HANNAH SELL assesses what impact the war in Ukraine will have for the already tenuous position of British capitalism internationally and domestically, faced with the prospect of economic recession and political representatives viewed with historic levels of distrust.
While the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s regime has been watched in horror by working-class people in Britain as in other countries, the UK prime minister Boris Johnson has led the global charge by capitalist politicians to cynically use these events to try and consolidate his position. Before the invasion Johnson’s leadership of the Conservative Party was hanging by a thread as the Partygate revelations piled up. He has successfully used Ukraine to gain a little breathing space, but none of the problems facing Johnson, his party, or British capitalism have been solved.
Nor, other than the short term distraction they have so far provided, will events in Ukraine assist Johnson. His crass comparison between the Ukrainian resistance and the vote for Brexit is just one more example of his populist approach, where he is often prepared to disregard the interests of British capitalism, prioritising instead shoring up his own short-term base. In an increasingly fractious world, with a war taking place less than two thousand miles from Britain, the majority of the UK’s capitalist class would clearly rather have a more reliable representative than Johnson. Many would prefer the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who has used the war to once again demonstrate what an eminently safe pair of hands he is for British capitalism.
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