In a recent interview, ‘Your Party’ co-founder Zarah Sultana branded NATO part of the “imperialist war machine”. In the next breath, the left-wing MP declared that Ukrainian PM Volodymyr Zelensky is “no friend of the working class”.
Unsurprisingly, Sultana’s blunt – but correct – criticism of the western military alliance and of Ukraine’s president has prompted a backlash from the British establishment and its lackeys.
At the same time, her comments have struck a chord with those who rightly no longer believe that British foreign policy is driven by concerns for ‘democracy’, but rather by the cold logic of imperialism.
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Sultana’s rejection of NATO and of the western-backed regime in Kyiv should be welcomed by socialists, and by all those who oppose imperialist war.
It is refreshing to see a prominent left figure speak with such candour by denouncing western imperialism, including its institutions and allies.
The Coventry South MP is completely correct in saying that “NATO isn’t about ‘peace’ and ‘security’”. And she is 100% right in dispelling any illusions in Zelensky as a ‘friend’ of ordinary working people.
NATO isn’t about “peace” or “security”. It’s an imperialist war machine. Just look at Afghanistan and Libya.
Arms dealers profit while our NHS collapses, public services crumble and millions of children grow up in poverty.
We must withdraw from NATO immediately.
People don’t…
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) October 28, 2025
What Sultana hasn’t spelt out, however, is the real character of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Such elaboration is necessary. If denunciations of NATO and Zelensky are to amount to more than unsubstantiated soundbites, a clear explanation is needed of why the war began and whose interests are at stake.
This, in turn, requires a proper understanding of imperialism – and a revolutionary programme that draws the necessary conclusions from this.
Once again on Ukraine
Ukraine has become the stage for a bloody war of attrition between western imperialism, in the form of NATO forces, and Putin’s Russia.
NATO’s thirty-year march eastward made Ukraine an inevitable flashpoint in a battle between US imperialism and Russia. For decades, Washington ignored Moscow’s repeated outcries over NATO expansion and the militarisation of Ukraine’s borders.
By defending the ‘right’ for Ukraine (at some undetermined point) to join NATO – in effect, turning Russia’s neighbour into a military outpost for western imperialism – the US and its lackeys provoked an entirely unnecessary war in Ukraine.
Needless to say, then, the US-backed war against Russia had nothing to do with lofty moral principles. Rather, Washington spied an opportunity to weaken and isolate Russia, a rival imperialist power. This, the Biden-led administration believed, could be achieved under the cover of war.
Similarly, since the 2014 Maidan movement, the European imperialists played the most cynical role. Through promises of financial ‘miracles’ (à la Poland, which joined the European Union in 2004) and military protection (in the form of NATO membership), they created the illusion that they were extending an invitation to Ukraine into the European ‘club’.
With this carrot and stick approach, the Zelensky government – elected on a platform of reaching a peaceful agreement with Russia – was pushed into a war it could not win.
All of this was done in the name of so-called ‘national sovereignty’. In reality, this meant Ukraine becoming a dominion of western imperialism.
Delusions of grandeur
Since the war began, there has been no shortage of opportunities to expose the rotten role played by British imperialism in prolonging an unwinnable war – and, in turn, to explain the real reasons for the British establishment’s unwavering support for Zelensky.
In truth, the British imperialists have used the war to flex their ailing muscles on the world stage, and to prove their reliability and credentials as the junior partner in the US-UK ‘special relationship’.
From promising tanks it didn’t have to Ukraine; to Starmer’s Storm Shadow scandal: the entire British establishment – imbued with delusions of grandeur, and desperate to maintain its imperial prestige – has staked everything on a victorious Ukraine.
Consequently, those in Westminster have been in total denial as to the dismal results on the ground.
The Ukraine war was therefore not caused by “arms profiteering”, as Sultana suggested in her interview – although weapons’ manufacturers have certainly made a killing. Nor has the conflict been prolonged because of nefarious arms dealers.
Rather, in the web of western imperialism, Britain plays a subservient role as Washington’s sidekick. And the British ruling class and its representatives cannot face the humiliation of falling out of favour with the White House, and thereby having their diminished stature revealed for the whole world to see.
It is in this that we find the real reason for the over-zealousness on the part of the British establishment to see the war fought until the last drop of Ukrainian blood.
With friends like these…
The bitter irony is that now, as Trump struggles to disentangle the US from the Ukraine war, Washington finds its European ‘allies’ begging it to wade even deeper into the conflict. And Sir Keir Starmer has positioned himself as the ringleader of this campaign.
For the past six months, there has been not a peep from the left about Starmer’s ‘coalition of the willing’ farce. And there has been no sharp criticism for the proposed ‘peace-keeping’ force in Ukraine – that is, the push for boots on the ground.
Critically, there has been no explanation of why the European powers are so desperate to head off a resurgent Russia; living on a wing and a prayer that the US will come to their rescue.
In reality, when it comes to foreign policy, what motivates all the western leaders, as ever, is their imperialist interests.
Sultana is of course right that NATO is not about ‘peace’ and ‘security’. But what needs to be brought to the surface is that the capitalist elites who swear by peace are in fact the ones hellbent on war.
It is not just Zelensky who is “no friend of the working class”. Those in London, Paris, and Berlin who pose as defenders of the Ukrainian people are in fact criminally responsible for helping turn Ukraine into a failed state.
It is they who represent and uphold the very system – capitalism – that breeds conflicts and necessitates war. It is they that have courted the US, attempting to drag Washington into a battle-to-the-death with Russia. And it is they that have asked the working class to foot the bill: prioritising guns before butter, and warfare ahead of welfare.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Welfare not warfare
To her credit, Sultana has called for Britain to immediately withdraw from NATO. And she has been effective at connecting the struggle against militarism with the class issues facing the working class at home, raising the demand for “wages, not weapons; welfare, not warfare”.
In the absence of a thorough understanding of war and imperialism, however, based on a clear Marxist perspective, Sultana has struggled to outline a proper alternative when it comes to foreign policy.
Interviewed by the BBC’s Nick Robinson recently, for example, Sultana found herself in difficulty when answering questions about NATO and the Ukraine war; in particular when asked what should replace the West’s current ‘security umbrella’, and whether Britain should provide military support to Zelensky against Putin’s Russia.
Instead of providing a socialist, internationalist response – explaining the capitalist interests behind the conflict, and behind imperialist war in general – the left-wing MP talked in vague, liberal terms about the need for ‘peace’ and ‘diplomacy’.
Zarah Sultana @zarahsultana is completely correct in calling for immediate withdrawal from NATO and for welfare not warfare. Yes! But the alternative is not “neutrality” nor “diplomacy”, but rather, the struggle for world socialism. War is intrinsic to capitalist imperialism. pic.twitter.com/D2N2WJivOp
— Jorge Martin ☭ (@marxistJorge) November 10, 2025
Such woolly words come across as utopian, however; as an appeal to the capitalists and their political representatives to abandon their class interests – their ruthless pursuit of profits, markets, and spheres of influence – in favour of collaboration with other imperialist powers.
As Sultana herself has stated recently, quoting Lenin: “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”
What is needed now, more than ever, therefore, is for slogans such as ‘welfare not warfare’ to be filled with revolutionary class content: that is, for an analysis that explains that the ruling class’ wars and militarism are not ‘ideological’ or ‘political choices’, but the necessary product of the capitalist system.
That starts with a clear political explanation of the real imperialist interests behind the Ukraine war. And it means putting forward a programme and strategy – based on the power of the organised working class – that can bring the imperialist war machine to a halt, once and for all.
Above all, this means moving beyond rhetoric, and mobilising workers and youth to fight for a revolutionary alternative to war and militarism: overthrowing capitalism and imperialism – and organising to sweep out the warmongers in Westminster and Washington.
