Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has sent the following to UK Deputy Prime Minister and Labour MP for Tottenham David Lammy.

Dear David,

On 13 April you tweeted a photo with US Vice President JD Vance, saying:

“Great to catch up with my friend @JDVance today in DC following his talks in Pakistan.

“It is vital that the ceasefire continues and we get shipping flowing freely again through the Straits of Hormuz.

“We continue to work together towards a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”

There are many questions that could be asked about why a self-described progressive politician would describe a far-right leader like Vance, the deputy head of a government responsible for so much suffering and destruction in his country and around the world, as a friend and pose grinning with him.  

However, we want to focus our objection.

You say that you and Vance – and by implication Trump and the rest – are “working together towards a just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.

The day after your tweet, Vance once again made his real position abundantly clear, telling an event of the far-right group Turning Point USA in Georgia that “it’s one of the things I’m proudest that we’ve done in this administration” that “the United States is not buying weapons and sending them to Ukraine anymore”.

Vance is proud – very proud – of the US cutting off aid to Ukraine, as part of its multi-faceted attempts to facilitate a Russian victory. These efforts, and particularly the cutting off of aid, have resulted in, at the very least, thousands of extra Ukrainian civilian deaths.

Vance’s 14 April comments were not a revelation, but a reminder. Yet on 13 April you told the world that he is your ally in the struggle for a “just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.

Your vocal praise of Vance and his position on Ukraine also came six days after he appeared in Hungary to try to save the regime of Putin’s close ally Viktor Orbán. The day after appearing on stage with Orbán (and, by phone, with Trump), he went on Hungarian TV and declared that Orbán’s stance on Ukraine was one of the best in Europe. This as Orbán made virulent hostility to Ukraine central to his election campaign.

All this is in blatant contradiction with the UK government’s stated position, and with the requirements of democratic and labour movement political morality. It risks making you and the UK a laughing stock among supporters of Ukraine and all advocates of democracy and justice internationally.

If you are serious about support for Ukraine, and for democratic and progressive politics generally, you need to sharply reassess.

Yours for Ukrainian victory,

Ukraine Solidarity Campaign

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