thoughts

I wrote something on JD Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference. This was part of the series of policy repositioning for the trump administration. My article was published on labour hub, in it I reference Vance’s speech to the Munich Security conference, i note the oligarch’s hypocritical and fascistic agenda, the foreshadowing of the crippling of NATO, and talk of the UK’s alternatives pointing out that we seem to be re-joining the EU one agency at a time.

I reference reports of J D Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference, where he criticised the EU and member state governments for suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs. He refused to meet the German Chancellor and yet met, during an election, with the leader of the far right AfD (Alternative for Germany).

I note his arguments on free speech are partisan; US oligarchs want American rich people’s voices to be heard and amplified by privately-owned social media companies and fear Europe’s regulation of them being based on a demand for truth. We also note the hypocrisy of the US free speech advocates’ attacks on ideas, books and teachers in schools, universities and libraries in the US. His comments on not relying on foreign technology providers by which he meant China, may come to haunt him as Europe examines its defence supply chains.  

Trump’s call for European NATO to increase their defence budgets to 5% of GDP is a naked attempt to build budgets for the US arms industry, just as the UK’s requests to have a side treaty on defence and security with the EU is also at least partially based on the economic interests of BAe.

Trump’s arguments about what does his money, that is, the arms shipments to Ukraine, buy, has a moral vacancy but it is clear that the view that ‘the business of America is business’ has returned to the White House. The crudity with which Trump pursues his views of US fiscal and commercial interests is echoed by the UK Labour Government in positioning its ‘EU reset’, arguing for changes in agreements which only benefit Britian from their limited, primarily electoral, point of view. 

In the Labour Hub article I suggest, the choices facing the Starmer administration are bleak while Starmer seems to be seeking to avoid Trump’s tariff increases, on defence the choice is stark. The UK can either continue to act as a vassal state of the United States or develop more effective partnerships with the European Union. It should be noted that Vance has questioned the need for NATO joint command. Labour’s foundational commitment to NATO, is looking weaker than it once was.

Starmer’s ambition on EU cooperation is limited, I have argued that the UK should use the withdrawal agreement review clauses to re-enter the customs union and the single market. The suspicion is that for the Starmer Administration, the single market is a step too far because of its requirements for a free movement of labour and Labour’s fear of the Tories and Reform UK.

Today’s military questions and the need for ‘security of supply’ strongly imply that the UK should join the European Space Agency and possibly the European defence agency.

The proposed military and security side treaty is looking less and less attractive to both sides because in order to protect our democracy against the attacks from US social media companies and US owned AI search engines, the UK needs the umbrella of the EU’s competition & digital regulators, this needs membership of the single market. We have already rejoined Horizon (the R&D programme) and the Euro HPC joint undertaking, and Northern Ireland is still part of the single market. At what point do we say, we need our MEPs, Judges, Commissioners and Council seats back or will we just be rejoining the EU an agency at a time. …