No good can ever come from war and military escalation 

By Claudia Webbe MP 

Britain must not only rapidly extend its support for people fleeing Ukraine – but also abandon its unbelievably callous refugee and asylum policy, says CLAUDIA WEBBE MP

RUSSIA’S invasion of Ukraine is abhorrent and deeply concerning. It is an unprovoked, unjustifiable outrage and a heinous violation of international law that will have long-lasting and tragic consequences.

The Russian aggression, military bombardment and deployment of troops to Ukraine must end immediately. Vladimir Putin must abandon this hugely damaging irredentism and expansionism.

No good can ever come from war and military escalation. As Vijay Prashad recently argued, “War is never good for the poor. War is never good for workers. War itself is a crime.”

The international community must redouble its efforts to find a diplomatic solution that ensures peace and protects lives.

I stand in full solidarity with the Ukrainian community in Leicester and across the country, and I offer my services to any concerned members of the Ukrainian diaspora in Leicester.

I also stand in solidarity with anti-war campaigners in Russia, Ukraine and across the world.

The Minsk-2 Agreement of 2014/15 and the original Budapest memorandum on security assurances signed at the 1994 conference of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), of which I am an alternate member, must be the basis for long-term security for the whole region.

As Noam Chomsky critiqued: “If Europe had a really independent role in world affairs it could be acting in such a way as to bring the Minsk-2 agreement into operation — that would probably resolve the crisis.”

There are many who are urging the British government to urgently and completely cleanse itself of all financial ties to Russian oligarchs.

But arguably, Britain is moving far too slowly to freeze the assets of Russian banks and oligarchs, risking asset flight.

Despite warning after warning over recent years about the extent of dirty money in Britain, the government has been asleep at the wheel and has failed to act, leaving Britain as the destination of choice for kleptocrats who hide their wealth under our noses.

It should not have taken an invasion of Ukraine for the government to take action. Donors who have made money from Russia or have alleged links to the Putin regime have given £1.93 million to either the Conservative Party or individual Conservative associations since Boris Johnson took power in July 2019.

After more than a decade of inaction, the influence of corrupt money must now be extricated from Britain.

While there is no equivocating about Putin’s total responsibility for this catastrophe, the British government must remember our country’s own complicity in the current crisis — which goes beyond its acceptance of dirty money.

The former MI6 chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, expressed his regret in 2018 for our security services’ role in Putin’s rise to power.

In the decade before the Russian arms embargo was introduced in 2014, Putin’s Russia has also received £44m worth of British arms, including ammunition, sniper rifle components and gun silencers.

Yet despite the embargo of 2014, according to data compiled by Campaign Against Arms Trade, British companies were granted 30 licences to export £3.7m worth of goods classed as “for military purposes to Russia” between 2014 and 30 September 2021, when data was last released.

This included £1.4m worth of components for military aircraft, helicopters or drones, and £1.2m of ammunition. Britain must ensure that this moment is a turning point and ends the sale of arms across the world.

Ukraine is under fire and people are fleeing war. Yet the Home Office is still applying normal visa restrictions such as on salaries, English language facility and only close relatives.

Government ministers are telling refugees to apply for visas designed for fruit-pickers. This isn’t solidarity with Ukraine, it is immoral.

The government must urgently provide a simple sanctuary route to Britain for all who need it. The Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary must co-ordinate with the UN and with neighbouring countries to offer urgent humanitarian assistance to those crossing the border, and to ensure they can leave as safely as possible.

The British government must also provide safe passage and refuge for displaced people, refugees and asylum-seekers arriving from Ukraine as well as all theatres of conflict across the globe.

There are also deeply worrying reports that thousands of African immigrants joining Ukrainians trying to flee the country have faced red tape, racist abuse and discrimination at the border.

The international community must ensure that there is absolutely no discrimination between Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians and Europeans and non-Europeans.

Everybody is fleeing from the same appalling invasion, and everybody’s life must be valued equally.

Sadly, this inequality is reflected in how this catastrophe has been reported. In a statement over the weekend, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association condemned what it described as the “orientalist and racist” news coverage, in particular regarding how journalists have compared the conflict in Ukraine to those in the Middle East, which it says “ascribes more importance to some victims of war over others.”

In reporting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the abhorrent invasion has been portrayed as being inflicted on people who are less deserving of the horrors of war due to their geographical location and the colour of their skin.

For instance, Daniel Hannan wrote in the Telegraph that Ukrainians “seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone.”

This implies that war is OK as long as it happens in non-European countries. Similarly, a senior foreign correspondent for CBS News, Charlie D’Agata, claimed that the attack on Ukraine cannot be compared to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because the eastern European country is more “civilised.”

“This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades,” he said. “This is a relatively civilised, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.”

These comments reflect a grim, colonial-inspired worldview between the civilised West and uncivilised “others.”

Al Jazeera English was also forced to apologise after presenter Peter Dobbie said during a Sunday broadcast: “What’s compelling is looking at them [Ukrainians], the way they are dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the Middle East […] or North Africa. They look like any European family that you’d live next door to.”

Echoing this: “We are in the 21st century, we are in a European city, and we have cruise missile fire as though we were in Iraq or Afghanistan, can you imagine!” a commentator on BFM TV, France’s leading news channel, said during a live broadcast.

On the same channel, journalist Philippe Corbe said: “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin, we’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.”

The stark contrast in these comments between how the suffering of different nationalities is reported could not be clearer.
Lucy Watson of ITV News said: “Now the unthinkable has happened to them, and this is not a developing, third world nation, this is Europe.”

Perhaps most shocking of all, NBC news correspondent Hallie Cobiella said: “To put it bluntly, these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine […] They’re Christians, they’re white. They’re very similar [to us].”

Echoing this explicit reference to race, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze told the BBC: “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed.”

If we contrast this to the dehumanising language used to describe non-white refugees, asylum-seekers and victims of war — such as former PM David Cameron’s description of refugees as a “swarm” — a very worrying picture emerges about the inherent racism in how crises are reported, discussed and responded to.

This othering of non-white, non-European people, as identified in Edward Said’s famous 1978 book Orientalism, serves to diminish the suffering of people across the world.

We must oppose the unjustifiable trauma of people in Ukraine as vehemently as we do the suffering of victims of conflict in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and every country suffering from the evil of war.

The media class, and the British government, must recognise that every theatre of conflict is deserving of both our solidarity and our compassion.

Therefore, Britain must not only rapidly extend its support for people fleeing Ukraine — but also abandon its unbelievably callous refugee and asylum policy, starting by ripping up the Nationalities and Borders Bill.

Above all else, we must ensure that this awful moment is a turning point in how Britain responds to conflicts — wherever they occur.

Claudia Webbe MP is the member of Parliament for Leicester East. You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe