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?

I have not suggested anyone losing the right to vote again if an election/referendum outcome does not work out positively so I am not sure what you are reaching for here. I am however, suggesting that the opinions of people who voted enthusiastically for something that was articulated well in advance as 'bad' across the board by various trade bodies, industry specialists and other experts in various fields are not best placed to be seriously listened to again when they in equal measure not only refuse to admit the way they voted was in any way wrong and start moaning about the very things they were warned would happen. I am not saying you can't have an opinion, just don't be surprised if I don't want to listen to it and I pick up my drink at the bar and move somewhere else.

@Saysomething1234 but it's not just about hindsight but about what we do going forward. For example we could make ourselves a lot richer again by signing up to a closer trade arrangement with the EU. This would make a lot bigger difference to the state of our finances than withdrawing support from Ukraine.

Withdrawing support from Ukraine would save us no money at all. If Ukraine lost we would have to spend more on defence to deter the Russians and might get involved in a war to defend the Baltic states. If Ukraine won we would have seriously damaged our relationship with most of the world's democraciel

Yesterdays Yougov voting intention poll has labour on 46% and cons on 25%. Granted we are a few years out from a general election but I get the distinct impression people are definitely clamouring, at the very least, for not another Conservative government.

Yes, there is a lot wrong with the country. I am in my late 40s now and have seen a number of governments of varying competence come and go. However, what the current mob have done during their 12 years in power has caused more damage and suffering then anyone could have imagined. It is weird state of affairs when you look at the dying days of Majors government, with the scandals and sleaze and they come out looking like statesman of the first order in comparison to the self serving venal clowns we have now.

The UK pointing out what is wrong with the EU at the moment is like you pointing out to another driver that their brake light is broken and there is a chip on the windscreen while you are driving about in a car with no working brakes, flat tires and belching smoke out the back.

As I was saying this at the time, and so were others, when it's us making this point by definition it can't be hindsight bias. Don't use terms you can't understand. It's interesting that you're apparently a Brexiter though, given that the UK leaving the EU was such a positive thing for Putin. Another thing that some of us knew in 2016!

Meanwhile, have you done your Afghanistan history homework yet?

@ImAvingOops, Labour are about 20% ahead in the polls at the moment...

To be fair to the PP, a lot of people did predict this broad outcome (without the year of three prime ministers etc) before the fact. It was all dismissed as project fear.

However, relitigating the referendum campaign isn't terribly interesting. You seem to accept that the implementation of Brexit has been less than ideal. In that context, why is Ukraine the focus of your concerns around what the country can and cannot afford, rather than more enduring savings that could be achieved through other policy decisions, including the consideration of a closer trading relationship with the EU and removing some of the trade barriers that are costing us so much?

To be fair to the PP, a lot of people did predict this broad outcome (without the year of three prime ministers etc) before the fact. It was all dismissed as project fear.

I will admit that I didn't see the Liz Truss premiership coming...

<Monty Python Voice> No one expects the Liz Truss premiership.

Yup. If we want more money then sorting out a decent trade deal with the EU would be the way to go.
Not worrying about supporting Ukraine.

I think polls reflect dissatisfaction with the current government, and an acceptance that with limited options available to us, in the form of an opposition, Labour will have to do!
I don't see massive enthusiasm for left wing parties on MN, not least due to their stance on gender issues.

The whole thing is rotten - as a GE approaches, we should feel faced with credible choices, instead of voting for the least worst thing as we perceive it at the time of voting!

I think the year ahead will be very interesting. Keir Starmer's speech this week felt properly reforming and the first time it felt like there was a distinct, credible and pretty interesting alternative.

Hindsight bias is our tendency to look back at an event that we could not predict at the time and think the outcome was easily predictable. It is also called the 'knew-it-all-along' effect

That is utter rubbish. Tory governments have a policy of not funding public services. It's their brand of politics. It always has been. Don't you bother to read the manifestos?

As for Brexit, leading economists warned everyone in no uncertain terms that Brexit would mean financial hardship for many in the Uk for at least 50 years. They warned that taxes would go up. Indeed, even leading Brexiteers admitted this as well.

I don't think anyone who voted could have predicted the whole BJ fiasco or the utter shit show that has been the Conservative Party since

Not being wise after the event but it was predicted, i predicted it on here many times as did many many other posters and commentators.... not because i'm some sort of Sear but because we knew what the Tory party was like (Cameron and the Bullingdon club, Windrush) we knew what Boris J was and is and we knew what people like Farage were like.

It was one reason i voted remain, leavers were putting their trust in leaders (from either main party) that have let them down time and time again.. only post EU, they would have zero controls over their behaviour.

Nothing that has happened since 2016 is surprising in the least..

Agree and as we get closer to the GE, we'll see more policies coming forward.
No good coming out with them now.. Sunak would pinch the popular ones and quite frankly, its too far away.. we don't know how Ukraine will turn out next month... let alone in 2 years time.

And it's easy to forget what a huge internal job Starmer had to do to fix the Labour Party to make it a credible alternative to swinging/centrist voters.

I thought some of his framing was very welcome, it will be interesting to see how it goes down with an electorate that is used to a massively centralised system.

If he can only get out of this twaw bullshit. What puts me off is that he is willing to pander to this lie and sod the effect on actual women!

I look at the effects of RL tory policy on women now!

Over 50% of women needing a DV refuge place are turned away... this is criminal.
Rapes & the justice system
Childrens services.
Police and how they treat women
NHS and single sex medics and wards

Sorry its completely off topic but i wanted to answer your post.

@Alexandra2001 I agree it's dire. In the end we will have to go with what we feel at the time is least harmful, but it's not the way to go into any election.

Dumb response 🙄

You’re right that this country is in an appalling mess, but at least we largely have democracy and freedom from tyranny. If we can’t defend those fundamental principles then we really are in trouble.

If you want to be more pragmatic/selfish, then allowing Putin to unilaterally annex a neighbouring democracy (deliberately murdering countless unarmed civilians in the process) gives a green light to greedy autocrats across the globe and within a generation we could be the prey

I'm a TV journalist and since February I have sat at my desk every day and watched the agency feed pictures come in from Ukraine - and I mean the UNFILTERED, live, on-the-ground pictures of what is really happening every day in the country. On Christmas eve, I had to cut some footage from the Russian shelling of the central square in Kherson, where a woman had been decapitated while she was out shopping and a man was literally blown to pieces while driving along in his car.

I have this morning just seen some footage of a ten year old girl who has been pulled semi conscious and seriously injured from the remains of a market place in Kharkiv. Two other women were killed. If the NATO alliance wavers in Ukraine, even for a moment, these scenes could soon be taking place in Tallinn, Helsinki, or Chisinau. And then where next?

Russia has undoubtedly been planning this for years and has been waiting for (colluding with) a string of events that have led to this moment - the Trump Presidency, Brexit, the US pull-out from Afghanistan, the rise of the alt-right.

If Moscow advances on Europe, which it has every intention of doing, we will be dreaming of the days when all we had to worry about was gas bills, the price of shopping and how to get a doctors appointment.

This war has EVERYTHING to do with us - and its comments like the one that started this thread that have allowed Putin to advance as far as he has, and will allow him to continue if he can.

I would urge everyone to please educate yourself about whats happening in Ukraine - and what happened in Weimar Germany in the thirties - and don't for a moment underestimate the seriousness of the challenge we are facing

@Cath2712 I think the same as you. We must not be complacent.

But.....but.....The West

@DanseAvecLesLoups "But the west" what??
What's happened in Ukraine since the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych is the natural development of whats happened in Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall. If not, why is Moscow so terrified that it is sacrificing hundreds of thousands of its young men in Ukraine? This is existential for the Russians too. They know that the Caucasus will go next and then the Central Asian states. I don't doubt that Armenia would join NATO in a heartbeat if it could, why else has Pashinyan been on a charm offensive in Paris?

If being part of Russia was so great - how come Eastern Europe fell like a pack of cards at the first chance? And Poland threatened to develop its own nuclear weapons arsenal if it wasn't allowed into NATO?

There is a lot of blood to be spilt yet - but doubtless the hawks in Washington and Brussels see this as an opportunity to break Russia once and for all and stop its pernicious influence in some of the most vulnerable parts of the world - Africa, Latin America.

Moscow or London? (... or New York/Oslo/ Berlin/ Rome/ LA/ Madrid?)
Where would you rather live?

@Cath2712

I think you are being a little bit 'wooshed' there.

I am taking the piss out of the endless supply of useful idiots who inhibit this and other forums that I frequent who perform all sorts of mental acrobats to justify or mitigate the actions of Russia in Ukraine with whataboutery, false equivalence and general catch all blaming of 'The West'.

To the ones arguing we spend it all on Ukraine…

news.sky.com/story/amp/us-general-warns-british-army-no-longer-top-level-fighting-force-defence-sources-reveal-12798365