I have just read the One Hundred Year Partnership agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ukraine, published on the 16^th January 2025. It will take me another day to recover from the shock of what this represents. Briefly put, it is by far the most reckless, and even insane, foreign policy adventure since the Polish Guarantee in April 1939. It amounts to a declaration of war on one of the great powers of the world – a declaration to be made active by a foreign government that has no regard for British interests or even British convenience. At any time in the next hundred years, if this agreement is allowed to stand, we may find ourselves at war with Russia – a war for which we are unprepared and which we have no legitimate reason to fight.

Britain Has No Interest in the Black Sea

The preamble to the agreement acknowledges prior agreements, including those signed in 2020 and 2024, as the “foundation of UK-Ukraine collaboration.” It then moves to promises of “restoring freedom of navigation” in the Black Sea (Article 3). Why Britain should care about the Black Sea—a region over 1,500 miles from our shores and with no strategic relevance to our trade routes—is left unexplained. There was a time when we had interests in the Mediterranean and Suez Canal. These were clear and rational, about keeping access to India and the Far East. The Black Sea, by contrast, was never been within our sphere of interest. And that was when we were a great power in the world.

This treaty’s commitment to “strengthening Baltic Sea, Black Sea, and Azov Sea security” (Article 3) shows hubristic desire to police the world rather than attend to our own shores. It is a policy as stupid as it is dangerous.

A Corrupt and Repressive Ally

The agreement talks about “strengthening Ukraine’s democracy” and its supposed “irreversible path to NATO membership” (Preamble, Article 2). Yet Ukraine is no democracy in any meaningful sense. It is a kleptocracy ruled by oligarchs and opportunists. The treaty acknowledges the need for The Ukraine to “build its capability to prevent and tackle corruption” and to support “independent and well-resourced anti-corruption agencies” (Preamble). These platitudes cannot disguise the reality that the Zelensky Regime in Kiev is up to its neck in scandal and repression.

Moreover, the agreement ignores abuses by the Zelensky Regime of religious freedom, particularly its persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church. The British Government’s endorsement of a regime that tramples on fundamental liberties is a betrayal of our professed commitment to human rights.

The Bloody Lessons of History

For more than a century, the British ruling class has pushed us into one war after another, all of diminishing relevance to our legitimate interests. Before 1914, an attack by France and Russia on Germany would have been useful. It would have allowed us to monopolise the oil resources of the Middle East. Procuring such a war would have been immoral but rational. Entering the war as a military principal, then throwing a generation of our young men into the meatgrinder of the Western Front was neither moral nor rational. I am still waiting for a sensible justification of our going to war with Germany in 1939. The German Government’s internal policies were none of our business. Its foreign policy objectives in Eastern Europe were in full accord with our need to check Bolshevik Russia in the Middle East and on the borders of India. Yet we declared war on Germany because of its demands on Poland, and fought the war until we were made into a bankrupt satellite of the United States. The Cold War? That was a matter in which we none of our core interests was at risk. Once India was gone, and our position in the Middle East was in fast decline, we had no reason for hostile relations with the Soviet Union – no reason for armies in Germany and naval bases in Cyprus. Our slavish alignment with American policy gained us nothing but entanglement in places like Korea, which were irrelevant to our national interest as a West European power.

Today, hostility to Russia is even less justified. Modern Russia, far from being an expansionist empire, is a Christian country with primarily regional interests. Its actions in The Ukraine, while regrettable, do not threaten Britain. To cast Russia as an enemy is to ignore its transformation since the Cold War. Russia poses no danger to the British Isles and has no ambitions that should concern us.

A Hollow Military Commitment

Article 1 commits Britain to “strengthen Ukraine’s defence procurement” and “transfer technologies for joint production of defence products.” These are grand promises that ignore the hollow state of Britain’s armed forces. Decades of mismanagement have left the armed forces of little account in the world. Britain can barely defend itself, let alone project power into Eastern Europe. This agreement’s military commitments are a statement less of strength than of delusion.

Outsourcing War to Kiev

This agreement echoes the catastrophic Polish Guarantee of 1939. By promising to support Poland, Britain and France outsourced the decision for war to Warsaw. The result was a gigantic war that brought on the collapse of Britain as a world power. In the same way, this agreement makes our relations with Russia a hostage to the whims of whatever gang of sweaty thugs may come out on top in Kiev, binding us to conflicts of their making.

The Projectors Must Be Punished

The politicians responsible for this agreement, plus the relevant officials and military personnel, should be impeached before Parliament. Their personal affairs should be investigated. If these are shown as I reasonably suspect them to be, the men in question should be punished by Act of Attainder with crushing fines and imprisonment. Even otherwise, they should be barred from office, and stripped of their pensions and their honours. This agreement is an act of national betrayal.

A Policy of Neutrality

The best British response to world instability is not more treaties and commitments, but a policy of neutrality. Our defence should rest on a strong navy and air force to protect our shores and sea approaches. An armed citizen militia should be our only defence on land. A patriotic government would keep us independent and secure, free from entanglements in conflicts that do not concern us.

This agreement’s commitment to “joint initiatives” in defence, “institutional links” on information warfare (Article 7), and “collaboration” on energy (Article 5) reflects a delusion that Britain remains a global power. We are not. We are a regional power, and our interests lie in securing our own prosperity and liberty.

Conclusion

Taken as a whole, the agreement is a monument to folly. It drags Britain into a zone of conflict irrelevant to our interests. It aligns us with a corrupt and repressive regime. It risks provoking a war with Russia. It is a betrayal of the British people and a dereliction of duty by our ruling class.

The answer is clear. This agreement must be repudiated. Parliament must reject this lunatic adventure and commit Britain to a policy of neutrality and defence. Anything less is a step further towards national ruin.