Starmer's 'secret' visit to a decrepit nuclear sub to lobby for war should enrage Scots
The only winner is the Military Industrial Complex
Published in the March 21st edition of The National and the March 22nd edition of The Edinburgh Evening News.
Sir Keir’s warmongering visit to a creaking, leaking 25-year-old Vanguard nuclear sub at Barrow-in-Furness, which is NOT off the coast of Scotland as reported by Sky News, is grotesque and pathetic. It may please the readers of the Daily Fail but shouldn’t fool Scots.
This isn’t about the UK’s security or economic growth, but about boosting the bottom line of the military industrial complex (MIC). Barrow-in-Furness is the headquarters of BAE Systems, the UK’s biggest defence contractor.
The next class of nuclear submarines, Dreadnought - it would be more accurate to call it “DreadAlot” - is projected to cost £41 billion. The lead contractors are BAE Systems and Rolls Royce.
Another MIC beneficiary is Italian company Leonardo. It specialises in electronic warfare systems and has a production facility in Edinburgh.
Sir Keir’s pledge to spend an extra £13bn a year on defence means this money will flow directly into the voracious maw of the UK MIC.
And English Labour is paving the way for these merchants of war to profit from Sir Keir’s largesse. Earlier this month 100 Labour MPs urged UK banks to class defence investments as ethical, arguing that environmental, social and governance (ESG) rules are limiting the MIC’s access to finance.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, classed the United States as a perpetual war state because the MIC needs at least £50 billion a year to satisfy it. When the war in Afghanistan, which the US badly lost, ended in 2021 after 20 years, the US started the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine a year later, followed by Gaza in 2023 and Lebanon in 2024. These wars are politically ‘necessary’ because the MIC donates vast amounts to members of Congress.
And so the grim cycle of death continues. When the Ukraine war ends, another will replace it so that the flow of money to the MIC is uninterrupted.
That’s why this week the US resumed bombing of the Houthis in Yemen, why it gave permission to the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to do the same in Gaza and why the next big war is likely to be with Iran at Israel’s urging.
The UK MIC, riding the coattails of the US MIC, profits from these continuous wars. 15% of every F35 that the genocidal state of Israel is using to bombard Gaza is British made. Two companies are in Scotland.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) estimates the value of the components UK industry supplies for Israeli F35s to be worth at least £360m since 2016.
War is big business. The US is the world’s top arms dealer, exporting 43% of the world’s weapons from 2020 - 2024. It exported 7.3 times more than China and 5.5 times more than Russia. The UK is the 7th largest arms exporter (3.6%), just ahead of tiny genocidal Israel (3.1%).
It’s clear that Starmer isn’t interested in the UK economy or its people. He has embraced the neoliberal agenda of his controllers. Austerity for the people and military spending for the MIC was always on their agenda and Starmer is just doing what he’s told.
Sir Keir even asked King Chuck to dub Barrow-in-Furness “the Royal Port of Barrow.” Chuck agreed.
At least a Scottish city was spared that embarrassment, although we bear the brunt of and radioactive pollution from the UK nuclear “deterrent,” which isn’t independent because it is controlled by the US.
One day Scotland will escape its UK prison. When it does, I hope it has the wisdom to forge an independent defence strategy, one not based on the NATO and MIC model of confrontation, but on cooperation and collective security, which recognises the legitimate security interests of other nations.
An organisation with 57 member states, including Russia, already exists, the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe). The answer to breaking the cycle of war is in the title - Cooperation. Let’s make Scotland the 58th member state.
Didn't Ukraine join the OSCE in 1992.......?
I’ve found it impossible to get anywhere criticizing Starmer and the so called New Labour. No matter what they do, everyone around here in my former conservative London borough support him to the hilt, even people who I formerly thought had some degree of intelligence and insight. Evidently he is doing a great job and if I ask how they can’t even answers and just mumble about the threat of Russia.