Prime Minister Keir Starmer returns to 10 Downing Street, London, after attending Prime Minister’s Questions at the Houses of Parliament, February 12, 2025
PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been warned off making “ludicrous long-term commitments” that prolong the war in Ukraine ahead of an emergency summit with European leaders today.
The Prime Minister has vowed to “work to ensure we keep America and Europe together” prior to discussing how to respond to US President Donald Trump’s push for an end to the war in Ukraine at the summit called by French president Emmanuel Macron.
The UN estimates 12,456 civilians have been killed during the war that is set to begin its fourth year on February 24.
Sir Keir said: “This is a once-in-a-generation moment for our national security where we engage with the reality of the world today and the threat we face from Russia.
“It’s clear Europe must take on a greater role in Nato as we work with the United States to secure Ukraine’s future and face down the threat we face from Russia.
…
A Stop the War spokeswoman said: “Instead of increasing defence spending and making ludicrous long-term commitments to Zelensky, the government should be assisting the peace negotiations and spending our money at home, on restoring the winter fuel allowance, lifting the two-child benefit cap and generally fulfilling its commitments to improve the living standards of the working people of Britain.
“Continuing to push for Ukrainian membership of Nato and pouring money and arms into the country in order to keep an unwinnable war going is utterly reckless and will certainly fail.”
Tony Blair sent the SAS to hunt down suspected Bosnian war criminals in the 1990s who were accused of lesser abuses than Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
…
Whitehall’s weak reaction to ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant stands in contrast to the exertions it made towards the former Yugoslavia and, more recently, Russia.
When the ICC announced an arrest warrant for Russian ruler Vladimir Putin in March 2023, the UK increased funding to the organisation and hosted an international conference in London.
“The ICC plays a vital role in global efforts to end impunity for war crimes”, the UK Ministry of Justice said.
A year earlier the UK had galvanised a group of governments to refer Russian atrocities in Ukraine to the ICC to enable it to proceed straight to an investigation – a process known as ‘state party referral’.
David Lammy described the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin as “an historic step”, adding that “President Putin is now a wanted man”.
By contrast, the current foreign secretary has only grudgingly conceded that, in the cases of Netanyahu and Gallant, “there is an obligation on me to transmit to the courts should those named seek to come in to our country”.
When in 2006 former Liberian president Charles Taylor was undergoing a war crimes trial in The Hague for aiding rebels in Sierra Leone notorious for hacking off limbs of civilians, the British government offered to house him in a UK jail if convicted.
Sentenced to 50 years imprisonment, Taylor began serving his conviction at HMP Frankland near Durham. It seems inconceivable that Netanyahu and Gallant will ever see the inside of a British jail.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Zelensky meets Starmer and NATO secretary general Mark Rutte. (Photo: Simon Dawson / No 10 handout)
British aid is being used to open up Ukraine’s wrecked economy to foreign investors and enhance trade with the UK.
Amid the devastating war in Ukraine, British economic aid to the country is focused on promoting pro-private sector reforms and on pressing the government to open up its economy to foreign investors.
Recently-published Foreign Office documents on its flagship aid project in Ukraine, which supports privatisation, note that the war provides “opportunities” for Ukraine delivering on “some hugely important reforms”.
The government in Kyiv has in recent months been responding positively to these calls. Last month, president Volodymyr Zelensky signed a new law expanding the privatisation of state-owned banks in the country.
It follows the Ukrainian government’s announcement in July of its ‘Large-Scale Privatisation 2024’ programme that is intended to drive foreign investment into the country and raise money for Ukraine’s struggling national budget, not least to fight Russia.
Large assets slated for privatisation currently include the country’s biggest producer of titanium ore, a leading producer of concrete products and a mining and processing plant.
Ukraine envisaged privatising the country’s roughly 3,500 state-owned enterprises in a law of 2018, which said foreign citizens and companies could become owners.
The process stalled as a result of coronavirus and then Russia’s invasion in February 2022. But hundreds of smaller-scale enterprises are now being privatised, bringing in revenues of UAH 9.6bn (£181m) in the past two years.
“The resumption of privatisation amid the full-scale war is an important step, which is already yielding results,” Ukraine’s economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko said last month.
Another law enacted in June 2023 allows large-scale assets to be sold to foreigners or Ukrainians during the current martial law regime.
Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, hit out at the apparent Trump victory, claiming it marks a “dark, dark day for people around the globe.”
He said: “This is a dark, dark day for people around the globe. The world’s largest economy and most powerful military will be led by a dangerous, destructive demagogue.
“The next President of the United States is a man who actively undermines the rule of law, human rights, international trade, climate action and global security. Millions of Americans – especially women and minorities – will be incredibly fearful about what comes next. We stand with them.
…
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, struck a similar tone. He said: “I know that many Londoners will be anxious about the outcome of the US Presidential election. Many will be fearful about what it will mean for democracy and for women’s rights, or how the result impacts the situation in the Middle East or the fate of Ukraine. Others will be worried about the future of NATO or tackling the climate crisis.
…
“The lesson of today is that progress is not inevitable. But asserting our progressive values is more important than ever – re-committing to building a world where racism and hatred is rejected, the fundamental rights of women and girls are upheld, and where we continue to tackle the crisis of climate change head on.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, center, stands with other dignitaries at the BRICS Plus conference in Kazan, Russia, on October 24. 2024. (Photo: Maxim Shipenkov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“We need peace in Ukraine,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, speaking before Russian President Vladimir Putin.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking in Russia on Thursday, called for peace in Ukraine and “across the board” as wars also rage in Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan.
Guterres spoke before Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders from “BRICS Plus” countries gathering in Kazan, a city roughly 500 miles east of Moscow.
“Across the board, we need peace,” Guterres said.
“We need peace in Ukraine,” he added. “A just peace in line with the U.N. Charter, international law, and U.N. General Assembly resolutions.”
After the speech, Guterres renewed his call for a cease-fire in Lebanon and Gaza.
“We need a cease-fire in Lebanon—as we need a cease-fire in Gaza and the immediate release of all hostages,” he wrote on social media. “Escalation after escalation is leading to the unimaginable for the people of the region.”
We need a ceasefire in Lebanon – as we need a ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate release of all hostages.
Escalation after escalation is leading to the unimaginable for the people of the region. pic.twitter.com/YhwLkSbXzV
Putin presided over the closing ceremonies of the BRICS conference on Thursday, saying the group provided a counterbalance to the “perverse methods” of the West. Brazil, Russia, India, and China formed the group in the 2000s, with South Africa joining in 2010; BRICS recently expanded to include a number of other developing countries.
The conference drew the largest gathering of international diplomats into Russia since Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, escalating a conflict that had begun in 2014.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry criticized Guterres for attending the conference and noted that he did not attend Ukraine’s global peace summit in Switzerland in June.
“This is a wrong choice that does not advance the cause of peace,” according to the ministry’s social media account. “It only damages the U.N.’s reputation.”
Guterres has repeatedly called for a cease-fire in Gaza in the last year. The Israeli government declared him persona non grata earlier this month, barring him from entering the country on the grounds that he had not strongly condemned an Iranian barrage of missiles into Israel—an accusation Guterres denied, saying he did forcefully condemn the Iranian attack.
For U.N. Day, celebrated annually on October 24, Guterres issued a video statement calling for the world’s nations to keep the “beacon of hope” that is the U.N. “shining.”
The U.N. has had only limited success in stopping or slowing the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan, which are among many dozens of conflicts across the world and have brought mass death and destruction.
The total number of Ukrainians and Russians who’ve died since February 2022 has reached roughly one million, The Wall Street Journalreported last month.
In Gaza, more than 42,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces in roughly the last year, following the Hamas-led October 7 attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis. More than 2,500 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon over the same period, including 1,900 in the escalation that’s occurred in the last five weeks, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Dozens of Israelis have also died in that conflict.
A U.N. official said last month that the death toll in Sudan, which has been ravaged by civil war since April 2023, is at least 20,000 and could be much higher. The country is facing the prospect of a large-scale famine, with Save the Children on Tuesday raising the alarm that conditions there are worsening.
