WHILE the world has been focused on Donald Trump’s brigandage in Venezuela, scarcely less menacing developments have been unfolding in Europe and Keir Starmer is at the centre of them.

His agreement signed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron proposes deploying thousands of troops as an Anglo-French force within Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire in the conflict with Russia.

This is not a plan for peace but a plan for war. The Russian government said today that any troops from the Nato alliance in Ukraine would be “legitimate targets.”

Indeed, a deployment of troops from the two strongest European Nato militaries, with additional guarantees of intervention by the United States in the event of hostilities, amounts to the expansion of Nato into Ukraine in all but name.

Moscow has made it clear from the outset that Nato membership for Ukraine would be a red line. Nato’s reckless eastward expansion after the end of the cold war was one of the contributory factors leading to the outbreak of war in 2022.

The plan by the so-called “coalition of the willing” led by Britain and France simply pushes the Nato war machine up against Russia’s borders under a different signboard.

Starmer knows this full well. The scheme is therefore in reality a means of continuing the war, not ending it. The British Establishment, under Labour and Tories alike, has pushed from the beginning to keep the conflict going as long as possible, in order to weaken its Russian rival.

This has been given added importance by the mounting evidence that the US is losing interest in maintaining its military hegemony in Europe and prefers to cut a deal with Vladimir Putin over a sphere of influence, while concentrating on pillaging and aggression throughout the western hemisphere and pressuring China.

It will take the European powers some years to replace the role of the US military across the continent, even at the breakneck speed of increasing arms spending which will itself impoverish working people in the coming years. 

The British government would prefer to keep Ukraine and Russia fighting each other until then. It is also desperate to keep Washington engaged in the Ukraine war, as it offers military capabilities to Kiev that the European powers cannot match.

None of this is about peace, but preparing for extended conflict. That is the meaning of Zelensky’s bizarre claim that Ukraine and the US had recently negotiated 90 per cent of a “peace deal.” Ukraine is not at war with the US, but with Russia. Any peace agreement has to be thrashed out with Moscow, not Washington.

That will be made the harder by this week’s announcement on Anglo-French troop deployment, as was intended. It throws a fresh obstacle in the path of productive negotiations to end this destructive conflict.

Starmer’s policy would, if ever implemented, be a charter for permanent instability and pregnant with risk of a wider war. Any incident, including Ukrainian provocations as well as Russian aggression, could trigger a great power conflict and even a world war.

His agreement with Macron and Zelensky this week has to be seen in a context shaped by repeated warnings from senior Nato military and political leaders that the continent must prepare for war with Russia.

This deployment would be a major step towards turning that bellicose rhetoric into murderous reality. 

Starmer told MPs that they would get to vote on the plan. As many as possible must be won to reject it. The labour movement must end its passivity on this issue and step up to halt Starmer’s drive towards a new world war.