If we are to survive as a nation, we must end Liz Truss’s “Ukraine First” priority and replace it with a “UK First policy !”

by Anthony Webber

New Prime Minister Liz Truss has just announced a continuation of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s policies on Ukraine. She has doubled military aid to President Zelensky’s government to £4.6 Bn which takes the total Ukraine aid commitment to £7Bn in less than a year. In contrast the annual bill for the UK presence in Afghanistan was £1Bn.

The Rail and Tube budgets have been slashed by £4Bn, which have been a major factor in the strike in that sector. Major public projects are being postponed, such as new NHS hospitals, and there is a general fear of cuts to local and national government services. It is clear that the pursuing of the government’s proxy war in Ukraine has become their new priority, over and above everything else.

There might have been some minute excuse that Boris Johnson’s slap dash headline grabbing premiership did not comprehend the consequences on the country of poorly thought out Ukraine policies. However, with Liz Truss, there is no such excuse, both she and other Tory leader contender, admitted at the final public hustings meeting, that they expected the public to be prepared to suffer for their Ukraine policy.

She came into office with a major energy price rise crisis to deal with. She could have ended the government’s self- defeating Ukraine/Russian policies, which would have brought about an end to the rising prices scenario, but she chose instead to worsen the situation.

In doing this she was prepared to do an about turn on her previously announced energy pronouncements, but the limited help the government is prepared to offer, in reality is totally insufficient to deal with the crisis the UK is in.

The government’s support package can be summarised very simply:

Prices have been going up since the government’s interventionalist policy on Ukraine in February of this year. The prices for energy usage for the average household are about £1,000 per year more than this time last year. The government support still leaves average households with about £500 more to pay. All that has happened is that future rises have been capped for the next two winters, but consumers will still be paying far more than they were. As for non -domestic users of energy, such as businesses, schools, hospitals, charities, and others, there has been a similar type of cap, but only on about 40% of the rises, and they will still have to fund the other 60%. As energy bills were too high already, this situation will be disastrous for many of these users, and there will be business and other casualties. This is particularly so as this help is only available for six months initially and will be subject to review. This is hardly helpful for such users, who have to be able to plan ahead with their costs. The domestic users support is likely to cost between £150 and £200 Bn and the others between £25 and £50 Bn.

So the costs are horrendous and that is just in the short term. Any sensible logical government would question whether a conflict in Ukraine, where the UK has no real interests at stake, strategic or economic, is worth pursuing. The UK has not engaged in numerous other foreign conflicts for far less expensive reasons than this.

The energy costs is just one of the many economic factors being affected by the government’s Ukraine policies.

The increase in energy prices which businesses will still experience means that production and other costs will increase, which in turn will detrimentally affect the economy. The increase in food prices and other items have almost been ignored by the focus on energy prices. However, these food and other prices have been increasing and it makes life very difficult indeed for people on average or low incomes, but all are affected. On top of this are the rising interest rates, rising inflation, deflation of wages and salaries in real terms, job losses and looming recession. Yet according to the government this is a suffering the British public must go through in order to “defend democracy and values in Ukraine.”

Interesting how these same politicians were prepared to sacrifice “democracy and values,” in Afghanistan, betray 26 million people and thousand of our veterans, in order to do a “deal” with the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban who take away women’s rights and human rights.

These same politicians do not want Ukraine to do a peace deal with Russia!

The situation becomes even more hypocritical on the realisation that Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and their democracy is not threatened by this conflict with Russia, which itself is a democracy. The costs to the UK of pursuing the government’s Ukraine policy are much more than so far mentioned. Government borrowing is now at all time high and the UK is now a member of a club of nations with a 100% debt to GDP ratio.

The government claims that this is “the result of Russia’s war with the Ukraine,” but it is in fact because of their Ukraine policy !

The majority of world countries, with seven 8^th’s of the world’s population, are not sanctioning Russia, and are not suffering as the UK is. It is a terrible reality that the UK government borrowed £11.8n last month, twice as much as had been predicted. Debt interest paid by the government rose to £8.2Bn last month. The government borrowing had already gone up far too much with the over £400 Bn the government misspent on their covid-19 policies.

Before the pandemic government borrowing was actually going down, but it appears the government is one which for the last three years has totally mismanaged the finances of the UK.  We are in a major crisis situation, but one which has been created by the government!

It is not totally the Ukraine policy. It is the combination of other policies such covid-19, over- zealous net zero and other factors. But since February this year it has primarily been the Ukraine policy.

One major problem is that we have a Parliament but with no effective opposition. With covid-19, the main opposition party were little more than cheerleaders of government lockdown and vaccines policies. With Ukraine, they are just as bad, and it is unbelievable for them to give their support to the government where the public are suffering so much. There is only one way currently to end this catastrophic Ukraine policy, and that is to sign the Parliamentary petition to do so. The petition also asks for the people to have their say on this issue by means of a referendum and this means at least there would be an informed public debate on this vital issue, instead of discussion being no platformed by the old mainstream media. Parliamentary petitions re-open on Thursday 22^nd September and it is vital that this petition is signed and promoted widely. Otherwise, the government will continue with their policy of worsening their policy. The more the government gets away with, the more the more down the road or irresponsible warmongering they will go. The new Culture Minister, Michelle Donelan, had the gall to say that more arms for Ukraine will help bring about an end to the energy crisis. The naivety and lack of credibility displayed by Ministers such as her create a deep sense of despair. She seems to share the same sense of unrealism displayed by the Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who uses the world stage such as the UN to pontificate and attack other world leaders, rather than diplomatically work on resolving the important global issues.

The petition conservatively says that the UK will save £1 billion by changing policy ad becoming neutral. In a matter of weeks that figure has increased to over £7 billion military and other aid and consequential costs of approximately £200 billion and rising. The policy on Ukraine may suit the globalist friends of the government, but it does not suit the interests of the British people one iota! Please everyone do your bit to get this petition signed:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/617939

Anthony Webber

Independent Political Commentator

anthonywebber@cwgsy.net