Sampson

Starmer still deathly quiet. Seems a bit like he’s on the same team as Orban while the rest of the European leaders rally round Zelensky. There’s going to come a point where he has to try and stop “both sidesing” this and actually talk out against Trump and America. I’m sure deep down Starmer knows this, but I wonder what the point actually is.

Putin has said several times he doesn’t believe Ukraine is a real nation, it’s not about territory or a “neutral” Ukraine out of NATO.. He doesn’t want a “neutral” Ukraine. He wants Ukraine to be like Belarus and essentially an obedient puppet state - this is true with the Baltics, Moldova, Georgia and other former Soviet states in the Caucasus and Balkana too. He essentially wants to rebuilt the former Soviet bloc. Yes, of course I think Putin isn’t suddenly going to stop at an “neutral Ukraine”, do you? Have you not seen the suspicious pro-Russian election results in Georgia and Romania recently? Trying to spin it as Biden “gaslighting” is an extremely Trumpian viewpoint to blame anything on anyone else in an excuse to smash things. This is deliberate policy from Trump to pull funding in foreign aid around the world literally overnight- not just from Ukraine - Jordan for example had almost 1/3rd of its national budget provided by the US in a mission of state building and was pulled almost overnight and watch it descend into a kleptocracy now. Rory Stewart as former foreign minister who worked in Afghanistan laid it out very knowledgeably in his latest podcast about just what the US sudden pulling of foreign aid means to the world. Again, you’re talking like Trump is playing some kind of great diplomacy or bluffing about something between the lines when he’s being very open about what he stands for in “America first” and he continues to be open with that. It’s nothing to do with Trump trying to allow some “neutral Ukraine” - it’s that he doesn’t care one jot about Europe nor about defending liberal democratic values and will happily let Putin dominate Europe or descend into starvation so long as America doesn’t have to pay a penny into it.

No one is misunderstanding the US economic involvement, what we are talking about is what the “peace deal” actually means. There is no “peace deal” if the US does not provide security guarantees which Trump continuously says ir won’t. The “peace treaty” means the US is pulling its resources anyway in exchange for Ukraine giving it stuff and then provides absolutely nothing to enforce the peace - in fact promises the opposite - it openly signals to Putin they won’t enforce it and won’t defend any further invasion. So that Putin can have a temporary cease fire for a bit to build back up his army. The “peace deal” means “oh I’m sure that Putin guy will stick to his word, let’s take some of your resources while we’re at it”. It’s not a peace deal, it’s appeasement, it’s Neville Chamberlain to Czechoslovakia.

You’re being very naive and living on previous ideals that have been smashed to pieces. Trump has repeated over and over he’s not going to give security guarantees as part of any deal so there is no “peace deal” to talk about. What is the point of Zelensky discussing peace with the US if they aren’t going to defend them and leave them as a sitting duck for Putin a year or two in the future? You’re talking about a previous world order that no longer exists where America defends western and Central Europe for ideological reasons because it believes in defending liberal democracies. Trump is very open that he doesn’t care about these things if they cost the US a single penny.

Btw don’t forget this is absolutely our future if Farage ever gets power too. It’s the same nationalist, isolationist *let’s smash the institutions tying the world together.* bullshit. If you haven’t woken up to what “America/Britain first” actually means in practice then I hope that will do it for you.

No it doesn’t! The deal just gives the US an opportunity to exploit them *as well* as Russia, not *instead of* - Russia will still get what it wants without security guarantees. Zelensky continuesly repeats he wants a ceasefire and respects the USA but wants security guarantees which USA won’t offer. The war is not about territory and never has been, it’s about sovereignty - Putin does not believe Ukraine is a separate country and wants to install a puppet government in Ukraine as exists in Belarus. No one can be that naive to think Putin won’t just try again in a few years without any security guarantees. There’s no “genuinely think” about it. Trump is extremely open and was extremely open throughout the elec campaign that he’s happy for Putin to roll over all of Europe if he likes, as long as the USA doesn’t have to spend a penny defending any European country. There is no “deal“ here that Zelensky needs to “bow down” to to get. People really need to stop thinking Trump is just negotiating when he’s telling everyone very openly exactly what he wants Zelensky is doing nothing wrong here. It’s a complete trap and catch 22 from Trump and Vance.

Bend the knee to what? Having your country sold down the road? The irony of Trump accusing Zelensky of “gambling on WW3” I’m sorry but you’re basically telling Ukraine to accept being taken over by Putin. The whole thing USA wants is to withdraw troops and not have to participate in this war, that’s what Ukraine “gets” out of this deal. Oh plus giving USA a load of its natural resources too. USA isnt offering to defend Ukraine from future Russian attacks if Zelensky “bends at the knee” here, Trump has been extremely clear he wants nothing to do with that and only wants compensation himself

Yes, in Marc Albrighton’s trophy cabinet.

This is the classic right wing trap I keep posting about. You’re supposed to answer something like you have so they can say you’re talking down to them calling them stupid etc. and you have therefore “proven” point 2 (Even when it was a leaver who originally inferred that anyone voting remain were the “elites” calling anyone who voted “leave” stupid). There’s no way you can actually answer it without it being somehow talking down to people voting for it. It’s a total catch 22. Which is fine, if it’s just internet trolls. The sad part is the number of moderates who keep falling for it and saying “Brexit/Trump/Farage was voted for because you keep calling them stupid”

Deleted so no one gets in trouble

Sure but the chances of freezing to death dieing in an ambulance or getting stabbed to death will only increase if we all just stand idly by and let Putin roll through Europe. Especially given how much of our bread and grains in Europe come directly from Ukraine and the Balkans and that’s not something to that amount you can just “grow in the uk instead”

It’s because he appeals to people in a very American way so it seems baffling to us as outsiders. Make no mistake that Farage is just as radical and just as much about smashing the traditions, institutions, checks and balances that have been in place in the west since 1945, but you’ll get British people denying it and saying he isn’t and find him a lot more understandable because we see how he directly pulls at British tendencies instead and we understand the nuances of those so it feels different even if the end goals are the same.

Thought this was a very good interview and summary of the state of affairs by the former head of MI6.

Moving away from the US, the German elections tomorrow are huge for the UK and Europe as a whole tomorrow. Especially if US is going to be a loose cannon over the next 4 years, UK’s alliances with Germany and France are going to be crucial in the next few years

You missed the deportation flights ASMR videos on the White House twitter page as part of an ongoing alleged attempt to completely dehumanise immigrants.

The world seems to go a lot faster nowadays. We had Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war - 3 of the absolute biggest and society changing events in post-war British history all within the space of about 3 or 4 years of each other. Feck knows what is going to happen over the next few years in the west.

Shhh. We’re still not allowed to call them the f word. The left are just as bad as the right because they simply call the spade a spade, which is equivalent to the spade itself doing openly and blatent spade things apparently.

Interested to see how Starmer reacts to all this. He can’t keep sitting on the fence like this, refusing to call Trump out.

They’ve had a few people from Trump’s first presidency on Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell’s podcast and they absolutely all infer as much. Allegedly never bothers reading briefs, gets bored listening to any explanation of geopolitics etc. I think you have to take Trump at face value.

I think you’re reading too much into it . Trump and Vance are very transparent about their worldview and always have been - it’s America First - always has been and that’s all it boils down to. It’s not about creating conflict in Europe, it’s that they don’t care one jot about Europe and they don’t care one jot about international treaties or international laws or international obligation or the international world order that was built after WW2 in order to protect people from their own governments. Unfortunately as the saying goes “no man is an island” and suddenly pulling the ripcord on foreign aid and foreign support and setting up tariffs on everything and expecting their not to be blowback from other nations all feels a bit Treaty of Versaille-ish.

I must admit, I only recently discovered it is “shoo-in” and not “shoe in”,

“Throwing a strop”?! He’s having his entire country being sold down the road. Trump is not going to be convinced about anything he’s been extremely open about his “America first” and lack of support for Ukraine ideals from the off, this is what he said would happen and that everyone knew would happen.This kind of spin is depressing Said on here in early January that I give til February until Trump starts claiming Zelensky is the villain for not signing some peace treaty. Still thinks it looks likely

Me too. Sadly it’s winning it again.

Australia making brutal immigration and asylum laws and still having all this populism is making the “populism in the west is just about immigration” arguments look a bit weak.

I was basing on recent talks with Starmer in Brussels in which nothing was even agreed or barely talked about, Rees-Mogg came out on twitter with an angry post saying we can’t go under the yolk (sic) of the EU. I would be extremely surprised if even any sniff of a defence alliance across Europe didn’t have Farage and Rees-Mogg coming out extremely strongly claiming it was some back door agreement of going back into the EU. The EU is not officially a defence alliance no but it inherently kind of breaks down if internal states go to war as you’d have to create customs and immigration borders in such cases on security grounds to stop weapons and spies going into each others countries. It is almost all part of NATO which the US clearly no longer cares for. So it is in principle a defacto defence alliance and you would very much expect EU countries to defend each other. Again, I’m not sure how that’s contradicting me. If that’s true I’m glad Germany has upped its budget, I’m not saying they haven’t upped their budget, I’m saying I think in general the UK, Germany, France, Poland, Italy etc. all need to form a concrete defensive alliance and built up their militaries in that face of Russian aggression and US apathy over the next few years.