Vance Rebukes UK Politicians in Ukraine Peacekeeping Spat – Guido Fawkes

The Tories launched on JD Vance after he said American economic interests from the minerals deal will be a better security guarantee than “20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.” As some pointed out he didn’t specify a country there…

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge raged at that and said: “NATO Article 5 has been invoked once – on 12/9/01 by the USA, after 9/11. Britain and France came to their aid deploying 1,000s of personnel to Afghanistan, including numerous parliamentary colleagues, past & present. It’s deeply disrespectful to ignore such service & sacrifice.” The Sun wrote up the “Fury as JD Vance says UK ‘hasn’t fought war in 30yrs’ forgetting Iraq & Afghan”…

Farage on GB News has said Vance “is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. For 20 years in Afghanistan pro rata our size against America’s we spent the same amount of money, we put the same number of men and women in. We suffered the same losses.” Downing Street has also got involved, saying Starmer “is full of admiration for all British troops who have served, you know, for instance, in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom have lost their lives in the process and have obviously served alongside allies, including the United States.”

Vance, who is active online, came back on that. ‘I didn’t mention Britain’…

This is absurdly dishonest.

I don’t even mention the UK or France in the clip, both of whom have fought bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years, and beyond. https://t.co/hrkb5pTV8p

— JD Vance (@JDVance) March 4, 2025

Kemi, meanwhile, has just said on GB News: “I know JD Vance quite well. I’ve looked at the comments, I don’t think he actually said that. A lot of people are getting carried away. They’re saying loads of things and getting quite animated let’s keep cool heads.” Tory unity latest…

Britain and France are the only countries to have publicly stated their intention to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. Is it likelier that the former marine was unaware of British involvement in the Middle East or that he was referring to a generic non-US peacekeeping force in Ukraine?