It is not unpatriotic to question war

In March 2003, the US was beginning its invasion of Iraq, and David Frum, conservative author and George W. Bush speechwriter, was penning an article about obscure right-wing magazines. This article would be titled “Unpatriotic Conservatives”, and would be a full-throated attack on right-wing opponents of the War on Terror.

To be sure, Frum had dredged up some unpalatable quotes from the anti-war right. But he was not just criticising its excesses. He was framing the whole act of being anti-war and on the right as shifty, small-minded and, well, unpatriotic.

For example, some of his opponents were “espousing defeatism” about the invasion of Afghanistan. The libertarian commentator Justin Raimondo, Frum scoffed, “acknowledged that though the Afghan war seemed to have succeeded, disaster lurked around the corner”. Absurd! Two decades later, almost 2500 American soldiers would have died and the Taliban would be back in power.

Yes, Frum accepted that “questions are perfectly reasonable” (thank you, David — you’re so kind). But by the end, he was declaring that war is “a great clarifier”:

It forces people to take sides. The paleoconservatives have chosen — and the rest of us must choose too.

Looking back, through the hundreds of thousands of bodies, which “side” would you have chosen?

A similar logic is being promoted around the war in Ukraine. In the aftermath of President Zelensky’s obnoxious treatment in the White House, critics of open-ended or unlimited involvement in the conflict are being cast as suspicious, weak and, well, unpatriotic.

This can take extreme forms. Francis Harris, one-time deputy foreign editor at the Daily Telegraph, has compared right-wing critics of involvement in Ukraine to Lord Haw Haw. Generously, he thinks that instead of being hung like William Joyce they should “rot in prison”. How nice.

This has become a popular line, if generally phrased in less explicit terms. “Anyone who thinks the British people would rather stand with Trump than Zelensky,” writes Dan Hodges, “Is so ignorant about our country our history our culture and our character[sic] they’re as much of a patriot as Lord Haw-Haw.” As it happens, I agree with Hodges that the average British person likes Zelensky a lot more than Trump. But why being wrong about this makes one equivalent to a man who literally worked for Adolf Hitler is beyond me.

Labour MPs have been getting in on the fun. You don’t have a lot of chances to beat your chest about patriotism when you are in the party of mass migration and expensively abandoning our overseas territories, so Labour politicians have been making the most of it. Josh Fenton-Glynn MP called Nigel Farage “the member for Stalingrad North” (Volgograd has had a different name since 1961, unless Fenton-Glynn is implying that Farage is in hock to the Soviet Union). Reform’s Rupert Lowe MP asking questions about potential British military deployments was enough for Mike Reader MP to suggest that Lowe was acting on behalf of a “friend”, alongside a picture of a Russian flag. This does not just amount to an accusation of being unpatriotic. It amounts to an accusation of treason. 

It feels like Britain has been gripped by a devastatingly parochial attitude masquerading as internationalism

But Prime Minister Keir Starmer is doing the same. He accused Nigel Farage of “fawning over Putin” for asking questions about potential British military involvement in Ukraine. Like or loathe Mr Farage, this is absurd. Yes, Farage has praised Putin as a “political operator”, but he has also criticised him as a human being. Besides, his personal beliefs should not even matter when he is merely challenging government policy. For Starmer, and Conservatives like Priti Patel, to be insisting on loyalty tests over perfectly reasonable questions about the practicalities of military engagements is a sign of deep opportunism, with politicians exploiting understandable groupthink over the conflict to marginalise Reform. With journalists gushing about the PM’s “personal stature”, and his “new purpose and momentum”, as if that momentum is not carrying Britain towards a conflict with the world’s third biggest superpower, it feels like Britain has been gripped by a devastatingly parochial attitude masquerading as internationalism.

Of course, it is perfectly legitimate to back increased military support for Ukraine. I happen to be sceptical that Ukraine can win, with or without Western help, but I am open to being convinced otherwise. Yet I’m not sure that hawks are open to scepticism. Right-wing commentators like Julia Hartley-Brewer and left-wing commentators like Paul Mason are speaking with one voice — the 2020s are our 1930s, Putin is Hitler, and he should be treated as such. Alright, so how many millions of deaths should we expect? Where do nuclear weapons factor into this? And am I pro-Russian for asking such questions?  

David Frum came to regret his support for the Iraq War. “I was powerfully swayed by the fact that the proposed invasion of Iraq was supported by those who had been most right about the Cold War,” he reflected, “And was most bitterly opposed by those who had been wrongest about the Cold War. Yet in the end, it is not teams that matter. It is results.” Indeed.