Farage was right - relentless NATO expansion provoked Russia

And John Swinney showed himself to be a UK stooge

Nigel Farage actually uttered something that was true when he said the West had provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by its relentless expansion of NATO. Whatever your feelings are about Farage, he is right about this.

NATO was a product of the Cold War and when that ended, it should have been disbanded. It wasn’t because it’s a prop for US hegemony and serves as a war machine to feed the voracious military industrial complex. My son bought me a sweatshirt with the NATO logo and the words “North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation” emblazoned across it. Because that’s how the rest of the world perceives this so-called defensive alliance.

Since 1999, sixteen additional states have joined NATO, the latest members being Finland and Sweden. This occurred despite promises made by former US Secretary of State James Baker to Russian leaders that NATO would not expand one inch eastwards. In 2008, then US ambassador to Russia William Burns (now CIA Director) cabled Condoleeza Rice that the Russian political elites, not just Putin, regarded NATO expansion to Ukraine as the brightest of red lines.

The US ignored the warnings. It deposed Ukraine’s democratically elected leader in a 2014 coup and proceeded to arm Ukraine in preparation for a conflict with Russia. The Minsk I and II agreements were designed to bring peace to eastern Ukraine where the Russian speaking population was under siege by the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade and over 14,000 were killed. But instead they were cynically used by the West as a stopgap to buy time for Ukraine and NATO to rearm.

Were Ukraine to become the 33^rd NATO member state, it would complete the encirclement of Russia. As I’ve said before, how do you think the US would respond if Russia made Mexico and Canada members of a hostile military alliance?

So I was extremely disappointed when John Swinney, at Saturday’s Edinburgh Pride March (there was also an AUOB march in Stirling that day which Swinney chose not to attend which speaks volumes), called Farage “a traitor to the interests of the people on these islands.” It was an utterly bizarre thing to say. Why does that make Farage a traitor and who are the people “on these islands” to whom Swinney is referring - the English, the Welsh, the Scots, the Northern Irish? How exactly are they being betrayed? I’d argue it’s Swinney who is betraying the Scottish People by promising to beg for another independence referendum from the next PM, Sir Keir, who just vowed never to grant one.  

It’s yet another clear sign that the SNP is a colonial administration that carries out the wishes of its London masters. It’s no surprise that Scottish independence isn’t one of them. As long as MSPs and MPs from Scotland swear an oath of allegiance to the English King Charles III, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that they’ll lift a finger to liberate the Scottish People. That’s why we’ll have to do it ourselves.