I have just seen this running update on The Daily Telegraph website. Because it is a running update, it may have changed by the time any of my readers look at it. But the war in Ukraine is over. It is certainly over in the sense that it cannot be won. That much is now clear to anyone paying attention. What remains is the senseless slaughter still needed to save a few important faces. The more pragmatic wing of the American ruling class has recognised that throwing good money and weapons after bad is a fool’s errand. This faction, just as corrupt and self-serving as its rival, has decided to cut its losses and move on. The British ruling class, by contrast, seems not yet to have noticed, though probably has.

On the face of it, Keir Starmer looks like an idiot for pretending that Britain, or even the European powers combined, can sustain a war that the Americans are abandoning. His call for a European “coalition of the willing” to enforce peace in Ukraine is a nonsense, filled with the usual sanctimonious posturing but backed by neither resources nor realism. Europe does not have the manpower or the political will to sustain a war that is already lost.

But I will allow for the possibility that Mr Starmer is not simply an idiot. Perhaps:

1. Washington has given him time to adjust the script – The Americans are done with the war, but Mr Starmer is being given a grace period before he has to start speaking entirely new lines. The shift must be managed. If he reversed course overnight, even the BBC’s audience might start to wonder.
2. He is being allowed to play the peacemaker – By leading a doomed-to-fail European push for a “just peace,” Mr Starmer gets to act as if he is achieving something. He will spend a few days trying to put a European coalition together. When this inevitably fails, he will start flying between Washington, Moscow and Kiev. The actual deal was made months ago between Messrs Trump and Putin, but Mr Starmer will “persuade” the Russians to give up some of what they will say they want and to accept what they really want. The Americans will withdraw a little from their stage-managed humiliation of Mr Zelensky. Mr Starmer will then look like a peacemaker, and the Americans will have told the world that they are still to be reckoned with. As for Mr Starmer, he will be left to appear principled, rather than simply obedient.
3. He is expecting economic favours in return – When the Americans start slapping tariffs on their supposed allies (as they will), Britain might hope for softer treatment. This is the real game in Washington now – realigning economic priorities for an era when China can no longer be ignored. Britain’s only hope of remaining relevant is to stay on America’s good side, even if that means another few months of foolish war talk.

Britain: A Hollow Power

A century of financial mismanagement and the deliberate gutting of national capability have reduced Britain to a power of no account in the world. We retain only the status of a favoured American satellite, a country that still believes it is important, while the decisions that matter are taken elsewhere. Usually, I resent this reality. However, since the more pragmatic faction of the American elite has taken control, I allow myself to hope that their relative sanity will make itself felt over here:

• A less aggressive foreign policy, where we are no longer dragged into every catastrophic adventure dreamed up in Washington.
• A more rational economic policy, with a greater emphasis on national resilience over corporate grift.
• A mild loosening of the police state, if only because dissent becomes less of a threat when the ruling class is not engaged in ruinous wars.

Meanwhile, the Conservative Party is busy proving why it deserves to die. The latest idiocy is the claim that Nigel Farage is somehow tainted by his friendship with Donald Trump. This presumes that the British public is addicted to war with Russia, that they wake up each morning desperate to keep shelling out billions for a war they do not understand and which does not concern them. If the Conservatives truly believe this, they are even more detached from reality than I had imagined.

In any event, it is difficult to see how the Conservative Party can survive for much longer. It is out of ideas and increasingly out of voters. If it implodes soon, we should be grateful.

In the end, the real shift is happening in America. The war in Ukraine is being wound down, and a broader realignment is beginning. The winning faction of the American elite still wants global dominance, but at least understands reality. This is no reason for celebration – Ruling classes remain what they are. But we may at least hope for a period of relative sanity, a respite from the endless wars and ideological lunacy of the past two decades.

For now, Mr Starmer can play his games. He can act as if he is leading Europe into a brave new future, even as it continues to sink into irrelevance. What matters is that the big decisions have already been made elsewhere.

And for once, they are not entirely the worst decisions possible.

Image: Wikipedia