Yesterday, I noted that Starmer had disappeared up Trump's arse, accompanied by the entourage of UK media that tried to present the encounter as some kind of great triumph of British diplomacy, now freed by Brexit from the limitations of EU membership. Total nonsense, of course, as that media tried to justify the Brexit chaos that it, in great part, bears responsibility for, as it spent years fawning over the likes of Farage, to pander to the bigotry, and petty-bourgeois nationalism of its rapidly ageing readers and viewers. Of course, Starmer had not been alone in this disgusting spectacle of imitations of Uriah Heep. France's Man of Yesterday, the failed Macron, also engaged in such similar gut-wrenching hypocrisy and prostate massage, encouraged by the narrative that the moronic Trump is easily won over by endless and unbounded flattery and fawning.
Within an hour of my post being published, the truth, as set out within it, was being displayed for all to see across TV screens across the globe, as a hapless Zelensky was shat on from a great height by Trump, and his acolytes, before being sent packing. In the process, Trump, reciprocated, in different manner, to Starmer from the previous day. To paraphrase John Maclean from Die Hard, “He just got butt-fucked live on national TV.” And, that applied also to that media that had likewise eulogised over the triumph of Starmer and Macron in wooing Trump, with their charm offensive. All of that narrative now lay around their ankles in disarray.
Having watched the full proceedings play out, its fairly obvious that, in fact, Zelensky was set up, and that, as so often in the past, European and, particularly, UK leaders, fulfilled the role of useful idiots in the plan. Having allowed Starmer and Macron to abase themselves, and go away feeling they had sewn it all up in advance, the narrative was that Zelensky only had to go to the Whitehouse, sign the deal, do a few photos, and a press conference, in which he would openly sign over $500 billion to US imperialism to be paid for from its mineral deposits, and, in turn, Trump would promise to back-stop the military defence of Ukraine. As I wrote, yesterday, and previously, that was never going to happen. Nor did it.
Anyone who has seen the way the dynamics of a street fight are organised would have recognised the classic features. First, a more or less anonymous figure makes a provocative statement. In this case, it was asking Zelensky, “Do you not have a suit?”. Everyone knows, of course, that Zelensky has tried to use his costume of military fatigues as a trademark. The question, therefore, was designed to be antagonistic, and to imply that Zelensky was being disrespectful in not wearing a suit to meet the President. Zelensky fell for it, and got drawn in to a response, which, then escalated, and gave the main protagonists Trump and Vance ability to weigh in. You have to give it to Zelensky that, unlike the slimy, gelatinous behaviour of Starmer and Macron, he, at least, showed some backbone in confronting Trump and his gang, but, in doing so, he has signed the death warrant of his own regime, which was on its way out anyway, as I wrote at the start of the year.
The reality is that there is no denying the truth of what Trump said to him, which is that without the US support, and supply of arms over the last three years, Ukraine would not have been able to fight its war with Russia, and so its true that Zelensky has no cards to play, when it comes to having to choose between Russia or the US. It is simply a pawn on a chessboard. What is playing out in vivid colour is the reality of imperialism, and exposure of the delusion of nationalism, and the idea of national self-determination. The same reality applies to Britain and Brexit, and the attempts of Starmer and Blue Labour to pretend that they have the ability to navigate their own independent path, and can triangulate between the US and EU, are likewise doomed to imminent disaster. This weekend, as Zelensky, Starmer, Macron and other European leaders get together to lick their wounds and console each other, they face that reality.
Indeed, because the EU has, for decades, subordinated its own interests to those of US imperialism, even it, let alone the third rate power that is Britain, is in a poor position to now fill the gap left by the US. As I wrote recently, 62% of EU spending on military equipment goes to US arms producers, and those US companies have control over vital elements of the technology required for their operation. The role of US imperialism in insisting that Europe destroy its economy by boycotting Russian energy supplies, the blowing up of the Nordstream pipelines to ensure it did not go back on that, and so on, shows that the US has seen Britain and the EU as subordinates to be used and abused as it wished, and that was the case under Biden, and before him, Obama and others. All that Trump has done is to say the quiet bit out loud.
What is more, as I wrote at the start of the year, the interests of the EU are not to isolate itself from Russia, China and their periphery, but the opposite. These are two large politico-economic blocs that share common borders. The best means of security is to expand the trading arrangements between them, which, almost certainly would require a distancing from the US and North American politico-economic bloc. The recent visit of EU leaders to India, to forge a free trade deal between them, is indicative that this reality is, also, dawning on them.
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