"Prime Minister Keir Starmer recommits to £3 billion a year of military support for Ukraine until 2030/31 and for as long as needed"

[changefromhr]

That's a huge amount of money for a war that's not going to end anytime soon.
3 BILLION a year!
3 x 1 thousand millions!
Where is this money going to come from? This is in addition to almost £12.5bn in military, humanitarian and economic support already given for Ukraine since Russia’s illegal and miscalculated full scale invasion in February 2022.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-stand-with-ukraine-for-as-long-as-it-takes-pm-to-tell-nato

Which bit about it not being about the principle of support to Ukraine and more about the amount of money we don’t have to fund it , do you find so tricky to understand?

I really don’t think that is that complicated?

Yet…..true.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Other than his stated desire to reunite the USSR you mean?

It is such a small amount of money though. We have recovered more just by stopping the waste of the Conservative government.

Aaaaah. Fair enough. Putin has proven himself to be a trustworthy, honest sort of fellow so that sounds like a great plan to me.

Another reason that we have to pray that the Democrats win the US election in November. Trump would roll over for Putin.
This is the guy who was poisoning British citizens on UK soil not that long ago. He needs to be stopped.
Three billion is a lot of money but it's a drop in the ocean of Government spending. Sunak WROTE OFF around 16bn of Covid loan fraud because he couldn't be bothered to chase it and around 10bn of useless PPE. I don't recall all this hand wringing about that.

Absolutely. We should back Ukraine because it’s the right thing to do and we would hope for the same in that situation.

It’s also in our best interests. We stand together now to ward off WWIII.

£3bn a year is a LOT cheaper than fighting a war with Russia ourselves.

This is a proxy war on our behalf and it is coming at the cost of many Ukrainian lives.

£3billion a year in the nhs or social care would not be a small amount of money.

to be absolutely clear, I don’t believe there is a right answer. I’m just concerned about where the money comes from and what doesn’t get funded as a result.

Excellent point.

Why? The reason Ukraine are in this drawn out war is because they aren’t in NATO, so are having to go through it alone. If Russia try to pull any of this shit with the rest of Europe, they will be brought down.

Do you? Can you point to what makes you believe that statement?

Reports tend to undermine his claims of willingness to negotiate. Most claims come via his anonymous sources (known for their honesty and integrity and no fear at all of a heart attack while flying out a 6th floor window) which cannot be relied upon.

Essentially, he can mumble all he likes about negotiation, but he isn't coming to the table.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-wants-ukraine-ceasefire-current-frontlines-sources-say-2024-05-24/#:~:text=MOSCOW%2FLONDON%2C%20May%2024%20(,the%20West%20do%20not%20respond.

That's not what you wrote. About then spend makes no sense.

Now you've clarified somewhat, it's still a foolish point, because you were trying to make this party political. It isn't. Financial support for Ukraine was a Tory government policy and is now a Labour one. Whether you happen to approve of either has no effect on that. As I said, incoherent.

We nearly all had the opportunity last week to vote for a party who don't want to support Ukraine because Farage is a Putin stooge. And they got 5 seats.

Ukraine is losing at the moment because they didn’t get enough right support at the right time. Yes, we’ve sent them a lot of humanitarian support but war is not conducted with warm clothes and children toys however necessary they might be. Ukraine needs weapons and some specific weapons considering the size of territory.
We are helping Ukraine because our ( NATO) territory is the next. Like with all bullies they don’t stop at one target, once they feel that they go unpunished the bullies (Russia) will move to someone else. It’s in our geopolitical and SELFISH interests to help Ukraine. We fight Putin by proxy at this point. Next stage is fighting him by ourselves. But there is not a stage of peaceful existence with him, it doesn’t work like this.

Can I also remind people that Ukraine hosted nuclear weapons at the moment of Soviet Unions collapse and then agreed to transfer them to Russia in exchange for assurances from Russia, UK and USA to respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in existing borders. UK is part of this treaty. UK promised to guarantee Ukrainian independence and sovereignty. It’s not widely known but easy to google.

That's not what you wrote. About then spend makes no sense

This doesn’t make a huge amount of sense either!

it’s amazing how many people have been so rude and aggressive in this thread , demanding explanations, being personally nasty. There is really no need. You don’t have to agree with everyone, but you can do that without trying to belittle , just comes across as arrogant and aggressive.

Putin winning will be a disaster for Europe and the rest of the world. Plus a lot of this money will actually help the UK economy.

I get that, but since this amount is about a quarter of a percent of spending, the savings of just stopping the waste of the previous government will cover it for a good few years while still enabling additional spending in areas such as the NHS.

P.S. 3bn is actually quite a small amount of NHS funding. Things like clamping down on missed appointments would be far better than just giving an extra 3bn. The NHS is poorly administered, not necessarily short of money.

Yes, yes, people who point out the massive flaws in your points are just meeeeeean.

The bottom line is, you were demonstrably wrong when you talked about financial support for Ukraine being a Labour thing. It is not. It was a Tory policy too. Whether you happen to agree with this policy makes nary a shit of difference, and this would be true even if you were arguing that point better.

Oh man, this is embarrassing.

see, I haven’t actually said that supporting Ukraine is ‘a labour thing’ I just said that overspending was.

but anyway, if you can’t read the thread properly then there is nothing I can do to help you!

I take it it was bs about putin being riddled with cancer/dying

Lmao nice try.

You were asked what we should do instead, ie instead of the financial support for Ukraine. The conversation is clearly about that. Then you said 'this is typical Labour behaviour'. The 'this' being discussed is the financial support package for Ukraine.

You're right though, there's nothing someone with that level of understanding could possibly do to help me.

I just said that overspending was.

This is a myth. Historically Labour borrow less than Conservative, and repay more leading to lower overall borrowing. They have presided over higher GDP growth and lower unemployment.

Yes I did say overspending is typical labour behaviour.

And more. It was a foolish point given the spending you were talking about, and doesn't get any less so with repetition.