Ukrainians are fleeing and all UK offers is a job picking fruit

Great plumes of toxic fumes are poisoning the air after a gas pipeline outside of the city was set ablaze by soldiers, while rockets fall upon oil depots near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv; its residents advised to keep their windows and doors shut fast against a background of wailing sirens.

The unfolding horrors in Ukraine and the stories of defiant resistance from its citizens in the face of Putin’s invasion should be the catalyst for a global movement of solidarity against a bully and violent propagandist.

Yet the powers of Britain have instead revealed themselves once again to be far more interested in fanning the flames of its tritely named, given the circumstances, “culture war” over a pragmatic humanitarian response to Ukraine.

Before going further, I want to make a very clear distinction between the people living in the UK and the institutions that govern them. Politically, the majority of the UK public are frantically petitioning Westminster to step up and take proactive strides toward helping Ukrainians flee or to supply those defending themselves from invading forces. God knows Britain has sold arms to enough violent despots in the past that it could use a little good karma in that area.

READ MORE: Stewart McDonald warns of Russian fake news surge over Ukraine

Instead, shamefully, our Government and right-wing press have hidden themselves safely behind their manufactured fightback against “the woke”, dismissing calls for empathy with a smirk.

I’ve seen transgender people be tangentially blamed for a lot of ridiculous things over the past few years, from global warming to overflowing ICU during the pandemic, but being blamed for starting an entire war is really a new one for me. Being the right’s go-to scapegoat though, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Regular Spectator columnist and darling of social conservatism, Brendan O’Neill, wasted no time in implicating the West’s acceptance of transgender people as a catylyst for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Writing in Spiked, O’Neill claims that in “buying into the nonsense of transgenderism”, Putin sees a Western weakness and “a chance to increase his own strength”.

READ MORE: Home Office embarrassingly botches interview – leaving refugee in limbo

Of course, there’s a historical parallel to this line of thinking that’s large enough to bounce off of O’Neill’s forehead. Raging against the supposedly decadent and liberal days of Weimar Germany in the 1920s was a rhetorical ploy used to bolster support for the Nazi party, who accused opponents of being “cultural Bolsheviks”; a precursor to the cultural Marxist tag used today.

This sentiment, of blaming Putin’s actions on the West’s tolerance, or of questioning white privilege, has been echoed throughout a number of articles and comments these past few days. Even in the face of a bloody and shocking war, the grift continues – and we know how invested the Conservative government remains in selling it to Brexit Britain.

Having spent the past few years painting the image of foreigners stepping onto British soil as the beginning of the downfall of the Empire, now we come to a scenario where Ukranian refugees are fleeing a deadly war and all the UK can offer is a job picking fruit for any willing to just spend a little time filling out forms, finding a UK sponsor and scraping together at least £1270 from the bombed-out remains of their home to apply.

It’s downright disgusting that the UK remains so hostile to the thought of refugees finding safe passage during an unjustifiable war that, even as orphanages in Ukraine are being shelled by Russian forces – a bona fide war crime – the UK is still holding the gates shut to those in need.

It is, however, a consistent stance for a government that has courted ideas such as off-shore detention centres for immigrants.

The UK’s response to the invasion of Ukraine has revealed a deeply sick political culture in Britain: one that sees social progress as despot-encouraging weakness and refugees as a threat to the contradictory far-right fairytale of outsiders coming to steal our jobs or take our benefits (delete where appropriate).

While at home, our very own Tory MSP Murdo Fraser has seen an opportunity to link the Yes movement to Putin for his own ends, seemingly overlooking both David Cameron’s plea to the Russian leader to oppose Scottish independence in 2014 and the obscene amount of money from Putin’s friends that has flooded into his own political party.

Sluggishly awakening from another Downing Street hangover, the Tories have finally started making moves to sanction their own benefactors, but average Ukrainians have so far been left in the cold by Johnson’s anti-woke administration and the British institutions that have only sought to use their plight for their own ends. It has been a purely reactive form of global political action, with no proactive attempts to help the Ukrainian people in need.

Which in itself is a mark of Johnson’s time in No 10: to wait and wait and take action at the last minute – often too late, always too little.

Instead of a tangible response we have empty British jingoism and fantastical calls for Boris Johnson to lead Europe to victory, none of which can hold a candle to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s stone-cold quip “I need ammunition, not a ride” in response to an offer to be evacuated.

Sanctions are all very well, but there are human lives on the line that need immediate help – and Britain’s institutions need to set aside their own petty agendas to provide it.