Pragmatism, Law, and Justice aren't the same thing

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Some managers are good at running things, but hopeless in a crisis; others are good in a crisis, but hopeless at running things when there is no crisis. However, for life’s ‘firefighters’ to be seen to be doing well, there need to be fires, and if there aren’t any, then they will generally find ways to start some. There are other managers who are good at neither, but somehow manage to convince others (or at least themselves) of their efficacy. Trump is clearly in that third category, but fondly imagines that he is actually one of the world's greatest firefighters.

When you run out of wars to resolve (even if some of them were never wars in the first place, and others have not really been resolved at all), the only thing a man determined to win the Nobel Peace Prize can reasonably do is to start a few himself. Give it a week or two and he’ll be adding Venezuela to the list of wars that he has personally ended. Shortly to be followed by his ending of the wars in Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Greenland. He probably thinks that will actually impress the committee awarding the prize.

Here in the UK, meanwhile, the PM is still waiting to be advised as to whether one country bombing another country, sending troops in, capturing the leader and taking him abroad, and reallocating that country’s natural resources to foreign companies, might possibly constitute some sort of crime or not. In fairness, it’s hardly as if he’s a highly trained and experienced lawyer with specific expertise in human rights issues who might be expected to be able to come to an opinion of his own on the matter, is it?

There are, of course, times and circumstances when adopting a pragmatic approach to events which are out of the UK’s control and about which we can do nothing (we’re hardly going to support either a retaliatory strike or even a few limited sanctions) makes sense, but it increasingly appears that the ‘expert legal mind’ currently running the UK actually doesn’t understand the differences between pragmatism, law, and justice. It’s not a first offence, either – we’ve seen much the same thing with his repeated description of a possible pragmatic end to the war in Ukraine involving the ceding of territory as a ‘just’ settlement.

Maduro has hardly been an angel in his approach to governing Venezuela (although his regime has achieved more in terms of reducing poverty and extending education than it is usually given credit for) – and the fact that there are worse leaders around the globe is not much of an excuse for supporting him. His last re-election may well have been rigged (although hard evidence, rather than anecdotal evidence from a sore loser, to justify that assertion is not exactly easy to come by).

But failing to call out a blatant breach of established international law purely in order to placate His Orangeness in the White House does us no favours in the long term, and merely helps to cement a new international order in which the powerful are allowed to do whatever they wish, and the rest are there to be exploited. Those not sitting at the table are likely to be on the menu, as the saying goes. Starmer’s assertion that he has “been a lifelong advocate of international law and the importance of compliance with international law” is just a joke. And not a very good one.