Brexit mega thread part 6: Invasion and Evasion

[Opal8]

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NHS has however received at least an additional £20b in various tranches in 2020 and 2021, so it's not had to find all pandemic costs from its original baselines

There isn't spare money at the moment - and if defence cuts need to be reversed, that's going to be expensive too

How Depressing. Russia immune to sanctions

I am not buying 'There isn't any spare money' argument. This is largely a political choice. There is plenty of money when Tory mates come asking for hand outs. Health of the general population - that's a different matter.

@Peregrina

I am not buying 'There isn't any spare money' argument. This is largely a political choice. There is plenty of money when Tory mates come asking for hand outs. Health of the general population - that's a different matter.

So you don't think we'll be paying back covid costs for the coming decades?

And that the government isn't borrowing to balance the books?

Where is the 'spare' money?

Or do you simply mean that other budgetary priorities are available? If so, what would you cut?

It would be hilarious, were we not at such a scary time in history, that people who insist the UK is a modern irrelevance and cannot exist without being in the EU, think that Brexit can cause Putin to invade Ukraine.

How about blaming the EU for ducking its international responsibility for arming itself? If Germany had spent 2% of GDP on its military for the last 20 years, Putin would be far more circumspect.

BJ is a moron and you can only be Churchillian if you can back it up, which we cannot, and our defence secretary needs sacking for what he said.

Given where we are and the risks, I think Germany’s stick and carrot approach is correct. However, the only reason Russia won’t push over into Poland is NATO, backed by U.S nukes (and, to a lesser extent, ours and France’s).

Who said that Brexit caused Putin to invade Ukraine?

I think you’ve got a slight misreading of what’s been said here Reluctant in that no one has suggested that Brexit caused Putin to invade Ukraine. However, there’s quite a bit of evidence that it perfectly suited Putin to have an isolated UK and a weaker EU by doing what it could to support the Leave campaign.

As it is, Putin can probably be reassured that the UK’s sanctions can be ignored and Germany is too dependent on Russian gas to do anything too much more by way of sanctions. That man is a master chess player.

Clearly no one wants a war with Russia for pretty obvious reasons but that doesn’t have to stop us from being desperately sorry for the Ukrainian people or to worry about ’what next’ when Putin sees he’s got away with invading a sovereign nation.

@Libertybear80, @AuldAlliance amongst many others claimed a link. Look at page 1 of the thread.

Where is the 'spare' money? is the catch phrase we’re all going to be hearing for the next two years. This will nicely suit the Tory agenda. And it is an agenda. The govt always borrows. There is no balancing the books in the sense being implied.

But if we wanted to determine our budgetary priorities my vote would be to cancel the utterly ridiculous HS2 as that would free up oh about another £70 billion. That could go some way to supporting an under funded NHS.

@TheReluctantPhoenix
I said there was a link, as in a common factor.
The common factor is Putin: his desire to weaken the EU, amongst others, as part of his push to regain what he sees as lost Russian territory.
This is hardly a groundbreaking idea.

At no point whatever did I say that Brexit caused Putin to invade Ukraine. That is a gross distortion of what I wrote.

Still think there’s a bit of misreading of what they’ve said. Correlation is not being claimed here to be causation. Neither Auld nor Liberty said Brexit has caused this war. The word they used was ‘link’ as in they identified that there’s a link between Putin’s war on Ukraine and Brexit. This analysis is supported by both the US and UK governments along with strategic think tanks and academics.

@DrBlackbird,

Oh, I see, correlation, not causation, no causation implied.

In that case, for me, global warming and the decline in piracy are ‘linked’ to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@DrBlackbird,

Oh, I see, correlation, not causation, no causation implied.

In that case, for me, global warming and the decline in piracy are ‘linked’ to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[/quote]
How so?

@AuldAlliance,

Either something is purely a ‘correlation’, which means that if you look at differences between data sets, the statistics will show they move together, even if one has no relevance to the other.

Or the correlation is due to a mechanistic link I.E if you altered factor 1, it would have an affect on factor 2.

When you said ‘link’, which did you mean? You seem to be implying both in different posts.

An Effect, not affect

Where is the 'spare' money?

Some went into fraudulent covid loans, which got written off. Some has gone to fuel firms and handsome profits - how about a windfall tax?

As ever, it's a matter of political choices. At present we have a self-serving Government which seems to believe that their only purpose is to help their mates get richer.

A link is not a cause. But it’s not unreasonable to see underlying factors operating in both Putin’s meddling in external affairs and in his invading Ukraine, which both advance his political ends, whereas it is unreasonable to see any meaningful common factors in Putin’s political activity, climate change and piracy, which idea no sensible person, such as most of those who post on here, would entertain.

Think you’re being a bit obtuse here Reluctant Not sure why. Feel free to indulge in the sarcasm while people are dying in the Ukraine.

If you’re not happy with our analysis of how the ‘link’ between Brexit and the war on Ukraine works, then how about the words of a retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin who described Moscow’s disinformation campaigns as "the heart and soul of Soviet intelligence" with its active subversion measures to weaken the West, to drive wedges in the Western community alliances of all sorts, particularly NATO; to sow discord among allies, to weaken the United States in the eyes of the people of Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and thus to prepare ground in case the war really occurs.

I think Brexit is a pretty fair description of a wedge in western alliances don’t you?

@DrBlackbird,

Nope. you who are being obtuse and using Ukraine to further an (imo) unrelated agenda.

Our military commitment to the defence of Europe via NATO has been unaffected by Brexit.

Our military commitment to the defence of Europe via NATO has been unaffected by Brexit.

Has anyone made that claim?

However, it has suited Putin to have countries in internal disarray, and Brexit has done that very nicely for him.

Our military commitment to the defence of Europe via NATO has been unaffected by Brexit.

No one has suggested that this is the case. Our credibility and standing in the world, however, has been affected - by the futility of Brexit itself,, the lies and misinformation around the Leave campaign and by the bad faith of our Government in subsequent international negotiations.

What ‘agenda’ is it that I’m using Ukraine to further Reluctant?

Nowhere have I claimed that Brexit impinges on UK’s NATO obligations.

If you can’t see / don’t want to see the evidence of the link between Moscow supporting Brexit to weaken the EU and isolate the UK and how Putin is now acting with total impunity, then I’ve got to conclude it’s you who wish to defend an agenda.

Hmm, I wonder what could that be?

@Peregrina

Our military commitment to the defence of Europe via NATO has been unaffected by Brexit.

Has anyone made that claim?

However, it has suited Putin to have countries in internal disarray, and Brexit has done that very nicely for him.

Just another Brexiteer tactic. Invent a claim all on your own, and the argue against it (all on your won). That might work in facebookworld, but the people of this parish are a little less cohesive.

I'l state here that Reluctant won't be able to cite a post in this thread to back them up and will have to c'n'p something - probably about Corbyn - into the thread.

TheReluctantPhoenix is indeed being obtuse and trying to derail this thread to suit his or her agenda. I suggest we ignore him or her and stop engaging.

It's perfectly clear that what has been discussed in here are links that suit Russia's purposes (going back many years).