The British Empire and Its Stooges Cheerlead for War and against Negotiations

While there has been much diplomacy in favor of a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, the war party in the West, led by the British, as well as President Zelenskyy’s inner circle, are working to sabotage them. To begin with the former initiatives, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva has been actively organizing his “peace club” since the G7 summit in Hiroshima, which he attended as a guest (cf. SAS 21/23). On the sidelines of the meetings, he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and shortly after returning, spoke by phone with Chinese President Xi on May 24, then, two days later with Russian President Putin, about seeking a peaceful solution for Ukraine, as well as about the perspectives of the BRICS, of which all four countries are members.

At the same time, China’s special envoy Li Hui was in Europe to sound out various leaders about the Chinese peace proposal (cf. SAS 21/23). His trip took him to Kyiv, Warsaw, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, and then Moscow. The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell refused to receive him, relegating the meeting to his Deputy Secretary-General for Political Affairs Enrique Mora, who insisted on “Russia’s full responsibility for the unprovoked and unjustified aggression against Ukraine”.

As for the Ukrainian government, the adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office Mykhailo Podolyak took to Ukrainian TV channels May 26 to attack all peace initiatives, explicitly rejecting those of China, Brazil, six African nations, and the Vatican. Acknowledging that “everyone is talking about peace”, he insisted that those who call for a compromise are “lobbying for Russia”. He called China’s proposal “absurd”, and a “capitulation plan”. Only two things count, he said: “swift weapons supplies” and “a basic NATO membership… The rest is mere talk about abstract things.”

But the real decisions makers, of course, are not in Kyiv, but in London and Washington, and they are not about to back peace proposals at this point. That was made clear by two of Britain’s self-proclaimed elite, who are no longer officially in power, but very active. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Dallas, Texas, last week to try and convince Republican politicians and influentials to continue supporting Ukraine, despite growing opposition to financing the war effort from within their party. He was presented there as “the architect of Western policy” on Ukraine.

We should also mention Sir Richard Dearlove, the former chief of the British secret service MI6 (1999-2004), who has never given up on restoring the British Empire. In a speech last week to the U.K. National Conservatism conference, he openly stated that Britain requires war, be it cold war or hot, to maintain its identity. (“Without the essential threat to our way of life that was a constant feature of the Cold War, we have lost cohesion and motivation, and especially our self-confidence.”) From there, he denounced China’s proposals for seeking a settlement in Ukraine, and called for “revolutionary change” in Russia…