Is this what our politics has come down to? Is this the political discussion we decide to go down? Do the highly paid journalists at very well-established media and news outlets really want to get into this? It’s demoralising, not only to Reform voters but to all voters who see the news dominated by yet another conspiracy theory involving Russia. It’s nauseating and all it does is further entrench those on either side, leaving those in the middle baffled by the inability to discuss anything anymore. Our politics is becoming the Western Front of discussion and ideas.
On Friday last week Nigel Farage was…talked at…by the BBC political editor Nick Robinson. It wasn’t an interview, it was a hatchet job. The moment you can see the method you can easily infer the motivation. It was an interview to ‘bring Nigel down’, not properly scrutinise his policies.. It went a bit something like this:
“Some say you are a ___, because you said _____. Let’s face it, you’re a ____”. Rinse and repeat.
Nick could have asked him some genuine questions to flesh out the Reform policy, which in some cases he did when it came to funding. But otherwise it was dominated by accusations of climate-denier, racism and a Putin ally. It was anti-intellectual. No questions on the resistance to gender ideology, none on the national debt, none on interest rate flatlining plans, there was scope for genuine discussion. We got none.
The obvious point that last weekend’s discussion online at least was about was Nigel Farage’s comments on Putin and Ukraine. If you believe the headlines in the Daily Mail and BBC you’d think that Nigel was in the pay of the Russians, much like he was accused of by Chris Bryant MP a couple of years ago, and Brexit was because of Russian money, and Trump was backed by Russian bots. It seems that when the establishment is genuinely threatened it uses its Russia-card. It’s nauseating and troubling how this obvious tactic is meant to scare the public.
In the case of Farage and Ukraine here’s a little timeline.
1997 - Russia-Ukraine deal. Ukraine agrees to give up Nuclear missiles in return for Russia garunteeing Ukraine’s independence. America agrees Ukraine falls within the Russian sphere of influence. Yeltsin declares NATO expansion as a threat to Russia.
2000 - NATO secretary-general George Robertson is informed by Putin that Russia wants to join NATO. Russia is refused entry.
2002 - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia begin accession talks to NATO.
2004 - Poland joins the EU. Accession nations join NATO.
2008 - Romania and Bulgaria join the EU. Russia annexes Crimea and is thrown out of the G8.
2014 - Democratically elected and pro-Russian President Yanukovych is overthrown in the ‘Revolution of Dignity’. Ukraine applies to join the EU and NATO. Informal Russia-Ukraine war begins. Nigel Farage makes a speech warning against further EU and NATO expansion predicting full-scale war in the region.
2016 - Boris Johnson blames the EU for the Russia-Ukraine informal war
2022 - Russia formalises the invasion of Ukraine.
2023 - Finland and Sweden join NATO.
There are so many other flashpoints but here is the context. Though we like to think that the EU and NATO are wonderful, this is not felt in the East where the legacy of NATO is anti-Russian and anti-Eastern. If NATO was an organisation of conciliation why wasn’t Russia allowed into NATO? Boris Yeltsin, the man who did more to bring Russia to the West, couldn’t stomach NATO’s insistence on expanding as far east versus Russia as possible. To understand the mentality of those behind the Russian curtain is to understand an entirely different world-view, society view and value of things like life, freedom and community. It is a very different bear.
The second thing one must understand is that there are different approaches to international politics. There is a Liberal one and there is a Realist one. A Liberal view to internationalism is the streamlined march of all nations all over the world towards a similar and harmonious world where country-differences are almost wiped out in favour of international organisations and ideally one world government as well as universal rights and so on. Then there is the Realist view of the world where countries act as independent agents trying to maximise power or to sustain their own power within an anarchic international order. There are rules in the international order and the overall aim is to try to reach a ‘balance of power’ where power, influence and the world is ‘shared’ amongst nations with the will and capacity to extend beyond their nation’s borders (often this coincides with a big army, economy, history etc). This means that there is a hierarchy of nations within a competitive battle for things like resources, influence or ideological superiority.
Currently most mainstream politicians and media outlets support the liberal world view. All nations are equal and the more we can do to undermine national differences the better. This view has persisted since the end of the Cold War especially with what is known as the ‘Washington Consensus’ (an expectation that nations should effectively open themselves up to investment, influence and democracy). Well-respected international theorist Francis Fukuyama called it the ‘end of history’. The success of this era would see the end of wars, authoritarianism and usher in a world of love. Here are the list of wars since 1990 not including Civil Wars (there are just too many):
1990: Gulf War, Transistrian War
1991: Yugoslav War
1994: First Chechen War
1996: First Congo War
1998: Kosovo War, Eritrean-Ethiopian War, Abkhazia War, , Second Congo War, Kargil War
1999: Dagestan War, Second Chechen War,
2000: Second Intifada
2001: Afghanistan War
2003: Darfur War, Iraq War
2004: Central African Republic Bush War
2006: Lebanon War
2008: Russia-Georgian War, Gaza War
2011: Arab Spring Wars
2012: Mali War
2013: Iraq War
2014: Russia-Ukraine Informal War, Islamic State War, Gaza War
2020: Second Ngorno-Karabakh War, Tigray War
2022: Russia-Ukraine Formal War
2023: Amhara War, Sudan War, Israel-Hamas War
The Realist perspective to international relations is that the world is a series of nations with opposing region/world views and spheres of influence. Russia has spheres of influence much like America does, and these are nations in Central Asia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia (though whether those countries like that or not is kind-of irrelevant). That way the balance of power is maintained as best as possible and powerful nations co-exist. Since 1990 the victorious West has done all it can to expand its influence. Russia, Iran and China (NOT the good guys, just the ‘other’ guys) resisted that and are using their power to push back in Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. As opposed to the Liberal view of the world the Realist view of the world does NOT see morality ‘choosing sides’, rather it seeks to help us understand WHY wars happen, not how to stop them.
Therein lies the problem in this election. Nigel Farage shared his Realist view of the world. In response the Liberal viewers recoiled in horror as they had prescribed MORALITY on to conflict. They see Russia as an obstacle to the new liberal world order and Ukraine defending it. Realists like Farage simply stated that Western hubris was making its enemies stronger and more resilient. You don’t defeat Nuclear powers on the ground. It’s impossible as it would lead to annhialiation. You try to find accommodation, you try to discuss disarmament, you divide the world into spheres of influence. Tough luck on the smaller states but this has been the history of the world since the dawn of humanity. If anything it is the Liberal world view that fuels the war effort of the enemies; Putin and Xi can declare that the west is out to get them. The Ukraine war is, certainly to Russians, a pre-emptive strike against the west who have struck in their own way against Russian-controlled Ukraine. Putin wants to create a nation, an empire, that is a malleable bulwark against Western influence. Russia (an empire of multi-national people in itself), has now the means and the desire to push back where it can.
Does that mean we should allow Russia to do what it likes? No. NATO stops Russia from rolling its tanks back to Berlin. But it is impossible to treat the sovereign terriority in Poland like sovereign territory in Ukraine; international politics doesn’t allow that. We can shake our fists but no amount of strongly worded letters can deter Putin.
So, what did Farage say that was so awful? That we need to understand the Russian psyche in order to understand how to end the war? Ukrainian tanks will not roll to Moscow. Russia will eventually win in Ukraine by force of arms and sheer amount of men to throw at the problem. Would you not rather want to be on the side of peace? Do you not think a deal must be done at some point, perhaps the partitioning of West and East Ukraine? If not then you must make the argument for why the west should go to war with Russia for Ukraine. Make the argument. Good luck.
Lastly, this whole argument comes down to the boring “Farage is an ally of Putin”. A story in the Daily Mail said Zelensky stated that Nigel was ‘infected with Putinism’. This never happened. A story was leaked to Nigel that the Daily Mail would find a quote from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying Nigel was ‘an ally’, therefore engaging in Russian propaganda in order to discredit a party in a national election. It’s not new. Russian bots have already been made up as the cause for Reform UK popularity online. Russian hackers made Brexit. Russian money helped Trump to be President. It was found to be a lie with Brexit and Trump and we know it is a lie in real time right now. The Russia-hoax is the last desperate act of a Tory and media establishment genuinely frightened about change so much it wants to associate that change with something that Putin wants. For a nation naturally averse to change this would be quite potent.
Here’s why it won’t work.
Britain now has an appetite for change. This might have worked in 2015, or 2017, but not after so many years of what has ben seen as ‘managed decline’. There is no love for Liberal world views because they have seen the world become so unstable that talking about a Third World War is no longer fanciful sci-fi entertainment. History shows that cataclysmic wars see their roots sewn in times of international sleepwalking. The British people have woken to this and the vote for Brexit was in-part a negative reaction to immigration but also a desire to cut away Britain’s international ties to Europe which had become increasingly chaotic with an aggressive Russia, a broken border across the Mediterranean and a confusing relationship with an increasingly sectarian Turkey.
There is also great skepticism about the ‘Russian spectre’. Russia might be wanting to spread its influence but the Liberal order was allowing this in the first place with the influx of Russian money, gas and investment. Abramovich’s Chelsea purchase in 2003 is one such example. Germany’s funding of the NordStream pipelines is another. Who really has embraced Russia? Is it Nigel Farage or the West and those who seek to get a slice of the Russian pie?
It’s a shame we are even talking about this. This election is about Britain and it’s future, not the Macarthyism of 2024. Let us hope that this non-story blows over and it becomes a reflection of the moral bankruptcy of our media and political class that all they have left to throw at the popular alternative to the liberal consensus is fear, paranoia and fake news. Let us hope for the short term this ends here, and in the long term it helps us realign our politics and media towards something more honest. Let us discuss things properly and honestly, with dignity and intelligence and come to a balanced conclusion based on reason, compassion and faith.
Or is that what Putin wants us to do?
This article first appeared on the TDL Times. For more information, articles and more please visit www.thetdltimes.com.
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