At the end of last month, the first results of the 2021 UK Census were published. As many will recall, the results were simultaneously, although not quite paradoxically, shocking and expected. The information published showed that 1 in 6 UK citizens are born in another country – ten million of the UK’s 69 million; a 33% increase from the 7.5 million a mere decade ago.
The details were shocking insofar that few expected a demographic shift of such extreme proportions, even when compared to the last census in 2011. Nevertheless, they were expected. As anyone with an elementary understanding of British politics knows, the political system has pursued, less-so out of empirical consideration and moreso out of humanitarian (“it’s our moral obligation!”), diveristiarian (“diversity is our strength!”), and utilitarian (“immigration grows the economy!”) dogma(s), a policy of mass immigration since the late 1990s.
Just last week, data from the ONS showed that migration into Britain had reached a new record of 504,000 – a net increase of over 331,000 from the year prior. Keep in mind, all of this has happened despite the public’s clear and consistent opposition to immigration, nevermind the magnitudinous demographic change it has caused.
As soon as the data went public, one could piece together the overarching division of attitudes. Some welcomed the rapid erosion of Britain’s native-born citizenry. By contrast, the murmurs of the moderate-minded indicated a sense of foreboding. If the data on citizenship is this demographically untenable, what on Earth is the data regarding national identity going to look like?
Well, now we know. Reported by the ONS, the UK 2021 Census showed:
“81.7% of residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group as within the high-level “White” category in 2021. A decrease from 86.0% in 2011.
As part of the “White” ethnic group, 74.4% of the population in England and Wales identified their ethnic group as “English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British. This is a continued decrease from: 80.5% in 2011 and 87.5% in 2001.”
As with the initial citizenship data, many celebrated this seismic change, suggesting that fewer white British Christians in Britain amounted to a moral improvement.
On the other hand, some deemed the largest demographic shift since late antiquity to be completely ineffectual. Directed at Nigel Farage’s reaction to the census, which underscored the shrinking ethnic British population in London, Conservative MP Sajid Javid tweeted a forthright and mask-off response: “So what?”.
“It’s not happening and that’s why it’s a good thing” as the saying goes.
Nevertheless… So what? Well, for a start, it shows that the 2011 Census wasn’t a one off, but signified the start of an unprecedented trajectory: the continuous decline of the ethnically British population. On its own, this should be alarming, but the fact this demographic shift has occurred within a single generation makes it even moreso. Needless to say, but worth saying nonetheless, to do so without consultation from or consideration of those implicated is, to put it moderately, extremely irresponsible.
Moreover, what good is talk of “integration”, the oft-proposed silver-bullet to the consequences of immigration, if the historical ethnocultural in-group, the one which immigrants are supposed to integrate, cannot sustain its hegemony? At most, they’ll “integrate into” (perpetuate) a godless ratrace; a demoralising sluggish existence against the world’s richest on the housing market and the world’s poorest on the labour market. As Morrissey says: shelve your Western plans… Life is hard enough when you belong here.
As it stands, numerous communities across England and Wales are majority-minority – where the national majority group constitutes a local minority – a fact which makes panicked rhetoric about rhetorical divisiveness all the more out-of-touch. Mutually-segregating, and often mutually-loathing, communities have been around for decades, the census just reaffirms this reality.
More to the point, who could expect integration? Flimsy abstractions of Britishness aren’t holding British society together. Having a cuppa, forming an orderly queue, and appealing to vague, arbitrary, and contradictory notions of “tolerance” and “inclusion” and so on just doesn’t cut it. What is a nation, especially a democratic one, if it cannot inspire loyalty?
The rate of immigration and concentration of immigrant and immigrant-descended populations diminishes any incentive or expectation of integration, no matter how willing the native population is to water down the criteria of national belonging. If people can choose to associate and live amongst their kind, they shall do so – as has been the case since the dawn of time. Blood is thicker than water, even if the water is boiled, milked, and caffeinated.
But beyond a debate of causation, whether it’s a case of “can’t integrate” or “won’t integrate”, both instances point to the same overarching problem: Britain is fragmenting.
In order to accommodate the contradictory complexities of the world, primarily a consequence of the similarly unwanted reimagination of Britain as a “global” entity, “Britishness” has been reconfigured from a distinct identity – something that people indivisibly are, that their parents are, that their parents’ parents are – into a bureaucratic technicality – something that people can have, should and whenever they be so inclined; from a complex and unique ethnocultural particularity to a two-dimensional universality.
This fact, combined with evidently unmanageable and unpopular immigration numbers, is not a good omen. Rather, it risks gradually wiping Britain from the face of the Earth; from its unique and beautiful place in relation to a global diversity of similarly unique and beautiful ethnocultural organisms to a crude amalgamation of all-else, pathetically bound though an appeal to inoffensive all-inclusive emptiness.
All the more fitting then that the census should also reveal a collapse in religiosity. In a nation where church and state are bound, less than 50% (46.2%) of the population identifies as Christian – down from 59.3% in 2011. Simultaneously, those self-identifying as having “no religion” surged from 25.2% to 37.2%. This is the first time in 1000 years that Christainity is not the majority faith.
Of all the census details, this is perhaps the least surprising. For decades, we’ve barely considered ourselves “Cultural Christians” – those that tick the box, but don’t attend the service. In this regard, the 2021 Census is merely a formal confirmation of long-waning Christainity.
Who could have seen any of this coming? Actually, quite a few people. Back in 2011, then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage, citing statistics published by Migration Watch, said that the UK could expect 50,000 Romanians every year over the course of ten years.
At the time, these numbers – as well as millions of ordinary people – were lampooned and ridiculed by the media, politicians, comedians, and (most damning of all) the Experts (the Serious People that Know Things), as delusional racists, fruitcakes, loonies, and so on.
Nevertheless, a decade later, that is exactly what has transpired. The census revealed that the number of Romania-born people living in the UK amounted to 539,000 – a 576% increase from 2011.
It’s no secret that Farage’s acknowledgement of immigration-led displacement of white Britons was one of his early selling points. Indeed, it was arguably as important (if not more important) than his euroscepticism. As has been established time and again, the latter is very much a product of the former. As such, it’s rather uncharitable to interpret his aforementioned comments with regard to London as anything but a reiteration.
Additionally, there’s David Coleman, former Professor of Demography at Oxford University, who predicted back in 2013 that, if demographic trends continued, “white Britons could be a minority by 2066” – a prediction which not only remains valid after the 2021 census but, evidently, did not assist him in retaining his then-already under-pressure position.
Granted, these are only notable examples. I cannot begin to imagine the number of normal people that have lost their livelihoods for concurring with such predictions, nevermind articulating the sentiment that they spelt trouble. Not even then does this account for those who have been scared into silence by active legislation and the fear of a vitriolic social death. You can be targeted for far less.
The inability to talk about matters in a frank, open, and civilised manner compounds problems which arise from matters which provoke the desire to discuss them in the first place.
On the religious front, Peter Hitchens has written and spoken about Britain’s post-Christainity on multiple occasions. Ever since WW1, Britain’s religiosity ceased to be sincere, instead being a series of motions undertaken without spiritual, theological, or moral investment. Now that there’s no room for doubt, one can expect the iconoclasts of Diversity and Inclusion to erase whatever hollow secularised traces of Britain’s Christian identity still exist in public life.
Put diplomatically, none of this is sensible. Quite the contrary, all these convergences spell catastrophe. Over the past few years alone, we’ve seen the fledglings of a nihilistic balkanised Britain.
Back in September, the now white British minority city of Leicester – a so-called “model” for a ‘diverse but cohesive’ Britain – fell victim to ethnoreligious rioting between Indian-descent Hindus and Pakistani-descent Muslims. Far from ‘diverse’, the riots were a replication of pre-existing global troubles.
To bare witness to the impotent, ahistorical, buzzword-laden gush of no-name ‘community leaders’, drowned out by an eruption of third-world carnage in Britain’s oldest settlements, as the mainstream press obfuscate the essence of the problem, is to bare witness to the self-deluding and short-sighted nature of Britain’s post-war political establishment.
Throughout various towns and cities across England, South-Asian grooming gangs have targeted white children since the 1980s. The police, more concerned about causing offence than networks of child prostitution, ignored the plight of the victims for several decades. Not even MPs could discuss the matter without facing repercussions.
Along the south-east, the perpetual tide of migrants (legal and illegal) has caused social unrest, so much so that coastal residents have taken to barricading their homes. The rate of immigration has skyrocketed housing costs, led to panicked hotel cramming by the Home Office, as well as an explosion of council-sanctioned homelessness.
Immediately following the release of the ethnicity data, tweets taunting white Britons to “come get your capital back” go viral, along with recorded procolations that Britain “is our country now”. Erstwhile, those of immigrant backgrounds descend on the capital, declaring their undying allegiance to a country that isn’t the one that houses them.
As for the sainted discourse, the goalposts of debate are shifted from “relax, you’re a local majority” to “relax, you’re the largest minority group” and pieces bemoaning “gentrification” are replaced by pieces celebrating “diversification”.
In the case of London, now 36.8% (down from 42.7% in 2011), some have tried to deflect any and all discussion of this matter by appealing to insinuations of white nationalism, forgetting that this entire question is, in essence, an ethnocultural one.
The idea that an unprecedented, unasked for, and potentially irreversible shift in the composition of a major city, nevermind an entire country, would not matter to the people insofar the shift was driven by those identifying “White Other” is obtuse and arrogant. Indeed, even when such a racial commonality exists between ethnically native and foreign-descended populace, there are still longstanding consequences.
As mentioned at the start, all of this boils down to mass immigration. The old and moneyed, addicted like junkies to the coursing streams of cheap foreign labour, are prepared to carve Britain’s youth out of the social contract in order to get their fill. Big business, professional activists, bureaucratic functionaries, and main-party politicians have locked arms and tirelessly marched in lock-step against my generation, their national belonging, and their prospect of a better future.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have demonstrated their indifference towards the problem of large-scale immigration-led demographic change. If anything, they have encouraged it, despite the pleas of their core voters.
Under Blair, Labour pursued a policy of mass-immigration to “rub the right’s nose in diversity”, simultaneously creating a pool of votes on which the party could rely in future elections, and accelerated Britain’s descent into ‘humanitarian’ quangocracy.
By not-so-much contrast, the Conservatives, having promised for decades to reduce immigration, won a landslide majority with the aid of traditional Labour voters (distinctly opposed to immigration) with a pledge to fulfil the spirit of Brexit – retainment of the sovereign control of borders to reduce the mass influx of people – only to do the exact opposite once in power. Don’t attribute to “failure” what is, in every respect, a design choice.
In the media, the Sensible umpires of political discourse, with clear-minded sobriety and transparent neutrality, insist that mass immigration is completely unstoppable and that we should shut up and make-do.
Likewise, in the equally Sensible world of think-tanks, mass immigration is supposedly the magical solution to all of Britain’s economic woes; everything from unprecedented high-tax levels to Britain’s economic stagnation. Even a general overview of Britain’s economic performance these past few decades is enough to clock that such “expertise” is merely an officialised delusion.
More than mere snark, “So What?” perfectly encapsulates the underlying problem of our entire political system. Everything, from the political media to think-tanks to sitting MPs, pushes depoliticisation. The art of the possible is replaced with the art of the impossible. A decision of indecision, democratic deliberation, and the alternatives it affords, is supplanted by the arbitrary apolitical confines of authoritarian managerialism.
By opening up a multitude of historically unprecedented political fronts (tension between ethnocultural groups) whilst depoliticising the policy areas pertaining to their creation (post-war immigration policy) the British political system has manufactured an increasingly unsustainable ethnocultural divide.
In a scrambled effort to feign unity, schools across the country are mandated to teach the British state’s reinvention of its foundational identity, utilising empty appeals, laden with contradiction and irony, to “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs“.
It does not occur to our leaders that democracy is the conduit by which identity groups will compete against others, that high social trust is prerequisite to liberty, or that mutual respect and tolerance can be hard enough within predominantly monoethnic/monocultural societies, nevermind increasingly multiethnic/cultural ones. In the end, all that is left is the brute force of authority.
Being the only politician with sizable political support that is prepared to deliberate this fundamental matter, Farage’s hour of decision is upon us. If he does re-enter politics, he must do so on the back of these census results. The stalwart indifference of the political class, and all that has transpired as a consequence of their dogmatic recklessness, must not be allowed to continue.
If he does create a new party, there’s every reason to believe he’ll be rewarded handsomely at the ballot box. The Conservatives face electoral annihilation. Javid, fully aware of this fact, is not standing at the next election; presumably why he felt comfortable telling his constituents (96% white British) that their survival, in their own native land, never meant anything to him.
That said, few expect things to improve under a Labour government. Having never promised a precise number on immigration, one could safely bet, if they ever did, that a) it wouldn’t be sufficient or, if it was, b) they’d u-turn on their promise once in power – just like the Tories.
However, should Farage decide against a new party (or leadership of an already existing party), he must stand aside for an alternative to manifest. Whether we like it or not, as Britain’s demographics continue to change, especially at the current rate, ethnicity, identity, and all things in-between will become a far more prevalent part of our politics. We must be prepared to address these matters – for our own good and for the good of others. The only thing worse than an insufficient answer to the demographic question is to never answer it at all.
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They’ll Hate You Regardless
Well, that’s that then. It definitely could’ve been better, but I was expecting much worse; I was expecting slam poetry about the Windrush Scandal from an NHS nurse, followed by a breakdance exhibition from Diversity, a ‘witty’ monologue about gay sex from Stephen Fry, topped off with a ‘modernised’ version of God Save the King.
The concert was thoroughly mediocre though – I’d be surprised if anyone under the age of 25 could name more than half of the line-up. When will the palace learn that glitzy American pop stars are not fit for royal celebrations?
In retrospect, it’s clear that the worst aspect of the coronation wasn’t the subversion of pomp and circumstance, but the commentary which overlaid it.
Once the more lavish aspects of the procession had subsided, along with the smattered allusions to Modern Britain, and the royals assembled on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, Bridgerton actress Adjoa Andoh, who had been graciously invited to commentate on the King’s coronation, said:
“We’ve gone from the rich diversity of the Abbey to a terribly white balcony. I was very struck by that.”
Anyone brushing this off as a stray comment from the WOKE (!!!) Liberal Metropolitan Elite clearly hasn’t been paying attention. As we saw with the death of Elizabeth, a vast chunk of the ‘criticism’ directed at the British monarchy is pure racial resentment. Don’t pretend you don’t remember.
The anti-white rhetoric of the monarchy’s critics isn’t some exceptional tendency or blip, it’s the logical conclusion of an inherently republican understandings of representation and legitimacy.
As Britain undergoes historic demographic change, primarily due to mass immigration (in other words, the result of government policy) an increasingly large subsection of the population, conscious of their distinctness to the heads of state, will likely pursue the dismantlement of what they perceive to be an arbitrarily (that is, oppressively) white Christian political structure, in order to better reflect (at the very least, better accommodate) Britain’s newly ‘diverse’ population.
If you’re scratching your head as to why the monarchy is unpopular with younger voters, I suggest you take a gander at the demographic composition of younger voters – and younger people generally.
Of course, institutions by their very nature cannot be diverse; people identify with them because they reflect a fundamental homogeneity which underpins the group from which they emerge, and by extension, seek to sustain.
Differences may very will exist within them, but none of these differences will constitute diversity in the contemporary sense, as they don’t aim to breach the underlying unity required to make them recognisable.
This is definitively true of monarchy – a role defined by a sole person, restricting any metric of difference from being, nevermind represented.
In any case, it would be simply unjustifiable, within the parameters of republicanism, for a state to have an unelected white Christian as its head, especially when the citizenry is both minority-white and minority-Christian.
Given this, the monarchy risks following the course of Parliament; a battle ground for fragmented groups with increasingly little sense of essential or collective being – antithetical to the monarchy’s imagined role as a constitutional lynchpin to counter-balance the enmity of domestic politics.
Even if the institution is defanged to the point of mere ceremonialism, as has been the case over recent decades, much to the delight of so-called “progressive patriots”, it has been maintained that even if Britain’s monarchy ceases to be politically problematic in a functional sense, it remains politically problematic in a representational sense.
The overarching point is that, as Britain’s monarch, it doesn’t matter if you permit politically motivated investigations into obvious questions or if you commit to protecting all faiths as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. It doesn’t matter if you declare your support for Our NHS or opt to include Black Gospel in your coronation ceremony.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion matter for zilch: your enemies will hate you regardless.
Just as Scottish and Welsh separatists are prepared to devolve the union out of existence, modernisers and republicans are prepared to reform the monarchy out of existence. No amount of capital-C Compromise is going to fundamentally change their defining position.
Moreover, just as Scottish and Welsh separatists evoke a sense of ethnocultural distinctness whilst pursuing policies to undermine Celtic culture, modernisers and republicans evoke Cromwell, Roundheads, and the English Civil War, even though Cromwell would’ve absolutely despised them, they possess the prudence and restraint of Cavaliers, and have nothing but contempt for Englishness – often proudly declaring they’re not English whatsoever.
“You will never be a real Roundhead. You have no God, you have no purity, you have no zeal. You are a narcissistic degenerate twisted by leftism and secularism into a crude mockery of English revolution.”
When the British republic comes, assuming it does, I doubt we’re going to get Cromwell 2 or Lord Protector Nigel. Indeed, Farage himself has suggested we’ll end up with some moth-bitten mandarin: “some duffer… Neil Kinnock, or somebody.” – a failed politician with the shameless desire to be remembered as a Bismarck-esque elder statesman.
Although, as circumstances present themselves, it’s completely plausible that we get a ‘respectable’ long-standing representative of the so-called anti-racist coalition… His Excellency, President David Lammy.
As far as we know, British republicanism is a team effort; a team disproportionally comprised of (exceptions accounted for) post-colonial grifters from BAME and non-Christian backgrounds, White leftists and liberals, many of whom lay claim to permanent victim credentials, with others are eager to affirm their ‘Otherness’, whether to worm their way out of discussions about colonialism or revitalise some feud the Anglo has long forgotten.
In which case, who supports the monarchy? Exactly who you’d expect. Again, accounting for notable exceptions, it’s White English conservatives, especially those living in rural areas and with Anglican heritage. In simpler terms: the sort of people that gave us Brexit, but I digress – the pivot away from memes about royal ethnic make-up to an unabashed proxy war for ethnic grievance won’t end well.
Given this, if Charles knows what’s good for him, he’ll reject any and all further attempts at ‘modernising’ the monarchy and reverse any that have been undertaken since the end of WW2, rather than counter-signalling policy that slightly, if barely, edges towards defending the interests of his realm, his post, and especially of his dwindling (in part, rather old) number of core supporters.
After all, given the transcendental nature of kingship, should a monarch violate the spirit of their post, no monarchist would feel conflicted about withdrawing their support, if not for the benefit of a hypothetical republic, but for the benefit of the institution itself.
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40 Days for Free Speech
If you think that the free speech-v-cancel culture tension has already been pushed to its limits in the UK over the past year, you probably haven’t heard of 40 Days for Life.
The campaign to pray for an end to abortion throughout the period of Lent reached its peak this weekend, drawing Christians across the country together around one of the most significant and controversial issues of our time. One in four women in the UK will experience abortion in their lives. Pro-life groups have worked to make abortions unnecessary by giving women support to keep their children, even up until the last moment of their decision. With such efforts come debate. And with debate comes the difficulty of democracy.
Already, certain local councils such as in Ealing and Richmond in London have caved to activist pressure to ban “pro-lifers” from expressing their views in public, specifically in 150m zones around abortion facilities. Last month, the Northern Ireland Assembly voted to implement a similar censorship zone around all abortion facilities across their country. A similar private member’s bill is in consultation in Holyrood, with MSPs tweeting zealously this weekend about the need to censor pro-lifers.
These so-called “buffer zones” are well-intentioned. Campaigners claim that the pro-lifers “harass” women arriving for appointments. Harassing anyone, particularly vulnerable women, would be deeply wrong and hypocritical of a group claiming to offer help.
But if the volunteers were to engage in harassment, we can rest assured that it is already illegal and would be prosecuted.
In reality, a 2018 review from the UK Home Office found that any instances of harassment were rare outliers, and that the police already had sufficient powers to tackle unlawful conduct.
And so, it’s unsurprising that across the UK, we have seen ideologically-motivated attempts to end “pro-life” activities repeatedly refused by the courts. Take the 2018 court judgment against Nottingham City Council that their injunction against a pro-life campaigner ‘simply could not be justified.’ Take the overturned charges against Brighton campaigner Andrew Stephenson in 2011, and indeed the successful lawsuit brought against the police for his unlawful arrest. Take Southwark Council openly admitting they simply don’t have sufficient evidence to create a buffer zone against pro-life charities, despite the tenacious demands of the Council’s members.
In fact, various women who have received wanted help from the groups to keep their children, right before their abortion appointments, have even spoken out in support of allowing the groups to offer their services to others in need.
And why not keep all options open? New polling from the BBC shows that more than one in ten women have felt “coerced” into having an abortion. Even if not talked into it by partners or “friends”, many women feel they have no option but abortion because of social or economic pressures. Why prevent them of hearing about offers to resolve these pressures?
Where Ealing and Richmond have already implemented “buffer zones”, even silent prayer is now illegal. How they’ll ever be “caught” is anyone’s guess. But refusal to pay a fine for the thoughtcrime can lead to prosecution.
Free speech is both hardest and most important to support when you’re hearing something that you disagree with. For those that support abortion, that means allowing others to voice their concerns and offer alternative options. There’s no point supporting free speech for a popular cause, but not a minority view. And furthermore, refusing to let the vulnerable women considering abortion hear about alternative options available to them is surely detrimentally patronising – all for the sake of an ideological “win”. There is comfort in the discomfort of democracy. We all have a right to be a part of the public conversation, and might just benefit from hearing out those who see things differently.
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Destabilisation, not Conquest: Russia’s Real Strategy
As the crisis in the Ukraine drags itself on, it’s become quite clear that the Russian strategy from the start has not been conquest or even necessarily annexation, but a destabilisation campaign.
As I wrote earlier this year, Russia’s style of warfare is intended to displace populations and destroy civilian centres. Alongside this, Russia has claimed and supported the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, almost definitely to create a buffer region between Ukraine and Russia. Regardless, when I wrote that the next refugee crisis was brewing in the Ukraine, I actually underestimated the figures: I suggested that, of the roughly 30 million people in Ukraine who hate Putin, perhaps 1% (300,000) might leave; in reality, the figure is as much as ten times that.
Refugee crises are challenges, and almost always met badly. But, this was what Russia was counting on: by displacing so many people (intentionally – again, due to their style of warfare), forced to move into relatively benign nations, such as Poland, Hungary and (much less likely) Belarus, Russia has laid the foundations for a refugee crisis in Central and Western Europe. It is not necessarily the policies of the receiving countries that will make this a crisis, but the simple numbers – already over four million people have left Ukraine, most of them women and children.
Europe struggled to accommodate one million of the six and a half million Syrian refugees, but even the majority of these numbers arrived in Europe across a period of years, not weeks. This is the worst refugee crisis in Europe in living memory; and unfortunately, the vast majority of refugees are not going to be returning to the country they knew. If the pictures coming out of Ukraine are anything to go by, the level of urban destruction is consistent with both the style of warfare Russia executes, and that of the Second World War. As horrible as it may sound, there is every possibility the refugees will not have a home to return to.
And this goes deeper than a physical home; there may not be a recognisable ‘Ukraine’ at the end of this. It is absurd to think, despite the general consensus amongst the Western media, that Ukraine was without its problems before this war began, and many of them were over far-right groups active in the Azov region, such as the Azov Battalion. The prevalence of ultra-nationalist, and even active Nazis in some cases, in the Ukraine is something the West has sought to paper-over, and Putin has sought to exacerbate, but the honest truth is that this is a real and enduring problem for Ukrainian politicians. Some even compared the defensive war that Ukraine is fighting to the final days of the Third Reich and the Allied bombing campaign.
This has been going on for longer than we might want to admit. In 2018, the Kievan “National Militia” attacked local government meetings in order to strong-arm them into policies they favoured; in 2019, the Azov Battalion and other far-right groups (Dnipro-1 Battallion as well) carried out pogroms on minorities; and the ultra-nationalist party Svoboda – which has 15,000 members and has a parliamentary presence in the Verkohvna Rada – is regularly accused of neo-Nazi sympathies, not to mention the fact that Belitsky, leader of the Azovs, is a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament.
Russia’s campaign has made these internal divisions public knowledge; it is spurious to pretend that Russia’s ‘de-Nazification’ claims are accurate to the situation, but it cannot be ignored that there is a major presence of National Socialists in the Ukraine.
Why will Russia’s ‘special military campaign’ make this situation worse? Put simply, the immediate (and, it must be said, necessary) arming of civilians in order to fight the Russian invasion will have long, long term consequences. Whenever this war ends – which may be longer than we want to imagine – Ukraine will be facing the problem of what to do with a well-armed, combat-experienced, pissed off population. When the United States armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, it was seen as a necessary use of paramilitary forces to resist (again) Russian aggression. Now, Afghanistan is a mess of guerilla groups, Islamist fundamentalists and radical separatists. This whole situation was made worse by the
This problem extends to normal politics as well; Volodymyr Zelensky has dismantled the free press, claimed a conspiracy exists to oust him, and has outlawed the existence of eleven pro-Russian political parties, one of which had 10% of the Ukrainian parliament.
So, when the dust settles, Ukraine will have to contend with the reality of neo-Nazis with modern arms such as NLAWS, displaced and angry civilians with access to combat weaponry, and a gutting of as much as 10% of its population that is abroad with no home to return to.
Putin does not need to take Ukraine, or even necessarily enforce the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk. Instead, in many ways, he has done what he really needed to do; destabilise the West’s big player on its border, and likely the rest of Europe for a long time.
