The British government should be seeking to de-escalate tension on the Ukraine-Russia border, not engaging in the ‘rhetoric of war’, according to Britain’s Communists. Addressing the Communist Party of Britain’s political committee on Tuesday evening (February 8), Kevan Nelson described as ‘absurd’ the claims that Russia’s deployment of troops within its own borders poses a threat to world peace, while NATO countries pour vast quantities of arms and military personnel into Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states from North America and Western Europe.
‘The US already has 70,000 troops permanently stationed in Europe, now being reinforced by fighter jets from Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain as NATO warships patrol the Black Sea’, the CPB international secretary pointed out. He also warned that ‘NATO’s war psychosis is drawing Finland and Sweden closer into its orbit’, calling instead for a negotiated settlement of Europe-Russia relations.
Mr Nelson contrasted the ease with which Western imperialism’s military forces and hardware are rapidly deployed across the world to the catastrophic failure to distribute Covid-19 vaccines and medical equipment to low-income countries. The CPB political committee urged support for anti-war protests, beginning with the Stop the War online rally on Thursday evening (February 10), and called for an end to NATO and EU expansion.
On the domestic front, Kevan Nelson said the cost-of-living crisis is becoming more of a ‘crisis of everyday living’ that would not be resolved by the Conservative government’s bogus ‘levelling up’ agenda. ‘The rampant profiteering of the energy companies is rooted in the privatisation of BP and the public utilities in the 1980s and early 1990s’, he charged, ‘and the solution is to revert to public ownership’.
The CPB political committee welcomed the resurgence of extra-parliamentary action by trade unions and campaigning bodies such as the People’s Assembly, which is organising ‘We Can’t Pay’ protests in 25 towns and cities across Britain this coming weekend.