“Five years have passed since the day when Poland, having listened to the encouragement of the British government and received its guarantees, stood alone in the fight against the German power…” – that is how general Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Polish Commander-in-chief during the late period of the WW2, started his last order to the Polish soldiers, dated 1st September 1944. After that harsh but true reminder, that Poland was pushed to fight by Britain, Churchill successfully demanded general Sosnkowski’s dismissal and the Polish ruling class has memorised never to expose true British intentions.
Not our war
When the UK previously offered its guarantees to Poland on March 1939 that brought Hitler’s aggression against our country. This is neither a conspiracy theory nor an invention of Anglophobes, but a recognised scholar view, confirmed by the research of renowned authors as professors A.J.P. Taylor, Anita J. Prażmowska and Simon Newman. It was England that dragged Poland into the war by directing a German attack on it, not Polish diplomacy succeeded in securing us the support of Western powers in the conflict with the Nazis. These are the facts and the current situation of Poland is exactly the same. It is not Warsaw that has achieved the support of NATO capitals, these are the decision-making centres of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that are pushing Poland into a war against Russia the rest of the member states will not be obliged to participate in. The visit of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Poland, half a year before the UK general elections (after which he is supposed to lose his job) is just an element of the same tactic of forcing Poland into a struggle in which we have already lost a lot and may lose even more.
No British offer for the Poles themselves
Sunak is weakening, but his mission to Warsaw cannot be underestimated, especially since the Prime Minister is bravely seconded by the leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer with his pro-war rhetoric. Nonetheless, despite such pathetic leaders, London is invariably the serious capital of the sixth country in the world in terms of GDP, one of the centres of global finance and, despite Brexit, COVID, energy transformation and growing internal problems, still one of the leading European and global players. So when the UK Prime Minister promises someone cooperation, rapprochement and alliance, it can only mean troubles.
All the more so because Rishi Sunak came to Poland with nothing to offer the Poles, except perhaps the costs of maintaining an additional RAF Typhoon fighters squadron on our territory, intended for air cover of the Baltic countries and useless in the face of a real threat, such as Ukrainian missiles violating Polish airspace. Prime Minister Sunak’s entire message, although delivered in Warsaw, concerned the British military-industrial complex, meeting Washington’s demands for NATO countries to increase military spending. Just to compare the UK is expected to reach 2.5% GDP in 2030 spent on an arm race, while Poland is to spend as much as 4% GDP on armaments from its own, much poorer budget already in 2024. It is therefore difficult to resist the impression that the British incentive also means reaching deeper into the pockets of Polish taxpayers.
Anti-peace mission
Therefore, the British Prime Minister spoke in Warsaw not to the Poles themselves, but rather to the British warmongers, to the Americans and to the Kiev junta, which Sunak (following Boris Johnson’s example) apparently tries to discourage even the thought of ceasefire neither peace talks. Neither and additional £0.5 billion, nor new vehicles, strike and air missiles and even tons of ammunition will decide this war in Kiev’s favour, but their supply only prolongs this unfortunate conflict by further months of unnecessary resistance. By declaring increase of arm industry’s profits (all together £3 billion of the UK military funding for Kyiv in 2024/25 only and £7.6 billion since February 2022), Sunak also announced a death sentence for thousands more victims of struggle, which could have been easily avoided if Ukrainians had faced reality and laid down their weapons. Weapons that ordinary citizens pay dearly for, and which will be stolen and sold by their Kiev rulers anyway.
Messengers of death
United Kingdom is a rich state with rising costs of living and expanding zones of institutional poverty, where the only hope for the hungry are food banks, and yet it spends billions on an arm race, including nuclear weapons. For the equivalent of Poland’s defence budget, the entire Polish health service’s debts could be paid off and the queues for cancer patients and those waiting for surgery could be eliminated. Only the end of the war and the neutralisation of Ukraine can create at least a chance for its reconstruction, denazification and deoligarchisation.
However, as long as people like Sunak, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (who visited Warsaw at the same time with the similar message of death) or Prime Minister Donald Tusk will be the bearers of good news for the military-industrial complex and death sentences for ordinary people, then there will be war, hunger, corruption, homelessness and hopelessness. In Ukraine, but also in Poland and even in the UK.
Konrad Rękas