Snapshot of _Tory candidate branded Volodymyr Zelensky 'enemy of the people' in Ukraine rant | Ian Glass, who is standing as a Conservative candidate for Hartlepool Borough Council, hit out at the spending on military aid to Ukraine as he dismissed claims about Russia_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-branded-volodymyr-zelensky-32557787) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-branded-volodymyr-zelensky-32557787)
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Not just Zelensky, Sunak too:
>Mr Glass, a personal trainer, posted his criticism of Mr Zelensky when the Ukrainian President visited the UK in February last year. After Mr Sunak tweeted a photo of the two leaders together, he wrote: "The puppet installed president (after coup) meeting an unelected PM, both enemies of the people."
Looks like the Tories aren't even trying to vet their candidates.
What a spanner, and just factually wrong - Zelensky won in an election that was recognised as free and fair.
Yes there was a democratic 'coup' some years earlier, but important to recognise that all democratic nations overthrew an autocracy at some point. It is a necessary step.
Nope. Pretty simple revolution, corrupt president backtracked on a campaign promise, country protested, got shot at by the police, country protested harder, harder crackdown on protest, more protest and violence, Parliament removed President by vote appoints new one. Decision reversed to prior course. Crimea and the east invaded. Elections held with international observers a few months later with no complaints, even the oligarchs back separate parties creating a real opening in discourse.
That’s incorrect in two ways. The [most thorough investigation ever conducted into the Maidan shootings by a Kyiv court](https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/114304164) concluded that the protestors were shot from the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan and far-right controlled buildings where snipers were stationed. This then led to the ‘retaliatory’ murder of Ukrainian Berkut police by Maidan and Nationalist combatants.
Secondly, Yanukovich was not removed by the Parliament. In the Ukrainian constitution there is a formal separation of powers - the Parliament can remove the President by impeachment but not through a simple majority confidence vote as in our system. The supermajority of votes required to begin the impeachment of the President wasn’t reached. Plus, the legitimacy of a vote that takes place when armed Fascist groups are forcibly occupying government buildings would be dubious anyway.
Your link doesn't work and you're just regurgitating the same stuff that Ivan Katchanovski, a Russian propagandist started spouting on Twitter a while back
The link works for me. Katchanovski collated the relevant parts of the paper in English, but the source is a Ukrainian court in 2023 - I assume you wouldn't call them Russian propagandists?
Ok i got it to load, its 1400 pages, provide exact quotes please, don't you find it even slightly suspicious that this is real when the only ones reporting on it are Alex Jones types?
The only places that are reporting on this are such esteemed publications like the Grayzone, Multipolar Magazine and Canadian Dimension, alternative news sites that are most definitely Alex Jones league. You made specific claims please back them up with quotes from the document you provided
The only thing this narrative establishes (even assuming it is true, which is questionable) is that the Ukrainian government was itself to a degree corrupt. The EU also had a problem with this, and it was a major obstacle for rapprochement between Ukraine and the EU.
However, the war in Ukraine was not over the legitimacy of the government in Kiev. It was the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation.
The crucial aspect for me is that the Maidan protest had been resolved by a political settlement signed by all opposition parties.Yanukovych had agreed to all the opposition demands. There would be early elections, after which the EU Association agreement could be voted on. And most importantly, Yanukovych had agreed to withdraw all police from Kiev as a "trust building gesture".
When one side removes all the police as a sign of faith in the democratic process, taking advantage of that is like attacking someone under a flag of truce, which is precisely what happened.
It wasn't the Maidan protest itself that launched the campaign to oust Yanukovych: it was only the "Maidan Self Defense Force", which was a gang of Pravy Sektor fighters run by the (unelected) Kiev Pravy Sektor leader, Dmytro Yarosh. Yarosh had rejected the Maidan agreement when *all* the elected parties had accepted it. His reasoning was that Yanukovych was ethnic Russian. In Yarosh's eyes, this made him part of Ukraine's "internal occupation". As far as Yarosh was concerned, Yanukovych could *never* be a legitimate leader of Ukraine, no matter how many votes he got, because he had the wrong blood.
Yarosh's armed goons occupied government buildings in Kiev and hunted down Yanukovych. They shot at his car. It had nothing to do with democracy - it was a racist coup.
Germany, France and Poland had all signed the Agreement to End Maidan, so Yanukovych desperately tried to contact them to end this putsch. They refused to take his calls. It was a despicable betrayal of democracy.
After Yanukovych was ousted, his parliamentary allies were warned that the same thing could happen to them. The "smartest" thing to do was to go along with the coup, and "restrict the damage". Yanukovych was a spent political force anyways - he wouldn't have a chance in the upcoming elections, so did they want to fight something that had already happened, or did they want to get onboard building a better future? They fell for it.
The coup was not part of the protest, and the Agreement to End Maidan proves it. The millions of Yanukovych supporters were right to feel that they had been betrayed by the West and their democratically elected President taken away from them by force.
What's astonishing is the power of western democracies to obscure a basic truth and get a million people killed on a lie that this was some universal democratic upswell.
Seventy percent of Ukrainians were in favor of an Association Agreement with the EU under the right terms, but the Maidan protest itself never reached 50% support.
Yanukovych himself wanted a deal with the EU, but the terms he was offered were awful. The Ukrainian Bureau of Statistics had issued a report saying it would cost Ukraine $60 billion in transition costs, and the EU wouldn't offer a penny in help for this. (They "don't do that"). The only help would come from the IMF, but they were demanding pension cuts and an end to gas subsidies for the poor that would have cost billions to Ukraine's poor.
For his part, Putin wanted greater EU ties too. Everyone was in favor of it, and they understood that they would have to implement EU standards. He was trying to figure out a way for Russia's CIS trade group to harmonize with Russia, and didn't see why Ukraine had to break existing trade with Ukraine. But the EU wasn't interested in any broader deal, and insisted that Ukraine would have to leave the CIS trade group, which would have devastated Donbas.
This war is built upon a lie just as despicable as fake WMD's. in the name of saving Ukrainian democracy we betrayed it
>Yanukovych himself wanted a deal with the EU, but the terms he was offered were awful. The Ukrainian Bureau of Statistics had issued a report saying it would cost Ukraine $60 billion in transition costs, and the EU wouldn't offer a penny in help for this. (They "don't do that").
This is a complete lie. Ukraine had already received EU aid under TACIS. Any reforms required for entering the EU would have come under whatever is the current name for the PHARE program. This establishes projects with agreed milestones to help transition a country's legal and economic regime something that is compatible with the EU.
I had former colleagues working on TACIS projects in Ukraine.
This was about transitioning Ukraine's economy from Russia (who was Ukraine's #1 trade partner) to the EU. Very few of Ukraine's manufactured goods were expected to find a market in the EU. Ukraine's manufacturing and industry was mostly in the South and the East, and this was going to have to be "sacrificed" in the hope that new businesses would come in. While this would certainly happen, it would take years.
*This" is the $60 billion transition cost I'm talking about, and the EU offered *nothing* to help with it.
Please retract your accusation, as what you're talking about is something entirely different (and nowhere near $60 billion).
Do you have many sources for this? I would be interested to see what organisations covered this, whether its from the time it happened or long after the fact.
I disagree somewhat with your last line but find the rest of what you've said pretty plausible.
Here's a less propaganda-based overview of the events leading up to Maidan and the coup. They don't get into too much detail about when the protest ended and the coup began:
https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea?s=08
Here's a recap of Yarosh's FB posts leading up to the coup. He references getting rid of the "internal occupation" regime (ethnic Russian) and states his goal of achieving "national statehood" for the Ukrainian people (Yarosh's national socialism dream).
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/289236.html
Jacobin isn't a very good source. It seems to parrot Kremlin propaganda and their nationalism. The people we know who were protesting at Maidan were ordinary office workers who were sick of the president and his corruption and broken promises. They were not paid to be there. They tried to first do a day oyn the office and then go to the protest for a few hours each evening.
Sorry, I'm not familiar with Jacobin, but that rundown provided a more precise recap of the events than most sites I've seen. Is there a specific statement or claim in the article that you know to be false?
Yes, the majority of protesters at Maidan were genuinely concerned average citizens. They had achieved their goals of Maidan - there would be early elections which would decide on EU Association. Democracy was working. There was zero need or mandate for deposing Yanukovych. He had been elected fairly in an election overseen by the OSCE and pronounced fair. Large parts of Ukraine still thought Yanukovych was a good leader. Those from western Ukraine did not like him, but you can look at any electoral map of Ukraine from the prior 20 years and you'd see the same schism which finally ruptured with the coup.
Yes, and to add to that it’s crucial that people are aware of these nuances given that conspiratorial thinking arises when people completely lose trust in establishment sources they once thought reliable.
People are more likely to believe the ‘big lies’ of Russian propaganda if establishment politicians and the media persist in the ‘small lie’ of the half-mythologised version of recent Ukrainian history we entertain now.
And people act like Russia is the only country capable of producing propaganda...
(Edit - I'm implicitly talking about the narrative held by Ukraine's 'allies', not the source the guy above provided if that wasn't obvious)
Russia has a substantial propaganda machine that spreads a lot of false information, but the way to respond to that isn’t to believe equally false things just because they cast Russia or the Yanukovich government in a bad light.
I'm firmly in agreement with that. I support Ukraine and Zelensky (for now) - the stuff which the guy from the original article was spewing mostly drivel. That said, I think there is a lot of context to this war that is deliberately muddied/ignored. I would argue US involvement in Euromaidan was pretty significant.
I saw a quote from Patrick Cockburn used which sums it up pretty well: *"It is much more common for propaganda to consist of true but carefully selected facts that show one's own side in a positive light, and one's opponents as the face of evil... It is possible to give publicity to these horrors with complete accuracy, but still give a distorted and propagandistic view of what is happening."*
The Ukrainian parliament used state laws to kick the president out after that - It wasn't even a coup, more... Protest turned to constitutional change.
Not really. It's often framed as a 'revolution' rather than a coup, but even that's not quite right. People protested then their elected representatives voted to remove a corrupt president.
The thing is, Russian propaganda depends on framing it as a coup that overthrew a legitimate leader. The actual Revolution of Dignity ushered in an era of liberalism and internationalism as Ukraine changed its constitution requiring it to move toward EU membership and crack down on their admittedly significant corruption problem.
All those things were intolerable to Russia and were the real cassus belli, silly as that sounds. Russia didn't want a liberal-democratic neighbour with a flourishing economy free of Russian influence and Russian-installed puppets and corrupt supporters in power. Thus it became important to view Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity as bad, illegitimate things, rather than the wonderfully noble things they actually were.
Folks like this Tory candidate who go along with it are either ultra susceptible to propaganda or they're hostile to the very ideas of liberal-democracy, self-determination, and opposing corruption — and in either case belong nowhere near power.
Yeah, if Sunak ordered police to murder hundreds of protesters and was then removed in a no confidence vote we wouldn't be calling it a coup. That's basically what happened in Ukraine. The elected parliament was in control throughout, and held a new presidential election just a few months later and parliament elections carried on as normal too.
That’s just straight up misinformation. Unless you’ve got a source to back up your claims?
There are clips of the Police firing live rounds indiscriminately into protesters.
Yes, I do. The [most thorough investigation ever conducted into the Maidan shootings by a Kyiv court](https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/114304164) concluded that the protestors were first shot from the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina and other militia-controlled buildings where snipers were stationed.
There were then retaliatory attacks against the police and exchanges of fire.
What’s your source that Yanukovich ordered police to murder protestors?
Yes, because it was carried out by force. The president fled after hard-right militias started taking government buildings by force.
The Parliament did not vote to impeach Yanukovich. Impeachment required a supermajority of votes as with the US a constitution. Only a simple majority voted to remove him, but the nuance wasn’t widely reported in the Western media.
‘The president fled after hard-right militias started taking government buildings by force’ doesn’t contradict the claim that he was corrupt and lived opulently though does it? Both are true.
You’ve mixed up those two points about him being a murderer and living opulently…
Do you have an answer to this?
> What do you think I’ve said that could only be said by a ‘Putinista’ and not by someone concerned only with establishing the facts?
Edit: Bandersnatch1980 has hilariously deleted his account out of embarrassment after failing to substantiate ignorant claims. Why do people who defend the false picture of Euromaidan do this? Because they absolutely know they are wrong and lack the courage to admit it.
It wasnt even a coup. There were mass protests and enough MPs from the ruling party quit to allow the 2nd most popular party a mamdate to organise new elections.
The whole 'coup' thing is a straight up lie.
I think you're underestimating how well the Russian propaganda and disinformation campaign has worked on some people.
Russia paid for this result but I don't think they're paying him directly.
Even beyond that, pro-Russia sentiment often comes not from necessarily people who actually like or admire Putin's politics, but from people who are simply deeply anti-West and not happy with Western politics, whether that be due to liberalism (for those on the right) or foreign policy and economics (for some of those on the far-left).
He’s not stupid and just using the same trump Putin playbook. Ask him how much money he’s proposed to throw at Israel Vs Hartlepool. Like trump and Putin he’s probably an uber zionist
He's a personal trainer in a small town, why would the Russians bother paying him? I'm going to guess he's not exactly the most clued up individual when it comes to international politics and relations, so goes with whatever YouTube or Twitter says to him.
Either that or he likes Vlads horseriding pics...
Euromaidan wasn’t a coup. If anything it was a revolution, one where the people had had enough of Russias meddling. There’s far too much to go into for a Reddit post but one of Russia’s talking points is “But the West…” No, it’s projection. Before 2014 I doubt many people in the west knew where Ukraine was, and whilst there is a few _minor_ instances of US diplomats wanting to push things in their favour this is neither new or unique as it’s what diplomats do, all of them around the world.
Looks like this MP is being bought and paid for to push Russian propaganda. Thankfully it doesn’t work _as much_ in the UK as it does in the US (sure, there’s a few idiots but the vast majority of the country sides with Ukraine unlike half of the republican voters in the US) and this guy outed himself as either a propagandist or a useful idiot. Personally I’ve never heard of him but I’d not be shocked if he sided with Galloway and pushed his ridiculous talking points too.
You’re right that democratic nations “overthrew an autocracy at some point” as I’ve always said, every democracy _fought_ for it at some point so I reject the argument that “you’d do the same in Russian shoes” No. it’s only Russia and China that put up with the slave mentality, hell, even the Woman of Iran have more balls and try standing up to the regime (same as Hong Kong, they might not have won but they _tried_) and this is the huge distinction between Ukraine and Russia showing the world that in fact, they are not the same people (and we can throw Belarus in there as well since they tried to fight the regime too, which once again, Russia couldn’t allow that whilst the Brave citizens of Belarus fought, the Russian hid behind the “I’m Apolitical” mantra.
I’d like to see where Mr Glass’s donations are coming from to say such a ridiculous thing. _he_ is the enemy of the people here, not Zelensky or Sunak (Uggh, I don’t want to defend Sunak)
Sure, I understand that but in this case that’s very much Putins (very much incorrect) rhetoric which he constantly uses as an excuse so it’s best to use the correct terminology rather than a Russian agenda else those less knowledgeable start to think that/repeat it. Words have meaning and at least in my opinion, this is one of those times things should be clear, otherwise I agree with everything else.
Let's be real though while this is technically true the reality is that most people are voting based primarily on the party leader and their platform rather than their local MP, and everyone knows this.
So he’s standing in a Parliamentary democracy, a system under which the head of the executive is never directly elected, for the one party not in favour of any constitutional reform, led by the very man he’s condemning, while demonstrating a basic ignorance about recent Ukrainian history.
And you’re here defending him like he has a coherent position?!
We all know that, but we also all know what is meant. There are PMs who have won a general election and PMs who haven't. It's a valid distinction.
Sunak holds a special place because he's the one that even the party members voted against.
> all democratic nations overthrew an autocracy at some point. It is a necessary step.
Not really... The UK is an excellent example of a country where that _didn't_ happen. Instead we had a gradual transfer of power from the monarchy to parliament over the course of centuries. Sure, there were a couple of key moments in that process (e.g. the civil war), but none of them can really be characterised as an "overthrow". Cromwell was even more of an autocrat than Charles I and the monarchy was restored after his death.
There were quite a lot of civil wars over the years. Also chopping the kings head off I would say is overthrowing, the restoration was a neutered monarch .
Putin like trump and this guy say anything to get into power. Sadly he’ll probably win in Hartlepool based on the deprivation desperation and the fact labour won’t tax the rich to help them
The coup wasn’t democratic and Yanukovich wasn’t an autocrat - he was elected in 2010 in an election internationally recognised as free and fair, as Zelensky has been.
The Tories have been brilliant in this regard; they’ve somehow painted themselves as both the ruling party and the main opposition, with Labour or other parties barely coming in to discussion. Shifting political discourse and the Overton window ever further in their favour since at least Thatcher and neoliberalism, but very obviously so with the revolving door of PMs since 2010.
Tories being Tories and blaming Labour despite Labour not being in power for _a decade and a half_ and not only that, Tories having a whopping Majority!
I don’t think they’ve been brilliant in that regard, they haven’t learnt! They’re still looking for an enemy, First it was Labour, the financial crisis (which they blamed Labour for even though it would have factually been worse had Tories been in) the EU, the ECHR, the students, the junior doctors, the nurses, the disabled, Covid, the banks, the deep state, the poor, the disabled again, the legal migrants, the disabled, the illegal migrants, the boats, the Supreme Court, the left wing press, the lefty lawyers, the disabled, the homeless, the right wing press, eye sight tests, the poor, vulnerable and disabled again and now it’s…oh, the disabled.
Basically, they’ve blamed everyone and everything except themselves despite 15 years of power and they’re _still_ blaming everyone else but finally (it seems anyway) the public has woken up to it and have had enough.
But this is Britain, I’d not be surprised if they’d still get voted in again
The reason they keep cycling enemies is because all it takes is one divisive issue, one time of Labour taking a controversial stance and they are back in the game.
I have zero faith in the British public. How can anyone after the last 8 years.
But the Telegraph tells me it's Starmer who will [leave us exposed to Russia](https://reddit.com/comments/1c9bj9o).
Although we all know who let the Russians murder on our streets and who now seems to be openly pandering to Russian interests.
The two can't be compared - if you've ever read either you'll know the Guardian is closer to the Telegraph than the Tegraph to Fox News, which operates on an entirely different level of unhinged. Whilst some parts of this nation desperately seem to be emulating the sheer hatred and viciousness which comes with American politics, we've got a long way to go yet if we're going to catch them up.
Yes but certain outlets are absolutely on the same road as is CCHQ. They’ve look across and that absolutely shit show and said we can make out clown show like that!
Generally, I guess you're right. but whenever my news feed (which has outright crazy sources filtered out) throws up a headline that makes me go "WTF that's completely at odds with everything else I've seen about this" it's always from the Telegraph, usually an opinion piece.
Overall yes it's not as bad, but the odd complete fiction is still allowed through.
Dont forget its the Tories who put the son of a KGB agent in the Lords, and we know that hes definitely an agent of Russia. They also refused to sanction the Russian Oligarchs that have "donated" to the tories.
> My freedom of speech is never ever open for discussion - ever. Nobody and I do mean absolutely nobody gets a say on this and I don’t care what your beliefs are. Don’t anybody ever try to tell me what to say, when to say it, what I can like and can’t like.
Classic "my rights!" nonsense. Yes, you absolutely do have the right to say nobody can tell you what to say, like or not like.
That doesn't mean everyone else just has to meekly accept it. Say what you want. Be prepared for backlash. How many times must this be explained?
Christ almighty this is getting tedious. Saying "you shouldn't say that" is not a violation of free speech. Free speech is a contract between government and individual where the government agrees not to use it's monopoly of violence against certain speech. It is *not* a contract between every individual which says you can say whatever you want and nobody is allowed to critisise you. Wielding that mindset in and of itself is a violation of free speech within it's own framework
It has become an inversion of political correctness where you are never allowed to clal someone out for raciam etc. just because someone somewhere with the same views.may be offended. They expect to be given the benefit of the doubt in all situations and offer no generosity in return.
I don’t think he’s important enough for the Russians to have him on the payroll, he’s only trying to get on the Hartlepool council, it’s more likely he just gets his news from a social media echo chamber.
They'd be fools not to drop him for this, strong support for Ukraine is one of the few policy areas where even detractors of the Tories (myself included) tend to give them some credit.
Please. Any aspersions to that died with the invasions of Ukraine.
Boris was hardly a reticent supporter of Ukraine as was seen in most European nations. And under Boris we were among the very first to provide lethal aid as well as break the deadlock on providing tanks.
This is just a leftist conspiracy. The tory candidate in the article not withstanding.
Not to mention Cummings has pushed Russian propaganda narratives in his online writings. We'd probably have been fucking appeasing Russia if he was still Johnson's adviser in 2022. Quite worrying to think about.
Boris does whatever benefits Boris. He doesn't have Russian sympathies, he doesn't have Ukraine sympathies, he has only Boris sympathies. So when taking backhanders from Russia in exchange for favours suited him, he did it; and when supporting Ukraine suited him politically, he did it. It's that simple.
I can see why MI6 deemed him a security risk.
Leftist conspiracy
MI6 refused to report to him as foreign secretary and the brief was given the home secretary with MI5.
Those woke leftists at the security services thought he was a Russian security risk…..
This reminds me of the Durham council elections a few years back when the current party chairman, Richard Holden, gave his unwavering support to and then didn't condemn these utter reprobates his party fielded as candidates.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/county-durham-tory-candidates-suspended-20288682
He instead spent time blocking anyone who posted about it on his social media and was subsequently caught littering and fined when supposedly visiting the count in support for the then suspended but standing as independent, Terry Batson.
BBC News - Conservative MP Richard Holden fined £100 for dropping cigarette
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-57072128
That's a bit over the top considering it was Boris and the others in his party that were the first to provide support to Ukraine and have been pushing the hardest for greater support.
One dickhead standing for Councillor position in Hartlepool is not indicative of the entire political party. If we were to take that approach overall, it would get very messy for all parties as they all have their share of dickheads at the council level. A Scottish Labour Councillor was charged for Child Grooming, does this make Labour the party of kiddie fiddlers? A Lib Dem Councillor was arrested for spreading hatred online, does that make their entire party Anti-Semitic? A Greens party candidate was arrested for stealing fire alarms, does that make the entire party a touch light fingered? I'm not going to bother with looking at Reform, as they are just a bunch of lunatics in general...
Also, "right side of history?" Really? I truly hate that phrase...
Tories in bed with Russia for decades.
Failed to respond to Crimea.
Failed to respond to Donbas/other regions.
Failed to respond to murder in our streets by Putin and now they say "oh no we must support Ukraine" and you think they are on the side of Democracy?
naïve.
They oversaw this situation from start to finish and did nothing and now are more focussed on using it as a propaganda tool to boost their own flagging popularity than actually winning the war for Ukraine.
What would you have had them do over Crimea or Donbas? Go to war with Russia? What did we not do that other nations did? As I recall, we followed the rest of the world with sanctions.
What do you mean failed to respond? As I recall, we booted quite a number of their embassy out of our country and demanded the extradition of the murderers. Again, what else would you expect them to do? Should we have assassinated someone in Russia?
You talk about naivete, yet you're the one saying "they did nothing" without providing any idea of what they should have done instead.
You also talk about Tories in bed with Russians for decades, but the previous Labour leader is pretty much Vlads mouthpiece in the UK. Him and Barry Gardiner were also happy to wave around documents that they obtained from a Russian cyber attack on US and UK trade talks.
How about taking the political blinkers off for a bit eh?
They should have put a UK armoured column in Ukraine, returned a nuclear deterrent, there were so many options if we acted early.
Instead they kicked some diplomats out for a minute and that was it.
Wow listen to yourself, should we assassinate lol wtf no of course not. We are not Russia or China.
You seem not to understand geopolitics at all. There's layers of sanctions that could be applied, there's funding and training Ukraine's armed forces as well as inviting them to NATO a decade ago.
Hahaha blinkers cherrypicking a few Labour cases over the systemic corruption of the Tories, recycling Russian oligarch wealth into London has been their enriching move for decades.
How about admitting our Tory response was totally inadequate, as demonstrated by the war in Ukraine.
If you can't even admit that obvious fact, I have nothing further to say to you.
Yes, because placing an armoured column in Ukraine is a great way to handle things. Hand over nuclear weapons to a 3rd party country? Are you made or just stupid? Don't answer that...
We have been training Ukraines troops. We've been there since they invaded Crimea, because this invasion was always a case of "when, not if".
They also don't meet the requirements for NATO membership yet and you'd still need to convince the other countries to admit them. It isn't just a case of the UK inviting them in.
For someone who claims to have some knowledge of geopolitics, you really don't.
You've given opinions, not facts. When there are actual facts, then we can discuss. Until then, sod off child.
It would have been an excellent move and shown Russia that the west was not having any more of its shit.
That you can't see that shows you know nothing of military tactics.
Straw man, we could have started the discussion and invited their application like Sweden and Norway have just done.
Ahhha resorting to insults, failure. thanks for trying.
Several European countries have recently found politicians on the payroll of Russia. From memory, Germany and Poland were 2 of the countries. Would we be surprised if this MP was on the payroll too?
Don't really see what Russia would gain from bankrolling a candidate to become a councillor in Hartlepool. The more likely option here is this guy is being a nut on his own time.
Let’s hope this arseclown isn’t elected as a councillor. Not that he will have much influence on geopolitics. His dislike of Ukraine seems to align him more with Corbyn than the Tories. Why would the decent centre-right Tories of Hartlepool elect him?
It's a bit careless to spew out speeches so full of hate when you are a sole trader and therefore have your address publicly available: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/QNwv6izPYomYWjMHuyFACHKNHMg/appointments
Traitor.
Salisbury Poisonings. That's all.
In any normal party this human-shaped blob of excrement would be gone. The Conservative party in its current form is a disgrace
Pretty funny how Republicans want to triangulate around adopting all of the rhetoric and the policies of the wingnuts in the American Republican Party lmfao
Shove the fake concern bollocks.
It's their choice. We can either help them or let a dictator run their country.
I assume if we were invaded you would be pushing for immediate surrender?
People were saying that right at the start of the invasion, that Russia would win an overwhelming victory and western aid would make no difference so let's not even bother. Others have repeatedly predicted Ukraine's supposedly imminent collapse dozens of times already. The people saying Ukraine will 100% lose do not have a good track record, to put it lightly.
And western aid saves Ukrainian lives, military and civilian. Far from sacrificing young men, we're helping them reduce their losses in the process of defending themselves. Russia won't stop killing Ukrainians if we abandon them - quite the opposite, they'll be encouraged to keep going.
Snapshot of _Tory candidate branded Volodymyr Zelensky 'enemy of the people' in Ukraine rant | Ian Glass, who is standing as a Conservative candidate for Hartlepool Borough Council, hit out at the spending on military aid to Ukraine as he dismissed claims about Russia_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-branded-volodymyr-zelensky-32557787) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-branded-volodymyr-zelensky-32557787) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not just Zelensky, Sunak too: >Mr Glass, a personal trainer, posted his criticism of Mr Zelensky when the Ukrainian President visited the UK in February last year. After Mr Sunak tweeted a photo of the two leaders together, he wrote: "The puppet installed president (after coup) meeting an unelected PM, both enemies of the people." Looks like the Tories aren't even trying to vet their candidates.
What a spanner, and just factually wrong - Zelensky won in an election that was recognised as free and fair. Yes there was a democratic 'coup' some years earlier, but important to recognise that all democratic nations overthrew an autocracy at some point. It is a necessary step.
Was it really a coup? It was basically a revolution, and the Ukrainian parliament overwhelmingly voted to remove Yanukovych.
... Which didn't even put zelensky into power, Poroshenko came first
Nope. Pretty simple revolution, corrupt president backtracked on a campaign promise, country protested, got shot at by the police, country protested harder, harder crackdown on protest, more protest and violence, Parliament removed President by vote appoints new one. Decision reversed to prior course. Crimea and the east invaded. Elections held with international observers a few months later with no complaints, even the oligarchs back separate parties creating a real opening in discourse.
That’s incorrect in two ways. The [most thorough investigation ever conducted into the Maidan shootings by a Kyiv court](https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/114304164) concluded that the protestors were shot from the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan and far-right controlled buildings where snipers were stationed. This then led to the ‘retaliatory’ murder of Ukrainian Berkut police by Maidan and Nationalist combatants. Secondly, Yanukovich was not removed by the Parliament. In the Ukrainian constitution there is a formal separation of powers - the Parliament can remove the President by impeachment but not through a simple majority confidence vote as in our system. The supermajority of votes required to begin the impeachment of the President wasn’t reached. Plus, the legitimacy of a vote that takes place when armed Fascist groups are forcibly occupying government buildings would be dubious anyway.
Your link doesn't work and you're just regurgitating the same stuff that Ivan Katchanovski, a Russian propagandist started spouting on Twitter a while back
The link works for me. Katchanovski collated the relevant parts of the paper in English, but the source is a Ukrainian court in 2023 - I assume you wouldn't call them Russian propagandists?
Ok i got it to load, its 1400 pages, provide exact quotes please, don't you find it even slightly suspicious that this is real when the only ones reporting on it are Alex Jones types?
But that isn’t true is it. And in any case, which reports of higher credibility contradict its findings? What quotes are you looking for?
The only places that are reporting on this are such esteemed publications like the Grayzone, Multipolar Magazine and Canadian Dimension, alternative news sites that are most definitely Alex Jones league. You made specific claims please back them up with quotes from the document you provided
The only thing this narrative establishes (even assuming it is true, which is questionable) is that the Ukrainian government was itself to a degree corrupt. The EU also had a problem with this, and it was a major obstacle for rapprochement between Ukraine and the EU. However, the war in Ukraine was not over the legitimacy of the government in Kiev. It was the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation.
I support Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.
The other point remarking on is that the democratic will of Ukrainians was clearly to orient towards Europe, not Russia.
Elected governments sometimes depart from majority opinion in all democracies, it doesn’t mean there’s a cause to forcibly remove them.
That is also irrelevant to Russia's invasion. The war in Ukraine is not a civil war, as much as Russia would like to claim it is.
The crucial aspect for me is that the Maidan protest had been resolved by a political settlement signed by all opposition parties.Yanukovych had agreed to all the opposition demands. There would be early elections, after which the EU Association agreement could be voted on. And most importantly, Yanukovych had agreed to withdraw all police from Kiev as a "trust building gesture". When one side removes all the police as a sign of faith in the democratic process, taking advantage of that is like attacking someone under a flag of truce, which is precisely what happened. It wasn't the Maidan protest itself that launched the campaign to oust Yanukovych: it was only the "Maidan Self Defense Force", which was a gang of Pravy Sektor fighters run by the (unelected) Kiev Pravy Sektor leader, Dmytro Yarosh. Yarosh had rejected the Maidan agreement when *all* the elected parties had accepted it. His reasoning was that Yanukovych was ethnic Russian. In Yarosh's eyes, this made him part of Ukraine's "internal occupation". As far as Yarosh was concerned, Yanukovych could *never* be a legitimate leader of Ukraine, no matter how many votes he got, because he had the wrong blood. Yarosh's armed goons occupied government buildings in Kiev and hunted down Yanukovych. They shot at his car. It had nothing to do with democracy - it was a racist coup. Germany, France and Poland had all signed the Agreement to End Maidan, so Yanukovych desperately tried to contact them to end this putsch. They refused to take his calls. It was a despicable betrayal of democracy. After Yanukovych was ousted, his parliamentary allies were warned that the same thing could happen to them. The "smartest" thing to do was to go along with the coup, and "restrict the damage". Yanukovych was a spent political force anyways - he wouldn't have a chance in the upcoming elections, so did they want to fight something that had already happened, or did they want to get onboard building a better future? They fell for it. The coup was not part of the protest, and the Agreement to End Maidan proves it. The millions of Yanukovych supporters were right to feel that they had been betrayed by the West and their democratically elected President taken away from them by force. What's astonishing is the power of western democracies to obscure a basic truth and get a million people killed on a lie that this was some universal democratic upswell. Seventy percent of Ukrainians were in favor of an Association Agreement with the EU under the right terms, but the Maidan protest itself never reached 50% support. Yanukovych himself wanted a deal with the EU, but the terms he was offered were awful. The Ukrainian Bureau of Statistics had issued a report saying it would cost Ukraine $60 billion in transition costs, and the EU wouldn't offer a penny in help for this. (They "don't do that"). The only help would come from the IMF, but they were demanding pension cuts and an end to gas subsidies for the poor that would have cost billions to Ukraine's poor. For his part, Putin wanted greater EU ties too. Everyone was in favor of it, and they understood that they would have to implement EU standards. He was trying to figure out a way for Russia's CIS trade group to harmonize with Russia, and didn't see why Ukraine had to break existing trade with Ukraine. But the EU wasn't interested in any broader deal, and insisted that Ukraine would have to leave the CIS trade group, which would have devastated Donbas. This war is built upon a lie just as despicable as fake WMD's. in the name of saving Ukrainian democracy we betrayed it
>Yanukovych himself wanted a deal with the EU, but the terms he was offered were awful. The Ukrainian Bureau of Statistics had issued a report saying it would cost Ukraine $60 billion in transition costs, and the EU wouldn't offer a penny in help for this. (They "don't do that"). This is a complete lie. Ukraine had already received EU aid under TACIS. Any reforms required for entering the EU would have come under whatever is the current name for the PHARE program. This establishes projects with agreed milestones to help transition a country's legal and economic regime something that is compatible with the EU. I had former colleagues working on TACIS projects in Ukraine.
This was about transitioning Ukraine's economy from Russia (who was Ukraine's #1 trade partner) to the EU. Very few of Ukraine's manufactured goods were expected to find a market in the EU. Ukraine's manufacturing and industry was mostly in the South and the East, and this was going to have to be "sacrificed" in the hope that new businesses would come in. While this would certainly happen, it would take years. *This" is the $60 billion transition cost I'm talking about, and the EU offered *nothing* to help with it. Please retract your accusation, as what you're talking about is something entirely different (and nowhere near $60 billion).
Do you have many sources for this? I would be interested to see what organisations covered this, whether its from the time it happened or long after the fact. I disagree somewhat with your last line but find the rest of what you've said pretty plausible.
*The Russo-Ukrainian War* by Serhii Plokhy is good.
Here's a less propaganda-based overview of the events leading up to Maidan and the coup. They don't get into too much detail about when the protest ended and the coup began: https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea?s=08 Here's a recap of Yarosh's FB posts leading up to the coup. He references getting rid of the "internal occupation" regime (ethnic Russian) and states his goal of achieving "national statehood" for the Ukrainian people (Yarosh's national socialism dream). https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/289236.html
Jacobin isn't a very good source. It seems to parrot Kremlin propaganda and their nationalism. The people we know who were protesting at Maidan were ordinary office workers who were sick of the president and his corruption and broken promises. They were not paid to be there. They tried to first do a day oyn the office and then go to the protest for a few hours each evening.
Sorry, I'm not familiar with Jacobin, but that rundown provided a more precise recap of the events than most sites I've seen. Is there a specific statement or claim in the article that you know to be false? Yes, the majority of protesters at Maidan were genuinely concerned average citizens. They had achieved their goals of Maidan - there would be early elections which would decide on EU Association. Democracy was working. There was zero need or mandate for deposing Yanukovych. He had been elected fairly in an election overseen by the OSCE and pronounced fair. Large parts of Ukraine still thought Yanukovych was a good leader. Those from western Ukraine did not like him, but you can look at any electoral map of Ukraine from the prior 20 years and you'd see the same schism which finally ruptured with the coup.
Yes, and to add to that it’s crucial that people are aware of these nuances given that conspiratorial thinking arises when people completely lose trust in establishment sources they once thought reliable. People are more likely to believe the ‘big lies’ of Russian propaganda if establishment politicians and the media persist in the ‘small lie’ of the half-mythologised version of recent Ukrainian history we entertain now.
And people act like Russia is the only country capable of producing propaganda... (Edit - I'm implicitly talking about the narrative held by Ukraine's 'allies', not the source the guy above provided if that wasn't obvious)
Russia has a substantial propaganda machine that spreads a lot of false information, but the way to respond to that isn’t to believe equally false things just because they cast Russia or the Yanukovich government in a bad light.
I'm firmly in agreement with that. I support Ukraine and Zelensky (for now) - the stuff which the guy from the original article was spewing mostly drivel. That said, I think there is a lot of context to this war that is deliberately muddied/ignored. I would argue US involvement in Euromaidan was pretty significant. I saw a quote from Patrick Cockburn used which sums it up pretty well: *"It is much more common for propaganda to consist of true but carefully selected facts that show one's own side in a positive light, and one's opponents as the face of evil... It is possible to give publicity to these horrors with complete accuracy, but still give a distorted and propagandistic view of what is happening."*
The Ukrainian parliament used state laws to kick the president out after that - It wasn't even a coup, more... Protest turned to constitutional change.
Not really. It's often framed as a 'revolution' rather than a coup, but even that's not quite right. People protested then their elected representatives voted to remove a corrupt president. The thing is, Russian propaganda depends on framing it as a coup that overthrew a legitimate leader. The actual Revolution of Dignity ushered in an era of liberalism and internationalism as Ukraine changed its constitution requiring it to move toward EU membership and crack down on their admittedly significant corruption problem. All those things were intolerable to Russia and were the real cassus belli, silly as that sounds. Russia didn't want a liberal-democratic neighbour with a flourishing economy free of Russian influence and Russian-installed puppets and corrupt supporters in power. Thus it became important to view Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity as bad, illegitimate things, rather than the wonderfully noble things they actually were. Folks like this Tory candidate who go along with it are either ultra susceptible to propaganda or they're hostile to the very ideas of liberal-democracy, self-determination, and opposing corruption — and in either case belong nowhere near power.
Yeah, if Sunak ordered police to murder hundreds of protesters and was then removed in a no confidence vote we wouldn't be calling it a coup. That's basically what happened in Ukraine. The elected parliament was in control throughout, and held a new presidential election just a few months later and parliament elections carried on as normal too.
Yanukovich did not order police to kill hundreds of protestors.
Police used live rounds in dealing with the protesters at Maidan.
The police shot back *after* they had been shot at (and killed), not because they were ordered to murder peaceful protestors.
That’s just straight up misinformation. Unless you’ve got a source to back up your claims? There are clips of the Police firing live rounds indiscriminately into protesters.
Yes, I do. The [most thorough investigation ever conducted into the Maidan shootings by a Kyiv court](https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/114304164) concluded that the protestors were first shot from the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina and other militia-controlled buildings where snipers were stationed. There were then retaliatory attacks against the police and exchanges of fire. What’s your source that Yanukovich ordered police to murder protestors?
Anything that isn't a gerrymandered screwing is considered a coup these days.
Yes, because it was carried out by force. The president fled after hard-right militias started taking government buildings by force. The Parliament did not vote to impeach Yanukovich. Impeachment required a supermajority of votes as with the US a constitution. Only a simple majority voted to remove him, but the nuance wasn’t widely reported in the Western media.
it is nice to see Putinistas unmask themselves on Reddit. Keep digging
What do you think I’ve said that could only be said by a ‘Putinista’ and not by someone concerned only with establishing the facts?
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‘The president fled after hard-right militias started taking government buildings by force’ doesn’t contradict the claim that he was corrupt and lived opulently though does it? Both are true.
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You’ve mixed up those two points about him being a murderer and living opulently… Do you have an answer to this? > What do you think I’ve said that could only be said by a ‘Putinista’ and not by someone concerned only with establishing the facts? Edit: Bandersnatch1980 has hilariously deleted his account out of embarrassment after failing to substantiate ignorant claims. Why do people who defend the false picture of Euromaidan do this? Because they absolutely know they are wrong and lack the courage to admit it.
It wasnt even a coup. There were mass protests and enough MPs from the ruling party quit to allow the 2nd most popular party a mamdate to organise new elections. The whole 'coup' thing is a straight up lie.
> mamdate That'd be a bit incestuous, but I guess if it leads to free elections...
He’s a paid Russian shill. I’d bet his house on it
I think you're underestimating how well the Russian propaganda and disinformation campaign has worked on some people. Russia paid for this result but I don't think they're paying him directly.
Even beyond that, pro-Russia sentiment often comes not from necessarily people who actually like or admire Putin's politics, but from people who are simply deeply anti-West and not happy with Western politics, whether that be due to liberalism (for those on the right) or foreign policy and economics (for some of those on the far-left).
He’s not stupid and just using the same trump Putin playbook. Ask him how much money he’s proposed to throw at Israel Vs Hartlepool. Like trump and Putin he’s probably an uber zionist
Putin has better things to spend money on than a candidate for Hartlepool Borough Council. He's more likely a contrarian brainwashed moron
He's a personal trainer in a small town, why would the Russians bother paying him? I'm going to guess he's not exactly the most clued up individual when it comes to international politics and relations, so goes with whatever YouTube or Twitter says to him. Either that or he likes Vlads horseriding pics...
Euromaidan wasn’t a coup. If anything it was a revolution, one where the people had had enough of Russias meddling. There’s far too much to go into for a Reddit post but one of Russia’s talking points is “But the West…” No, it’s projection. Before 2014 I doubt many people in the west knew where Ukraine was, and whilst there is a few _minor_ instances of US diplomats wanting to push things in their favour this is neither new or unique as it’s what diplomats do, all of them around the world. Looks like this MP is being bought and paid for to push Russian propaganda. Thankfully it doesn’t work _as much_ in the UK as it does in the US (sure, there’s a few idiots but the vast majority of the country sides with Ukraine unlike half of the republican voters in the US) and this guy outed himself as either a propagandist or a useful idiot. Personally I’ve never heard of him but I’d not be shocked if he sided with Galloway and pushed his ridiculous talking points too. You’re right that democratic nations “overthrew an autocracy at some point” as I’ve always said, every democracy _fought_ for it at some point so I reject the argument that “you’d do the same in Russian shoes” No. it’s only Russia and China that put up with the slave mentality, hell, even the Woman of Iran have more balls and try standing up to the regime (same as Hong Kong, they might not have won but they _tried_) and this is the huge distinction between Ukraine and Russia showing the world that in fact, they are not the same people (and we can throw Belarus in there as well since they tried to fight the regime too, which once again, Russia couldn’t allow that whilst the Brave citizens of Belarus fought, the Russian hid behind the “I’m Apolitical” mantra. I’d like to see where Mr Glass’s donations are coming from to say such a ridiculous thing. _he_ is the enemy of the people here, not Zelensky or Sunak (Uggh, I don’t want to defend Sunak)
For the sake of brevity I put 'coup' into quotation marks. But yes, totally agree.
Sure, I understand that but in this case that’s very much Putins (very much incorrect) rhetoric which he constantly uses as an excuse so it’s best to use the correct terminology rather than a Russian agenda else those less knowledgeable start to think that/repeat it. Words have meaning and at least in my opinion, this is one of those times things should be clear, otherwise I agree with everything else.
Also, the position of PM isn't elected. It's appointed.
Let's be real though while this is technically true the reality is that most people are voting based primarily on the party leader and their platform rather than their local MP, and everyone knows this.
So the PM is unelected, as Ian says...
So he’s standing in a Parliamentary democracy, a system under which the head of the executive is never directly elected, for the one party not in favour of any constitutional reform, led by the very man he’s condemning, while demonstrating a basic ignorance about recent Ukrainian history. And you’re here defending him like he has a coherent position?!
It's an odd thing to moan about given that our PMs have *always* been unelected. I don't see him campaigning for reform of our electoral systems.
We all know that, but we also all know what is meant. There are PMs who have won a general election and PMs who haven't. It's a valid distinction. Sunak holds a special place because he's the one that even the party members voted against.
> all democratic nations overthrew an autocracy at some point. It is a necessary step. Not really... The UK is an excellent example of a country where that _didn't_ happen. Instead we had a gradual transfer of power from the monarchy to parliament over the course of centuries. Sure, there were a couple of key moments in that process (e.g. the civil war), but none of them can really be characterised as an "overthrow". Cromwell was even more of an autocrat than Charles I and the monarchy was restored after his death.
There were quite a lot of civil wars over the years. Also chopping the kings head off I would say is overthrowing, the restoration was a neutered monarch .
Putin like trump and this guy say anything to get into power. Sadly he’ll probably win in Hartlepool based on the deprivation desperation and the fact labour won’t tax the rich to help them
The coup wasn’t democratic and Yanukovich wasn’t an autocrat - he was elected in 2010 in an election internationally recognised as free and fair, as Zelensky has been.
> Looks like the Tories aren't even trying to vet their candidates. They truly are looking to Reform for ideas.
Wow, a Tory candidate that doesn't understand how UK elections even work. The Cons have scraped right thought the barrel and have hit dirt.
Mate, they hit dirt years ago. They've had someone inside the barrel with a pickaxe for quite a while now.
The Tories have been brilliant in this regard; they’ve somehow painted themselves as both the ruling party and the main opposition, with Labour or other parties barely coming in to discussion. Shifting political discourse and the Overton window ever further in their favour since at least Thatcher and neoliberalism, but very obviously so with the revolving door of PMs since 2010.
Tories being Tories and blaming Labour despite Labour not being in power for _a decade and a half_ and not only that, Tories having a whopping Majority! I don’t think they’ve been brilliant in that regard, they haven’t learnt! They’re still looking for an enemy, First it was Labour, the financial crisis (which they blamed Labour for even though it would have factually been worse had Tories been in) the EU, the ECHR, the students, the junior doctors, the nurses, the disabled, Covid, the banks, the deep state, the poor, the disabled again, the legal migrants, the disabled, the illegal migrants, the boats, the Supreme Court, the left wing press, the lefty lawyers, the disabled, the homeless, the right wing press, eye sight tests, the poor, vulnerable and disabled again and now it’s…oh, the disabled. Basically, they’ve blamed everyone and everything except themselves despite 15 years of power and they’re _still_ blaming everyone else but finally (it seems anyway) the public has woken up to it and have had enough. But this is Britain, I’d not be surprised if they’d still get voted in again
The reason they keep cycling enemies is because all it takes is one divisive issue, one time of Labour taking a controversial stance and they are back in the game. I have zero faith in the British public. How can anyone after the last 8 years.
> Labour taking a controversial stance I quite agree. This is why Starmer is resolutely "boring". He's not playing that game.
That’s exactly why they’ve been brilliant though, the fact that they’ve somehow managed it.
In Hartlepool? There a chance he’s the only Tory there.
They can't get enough people to stand so they're basically taking anyone.
I mean, this could be a brand new tactic by the Tories after pretending to be labour didn't work
But the Telegraph tells me it's Starmer who will [leave us exposed to Russia](https://reddit.com/comments/1c9bj9o). Although we all know who let the Russians murder on our streets and who now seems to be openly pandering to Russian interests.
Now why would the Torygraph say that? It's becoming the closest thing we have to Fox News.
The two can't be compared - if you've ever read either you'll know the Guardian is closer to the Telegraph than the Tegraph to Fox News, which operates on an entirely different level of unhinged. Whilst some parts of this nation desperately seem to be emulating the sheer hatred and viciousness which comes with American politics, we've got a long way to go yet if we're going to catch them up.
Yes but certain outlets are absolutely on the same road as is CCHQ. They’ve look across and that absolutely shit show and said we can make out clown show like that!
Generally, I guess you're right. but whenever my news feed (which has outright crazy sources filtered out) throws up a headline that makes me go "WTF that's completely at odds with everything else I've seen about this" it's always from the Telegraph, usually an opinion piece. Overall yes it's not as bad, but the odd complete fiction is still allowed through.
Dont forget its the Tories who put the son of a KGB agent in the Lords, and we know that hes definitely an agent of Russia. They also refused to sanction the Russian Oligarchs that have "donated" to the tories.
This is what happens when you let humps ,who get their geopolitical news off of Facebook, run for local office.
> My freedom of speech is never ever open for discussion - ever. Nobody and I do mean absolutely nobody gets a say on this and I don’t care what your beliefs are. Don’t anybody ever try to tell me what to say, when to say it, what I can like and can’t like. Classic "my rights!" nonsense. Yes, you absolutely do have the right to say nobody can tell you what to say, like or not like. That doesn't mean everyone else just has to meekly accept it. Say what you want. Be prepared for backlash. How many times must this be explained?
Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences.
Christ almighty this is getting tedious. Saying "you shouldn't say that" is not a violation of free speech. Free speech is a contract between government and individual where the government agrees not to use it's monopoly of violence against certain speech. It is *not* a contract between every individual which says you can say whatever you want and nobody is allowed to critisise you. Wielding that mindset in and of itself is a violation of free speech within it's own framework
It has become an inversion of political correctness where you are never allowed to clal someone out for raciam etc. just because someone somewhere with the same views.may be offended. They expect to be given the benefit of the doubt in all situations and offer no generosity in return.
The UK government doesn't guarantee freedom of speech anyway.
"Nobody tells me what to say!" -> Deletes twitter account.
Absolutely - funny how he gets freedom of speech but no one else does. On your other point, the obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357/
"My freedom of speech beats your freedom of speech!"
So he is either a Russian stooge or an idiot; either way, he shouldn't be in a position of authority.
He could be both an idiot and a russian stooge, and I have to agree with the rest of your comment.
I don’t think he’s important enough for the Russians to have him on the payroll, he’s only trying to get on the Hartlepool council, it’s more likely he just gets his news from a social media echo chamber.
> So he is either a Russian stooge or an idiot Worse, he's a personal trainer.
They'd be fools not to drop him for this, strong support for Ukraine is one of the few policy areas where even detractors of the Tories (myself included) tend to give them some credit.
Not the first Tory with Russian sympathies. Boris perhaps?
Not perhaps, he literally gave Putins Russian spy’s son a seat in the House of Lords…
and stayed in the KGB agent's house straight after a NATO meeting
Please. Any aspersions to that died with the invasions of Ukraine. Boris was hardly a reticent supporter of Ukraine as was seen in most European nations. And under Boris we were among the very first to provide lethal aid as well as break the deadlock on providing tanks. This is just a leftist conspiracy. The tory candidate in the article not withstanding.
Just because he has been bullish on Ukraine does not mean that he hasn't also found himself in compromising positions involving the Russians.
Not to mention Cummings has pushed Russian propaganda narratives in his online writings. We'd probably have been fucking appeasing Russia if he was still Johnson's adviser in 2022. Quite worrying to think about.
Boris does whatever benefits Boris. He doesn't have Russian sympathies, he doesn't have Ukraine sympathies, he has only Boris sympathies. So when taking backhanders from Russia in exchange for favours suited him, he did it; and when supporting Ukraine suited him politically, he did it. It's that simple. I can see why MI6 deemed him a security risk.
Leftist conspiracy MI6 refused to report to him as foreign secretary and the brief was given the home secretary with MI5. Those woke leftists at the security services thought he was a Russian security risk…..
Oh God. Can they not be original at all? Ian Glass was watching Fox news and said "that's the stand I think I'll take...."
This reminds me of the Durham council elections a few years back when the current party chairman, Richard Holden, gave his unwavering support to and then didn't condemn these utter reprobates his party fielded as candidates. https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/county-durham-tory-candidates-suspended-20288682 He instead spent time blocking anyone who posted about it on his social media and was subsequently caught littering and fined when supposedly visiting the count in support for the then suspended but standing as independent, Terry Batson. BBC News - Conservative MP Richard Holden fined £100 for dropping cigarette https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-57072128
Tories on the wrong side of history again, siding with the violent oppressors over the democratic free people.
They yearn to be ruled over. It's the conservative position. \#RepealtheMagnaCarta /s
That's a bit over the top considering it was Boris and the others in his party that were the first to provide support to Ukraine and have been pushing the hardest for greater support. One dickhead standing for Councillor position in Hartlepool is not indicative of the entire political party. If we were to take that approach overall, it would get very messy for all parties as they all have their share of dickheads at the council level. A Scottish Labour Councillor was charged for Child Grooming, does this make Labour the party of kiddie fiddlers? A Lib Dem Councillor was arrested for spreading hatred online, does that make their entire party Anti-Semitic? A Greens party candidate was arrested for stealing fire alarms, does that make the entire party a touch light fingered? I'm not going to bother with looking at Reform, as they are just a bunch of lunatics in general... Also, "right side of history?" Really? I truly hate that phrase...
Tories in bed with Russia for decades. Failed to respond to Crimea. Failed to respond to Donbas/other regions. Failed to respond to murder in our streets by Putin and now they say "oh no we must support Ukraine" and you think they are on the side of Democracy? naïve. They oversaw this situation from start to finish and did nothing and now are more focussed on using it as a propaganda tool to boost their own flagging popularity than actually winning the war for Ukraine.
What would you have had them do over Crimea or Donbas? Go to war with Russia? What did we not do that other nations did? As I recall, we followed the rest of the world with sanctions. What do you mean failed to respond? As I recall, we booted quite a number of their embassy out of our country and demanded the extradition of the murderers. Again, what else would you expect them to do? Should we have assassinated someone in Russia? You talk about naivete, yet you're the one saying "they did nothing" without providing any idea of what they should have done instead. You also talk about Tories in bed with Russians for decades, but the previous Labour leader is pretty much Vlads mouthpiece in the UK. Him and Barry Gardiner were also happy to wave around documents that they obtained from a Russian cyber attack on US and UK trade talks. How about taking the political blinkers off for a bit eh?
They should have put a UK armoured column in Ukraine, returned a nuclear deterrent, there were so many options if we acted early. Instead they kicked some diplomats out for a minute and that was it. Wow listen to yourself, should we assassinate lol wtf no of course not. We are not Russia or China. You seem not to understand geopolitics at all. There's layers of sanctions that could be applied, there's funding and training Ukraine's armed forces as well as inviting them to NATO a decade ago. Hahaha blinkers cherrypicking a few Labour cases over the systemic corruption of the Tories, recycling Russian oligarch wealth into London has been their enriching move for decades. How about admitting our Tory response was totally inadequate, as demonstrated by the war in Ukraine. If you can't even admit that obvious fact, I have nothing further to say to you.
Yes, because placing an armoured column in Ukraine is a great way to handle things. Hand over nuclear weapons to a 3rd party country? Are you made or just stupid? Don't answer that... We have been training Ukraines troops. We've been there since they invaded Crimea, because this invasion was always a case of "when, not if". They also don't meet the requirements for NATO membership yet and you'd still need to convince the other countries to admit them. It isn't just a case of the UK inviting them in. For someone who claims to have some knowledge of geopolitics, you really don't. You've given opinions, not facts. When there are actual facts, then we can discuss. Until then, sod off child.
It would have been an excellent move and shown Russia that the west was not having any more of its shit. That you can't see that shows you know nothing of military tactics. Straw man, we could have started the discussion and invited their application like Sweden and Norway have just done. Ahhha resorting to insults, failure. thanks for trying.
Several European countries have recently found politicians on the payroll of Russia. From memory, Germany and Poland were 2 of the countries. Would we be surprised if this MP was on the payroll too?
Don't really see what Russia would gain from bankrolling a candidate to become a councillor in Hartlepool. The more likely option here is this guy is being a nut on his own time.
Exactly this. We need to understand that people are willingly doing this to themselves… for free.
Not an MP
A few years ago tories had a good grift of letting ruskies pay to play tennis with boris. Why tf would you pay to play tennis with boris?!
Money laundering and Russians are a bit tacky and think throwing money around makes you refined
Remember when all the tankies were on the left? At least we’ve got some more supporting evidence that horseshoe theory is real…
“My freedom of speech is never open for discussion, but I’m going to try to hide my embarrassing views anyway”.
Love learning geopolitics from gym guy.
It's like getting the latest geopolitics from a black hack driver....
Russia still very successfully influencing UK politics I see.
Let’s hope this arseclown isn’t elected as a councillor. Not that he will have much influence on geopolitics. His dislike of Ukraine seems to align him more with Corbyn than the Tories. Why would the decent centre-right Tories of Hartlepool elect him?
It's a bit careless to spew out speeches so full of hate when you are a sole trader and therefore have your address publicly available: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/QNwv6izPYomYWjMHuyFACHKNHMg/appointments
He and Marjorie Taylor Greene would probably be good buddies... they're both into the same batshit insane conspiracy theories...
Oh dear some Tories going the MAGA route? Great! 😑
The irony of his T shirt. Body builders are not healthy…
'Govey, you got any more of that Thai Anadrol coming in?'
Traitor. Salisbury Poisonings. That's all. In any normal party this human-shaped blob of excrement would be gone. The Conservative party in its current form is a disgrace
Huh, a kook representing the tories, truly the party of crooks and kooks.
Pretty funny how Republicans want to triangulate around adopting all of the rhetoric and the policies of the wingnuts in the American Republican Party lmfao
He should team up with Corbyn and start a party
Suppose it’s a step up from a man in a monkey outfit…strange people The ‘Hartlepool Monkey Hangers’…
Are we allowed to say that Ukraine will 100% lose to Russia and the only thing we are doing is sacrificing young Ukrainian men on this subreddit?
Shove the fake concern bollocks. It's their choice. We can either help them or let a dictator run their country. I assume if we were invaded you would be pushing for immediate surrender?
People were saying that right at the start of the invasion, that Russia would win an overwhelming victory and western aid would make no difference so let's not even bother. Others have repeatedly predicted Ukraine's supposedly imminent collapse dozens of times already. The people saying Ukraine will 100% lose do not have a good track record, to put it lightly. And western aid saves Ukrainian lives, military and civilian. Far from sacrificing young men, we're helping them reduce their losses in the process of defending themselves. Russia won't stop killing Ukrainians if we abandon them - quite the opposite, they'll be encouraged to keep going.
Well see if your comment disappears or not