To think we cannot afford to support Ukraine anymore

[Saysomething1234]

This may be an unpopular opinion but it is annoying me to no end and NC

We have a littany of issues crying out for funding domestically - NHS broken. Economy going down the drain. Pound down 20% in one year. Public services collapsing, Education system requiring re-investment, high taxes driving talent out. We can keep blaming our politicians but someone needs to prioritise where money goes - and no one is willing to talk about this

Yet we are spending hundreds of billions in supporting Ukraine in a war which has nothing to do with us. Yes we are morally supporting them but is there no amount which will be too much? We are paying both directly (through weapons and aid) and indirectly (through huge energy subsidies - last totalling north of £200bn) - we need to stop this spending, reduce energy prices, stop this craziness

How is this war something we can afford on the basis on principles and why aren't we more aggressively pushing for a negotiated settlement?

We cannot afford this. It sucks for Ukrainians but this is not UK's bill to foot.

AIBU?

Sorry so do you admit now that you didn’t actually deal with that in your previous post contrary to your assertion? Oh and that we don’t have control of whether or not negotiations are even started contrary to your earlier post? Asking for a friend.

JFC - bastards. Call themselves soldiers???

id heard about them raping women & obviously that's disgusting/horrifying, but a small child in front of her parents.

nasty bloody bastards!

@Saysomething1234 it's pretty pathetic to name change to name change & not stand behind your post.

I support, supporting Ukrainians here and in Ukraine. They didn't ask for this attack on them

separately, we're protecting OUR border & were collectively showing Putin that we will all stand together against him.

thirdly this would be a ridiculous time to Stop.

🇺🇦 to any Ukrainians that are reading, the vast majority support Ukrainians & want to support you AND we accept it's not just your war, but you're paying the price 🫶🏻

So this requires a bit of analysis. Where's the economic pain coming from? Mainly energy prices. (Our own economic problems are exacerbated by the economic own goal of Brexit without plans for eg the labour force, but let's put that to one side as OP seems a bit sensitive about that.)

Are we doomed to these energy prices forever? Also no - we can see that already. Even though the war continues, the European energy system is recalibrating itself away from Russia. In the short term than means massively increasing the number of LNG terminals and getting our gas supplies from elsewhere. That's already getting cheaper as the international system adjusts to the new demand patterns. In the medium term it means speeding the trajectory we were already on, which is ditching gas. We're behind in the UK because successive governments fell for the idea that gas would always be cheap and that despots wouldn't use energy as a weapon so they didn't invest in things like new nuclear. We also had a decade of Tory rule where they decided they were violently allergic to the cheapest renewables, but were quite up for North Sea subsidies.

But we are where we are. We're getting the nuclear programme back on track. Our offshore wind capacity is massively increasing and, despite what the fossil fuel lobby would like you to believe, it's a very rare day that the wind isn't blowing somewhere in our coastal waters. And for those days, energy storage, both small and large scale, are coming on in leaps and bounds.

And in the next year or so, with REMA, we should should see reforms to the way electricity prices are set, so that the price paid at settlement isn't the cost of the most expensive unit of electricity produced.

So the global gas prices that currently set our bills become less relevant as we become more energy independent.

And in terms of the wider priority of the rules-based global system, I do keep coming back to the economic pain that would be caused if China felt that this would be the right time to go for Taiwan.

@ChillyFloss Russia have repeatedly stated that negotiations would need to be predicated on Western acceptance that they keep the 4 territories they illegally annexed in September. This is totally unrealistic.

Is that the Ray Dalio who said that a negotiated settlement with Russia with Putin controlling western Ukraine and managing to remain on the world stage would make Russia a 'lesser loser' in the war than the West and NATO?

Ray Dalio is the same guy who founded the largest and most successful hedge fund in the world called Bridgewater Associates

Also he is American btw. Not a russian bot.

The world is at war whether we want to be involved or not, and refusing to support Ukraine would earn us the contempt of our allies, who are doing their part right now, especially the States.

The Ukraine war will not go on forever; some sort of settlement will eventually be reached, but Putin needs to be forced to feel some serious pain, otherwise he and his successors (not to mention China) will be enboldened to do even worse things in the future. It's a choice of, do we want to eat a shit sandwich now, or an even bigger shit sandwich five or ten years from now?

Much of the pain is coming from the energy transition, but this energy transition is something that needs to happen anyway, and speeding up the transition is akin to ripping the bandaid - painful but necessary and unavoidable.

Imagine the UK would cease all support for Ukraine at this moment. Why do you think it would influence the energy prices in the UK ?
UK's support for Ukraine is significant, but they won't stop defending themselves if you stop supporting them.

Why is that relevant to the question I asked?

Does it change the fact that he thinks a negotiated settlement would be a bad outcome for the West?

I wish the US would feel the energy price pain the same way we do - or foot the £500b bill that Europe is paying for. I'd feel a lot less aggrieved then.

instead this www.ft.com/content/0a78d7e8-c148-41a2-ba9e-6fedd89d2e04

where did he say it is the worse case outcome for the west? I think he is saying a compromise is better because it allows putin to save face.

i am not familiar with his position on ukraine , but his analysis of changing world order is spot on

The UK Government literally uses millions upon millions of pounds of taxpayer's money to fight in actual and proxy wars. They also trade weapons with selective dictatorships because it benefits them to do so. Most taxpayers are not even clued up about the full extent.

Yet, on the other hand, British Veterans who were used in horrific Nuclear testing as guinea pigs by the Government have been kicked to the kerb, stopped from getting compensation or recognition and are being silenced despite years of campaigning.

Never trust what the Government tells you. They will use civilians suffering to invoke sympathy but when they are dropping the bombs, they will say the fatalities are 'unavoidable collateral damage'

They don't care!

It's better to be quiet & thought an idiot, , than to open your mouth & prove it.

read what people are posting FFS

These are some unbelievable people on here. The ignorance and/or callousness is terrible.

totally agree with you on this one

its as if they dont understand basic maths. Maybe sunak is on to something

@Saysomething1234

youre just being deliberately provocative now.

it's past your bedtime.

night night

@Saysomething1234 as has been pointed out numerous times, you are one of them.

Right out of the bot playbook to quote useful idiots in the West. You must keep a list of them to pull out of the bag from time to time.

Not sure why US needs to feel any energy price pain. This is apropos of nothing.

Do you think the US somehow responsible for the shit show, not Putin? Old thought patterns are hard to break. Careful, you are starting to show your true colours, Russian bot.

where did he say it is the worse case outcome for the west? I think he is saying a compromise is better because it allows putin to save face.

Nope. Literally not what he said. On his own LinkedIn.

His view is that a negotiated settlement that left Putin on the world stage and having made territorial gains would make him the winner/lesser loser because it would mean a fractured western alliance, a weaker NATO and a signal that western sanctions were ineffective. Putin would be relatively strengthened compared to the west - thus, the 'lesser loser'.

He's a fan of the rules based international system, it seems from his writings, and said at the start that he saw the conflict as a test of the power of US and Western sanctions in how the world order lines up.

Honestly, if you're going to invoke someone you should check what they've actually said about the issue under discussion.

And I bet the Government have never handed back over £3million of funding (at least) that they have received from Soviet born donors.

In fact, just days after Boris 'warned' Putin about invading Ukraine, the Conservative party happily accepted a £65,000 donation from the wife of one of Putin's former aides!

Oh, the hypocrisy.

We are incredibly fortunate not to have our homes wrecked and friends die around us. Completely puts our problems in perspective. Of course we should continue to help. It’s also a drop on the ocean compared to our nations spend (and what has been wasted from deals in our present government with their mates). Wake up OP!

Nah, too far away for Putin. Northern Ireland would be a better option.

Sarcasm aside, I hope this thread does not get pulled given the excellent contributions from well informed posters counter arguing the OPs disingenuous opening question.

Energy prices and energy security issues have come about because of the sanctions imposed internationally on Russia. That will continue to have an impact on the UK domestically even if the UK stopped providing financial and military aid direct to Ukraine.

Unless OP thinks the UK should drop the sanctions and buy some cheap gas from Russia ...

The balticc states will be next if he wins in Ukraine. High ethnic Russian populations who don't have the same rights as non Russians in Estonia and Latvia. He will go in to protect them, or so he will say. Then we have a legal obligation to send our military to fight on the ground as they are all in Nato. He already runs supplies through lithuania to Russian kalingrad and when they said they were going to prevent it he said he would invade them. Then the cost will be dead UK citizens not higher heating bills.