Eastern Ukraine identify more with Russia than with Ukrainian nationalists. These people were under attack in various ways by nationalists who came to power in Kiev off the back of a coup, driving from office, the legitimately elected President, who had been popular in the East. Putin could argue, with evidence, that this is not so much “redrawing borders by force”, but protecting the rights of ethnic Russians and fellow-travellers in Eastern Ukraine, supporting their right to self-determination, which is enshrined in the UN Charter,
Lammy then makes the absurd argument that “if we let an imperialist redraw borders by force those will not be the last borders to be redrawn”. Again; there is no evidence that Russia’s “invasion” is imperialistic. So, that argument fails. Nor has he thought it through; how, exactly does he plan to stop Russia succeeding in Ukraine? Suddenly out of nowhere “Madura will take encouragement and take Guyana next”. This refers to a border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana. I am really not sure that all the dictators in the world are waiting to see Putin win in Ukraine at which point they will all suddenly pounce on their neighbours. At best it is some kind of conjecture and implausible at that, because there are many other factors much more close to home which will determine whether Venezuela takes part of Guyana or China tries to retake Taiwan.
Talking of misinformation, Lammy says “we want peace for the Ukrainian people”. First of all, how about the millions in Eastern Ukraine who are on the side, loosely speaking, of Russia? (Even his own TV channel has been reporting on this aspect of the situation recently). But, more to the point; if you wanted peace for Ukraine why did you push NATO membership on the country, despite that not even being particularly popular in Ukraine? [1] By doing this, you brought disaster on Ukraine.
Lammy concludes by waving a copy of the UN Charter about. (At least it wasn’t a phial of white powder). As Professor John Mearsheimer points out it would be possible to construct a case that justified Russian actions in terms of the UN Charter. But, in any case, it doesn’t matter. We are faced with a situation of real politic. And, somehow, Lammy has manged to use his 3.5 minutes to filibuster and avoid even beginning to talk about the substantive questions. He ends with a call for the UN Charter to be “upheld”. He seems to think this is vital for all of us. How nice, he must mean, but didn’t say, for all those young Ukrainian men to keep dying for our interests.
There is nothing in this at all that shows any intellectual engagement with any of the issues in play here. The question of NATO expansion. The question of the rights of the millions of people in Eastern Ukraine and their fate under an extreme Ukrainian nationalist regime. The question of a European Security architecture that accommodates Russian concerns. Maybe it isn’t possible; but there is no sign that he has even thought about it. This is all self-referential theatre for consumption by the TV cameras and concerns David Lammy’s personal interests and political career. A standard performance by a Western political class politician. But, I think, there is now a very real chance that these people are going to get a rude awakening from their hubristic and delusional worlds.
For the Evening Standard though this is a “powerful speech”. For Times Radio it was a “jaw-dropping” speech in which Lammy “slammed Putin’s lackey”. And, no they were not being ironic. No one, it seems, in the UK is thinking any more. The thinking lights have gone out.
Notes
- Despite the loss of the strongly Russophone Crimea and Donbass, there was no overwhelming consensus about Ukraine joining NATO. The proportion increased from 34 per cent in March 2014 to just 54 per cent in November 2021, but a surprisingly high 21 per cent still supported joining the Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. (IIR Survey). Sakwa, Richard. The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War (p. 302). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.