Britain’s white working class will never fight Starmer’s war for Ukraine. The UK prime minister is mulling sending troops to Ukraine but his ignored and alienated citizens won’t follow

Following the Munich Security Conference last week, European Union leaders appeared shell-shocked by US Vice President J.D. Vance’s scathing attack on Europe.

The American diplomat didn’t pull his punches. He criticized the European Union for multiple reasons, including the lack of free speech, arrests of European citizens for social media posts, insufficient commitment to security, and destabilization due to both legal and illegal migration.

Although Vance addressed Western European politicians and officials. But he was likely speaking over their heads, directly to the public.

His words resonated with widespread discontent about politics and politicians across the region, aligning with the prevailing sense of unfairness felt by many ordinary citizens.

Western European leaders, including the deeply unpopular British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, appeared agitated and uncomfortable with Washington’s tone.

Vance’s warnings made it clear that they could not indefinitely rely on the US for military power and financial aid, particularly regarding the Russia-Ukraine war.

Ukraine’s unelected and likely unelectable Zelensky also heard that signal and immediately called for a ‘European Armed Force’.

Astonishingly, Starmer indicated that British soldiers could be sent to Ukraine to enforce any peace deal.

The British public and Parliament were caught off guard by what they saw as a reckless unilateral proposal from their PM. He announced the possibility of ’British boots on the ground’ just hours after the Munich meeting ended.

This decision, or threat, appears to be a unilateral move by Starmer. It is unlikely to gain support across the country and is already sparking outrage.

A poll in The Times just last week showed that only 11% of young people in the UK would consider fighting for their country, showing what we all know: that the UK is deeply divided over class, race, and region.

This is a problem for Starmer and the war-starved British liberals who have yet again found their war drums that were put away following their disastrous follies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What was once the Labour heartlands, the de-industrialized parts of the country, have also been the typical recruiting fields for the British Soldier – the white working class.

These communities have been betrayed by all politicians and are deeply resentful and detached from what is happening within the politics, media and chattering classes of London.

Just six per cent of army uniforms were made in Britain last year under manufacturing contracts worth £ 5 million while £ 75 million worth of production was outsourced to India, China and Eastern Europe.

It is no coincidence that those beating the war drums in London are the same individuals who supported the Iraq invasion. Most suspect Starmer’s reckless offering up of our military for so-called peacekeeping – which would make the troops legitimate targets for the armed forces of the Russian Federation is a signal that he wants a closer relationship with the bloc.

Unfortunately for Starmer, his brand of Labour – middle-class metropolitan liberals – will never offer up their own children for military service and will look north towards the very people they have spent the nine years since the Brexit referendum accusing of being racists, bigots, and xenophobes.

Starmer and Macron are deeply unpopular in their own countries. Perhaps they think they can paint over the damage done in their countries by successive neo-liberal governments by pulling the patriotic chord through the threat of war.

Working-class populations outside the big metropolitan cities have traditionally been patriotic and supported the British military, but they will not follow Starmer and the failed EU leaders into a battle they see as ‘not theirs’.

The lesson here for the Western European political leaders is that ignoring sections of the population, allowing deep divisions and inequalities to fester, and then banging the war drums and expecting the working class to go and fight a war for you is not going to work. They can see right through this, and Vance’s words spoke to them more directly than a despised European elite class ever could.  TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

PLEASE SHARE OUR PUBLIC INFORMATION STORIES

MICHAEL WALSH BOOKS are available globally from all major bookstores, Amazon and LULU. The award-winning writer was followed by 500,000 readers of Europe’s Largest Free Newspaper group. CLICK THE LINK TO THE BOOKSTORE. https://michaelwalshbooks.wordpress.com/