One Hundred Year Partnership Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ukraine

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Marland

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the committee for its report and thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his masterly introduction of it. I cannot live up to the advance billing that I was generously given by the noble Lord, Lord Marland, I am afraid.

I do not intend to say very much but I would like to comment on the slightly mechanistic, transactional view of UK interest that I derived from the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, and the noble Lord, Lord Marland. Fifty years ago, if you travelled in Spain and someone wanted to wish you good luck, they would wish you war in Crimea, because war in Crimea blocked the grain exports from the breadbasket of Europe—it is now called Ukraine—and raised the price of grain in rural Spain, thus making rural Spain prosperous. Ukraine is a phenomenally rich country, potentially. Its mineral wealth is largely concentrated in the Donbass. The President of the United States may not have noticed that, actually, it is in the bits he seems content to see given away, rather than in the north or the centre. Its agricultural land is the best in Europe for cereals—except, possibly, that of East Anglia and the San Juan Basin. So investment in Ukraine’s stability is investment in the future. It is a bit transactional to score it—12, was it?

[Lord Marland (Con)]

It was 12.8.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

It is an investment in both liberty and the values in which we believe. It is also, if you want to look at it transactionally, an investment in a potentially strong economic partner for the United Kingdom.

I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that the title of this treaty is a little pretentious. I can think of only one precedent for as hubristic a title of a treaty signed by Brits. In 1809, the East India Company signed a treaty of perpetual friendship with Ranjit Singh, the then leader of the Sikh community in India. Neither the East India Company nor the separate Sikh state survived 100 years after their perpetual friendship treaty. I also agree with those who say that the content of the treaty is a little thin, but it is very important that, unlike the East India Company and the Sikh state in India, Ukraine should survive. It is important to both our security and the security of all of Europe.

I would like to make one macro point and one micro point. My macro point is that Putin says that Ukraine is not a legitimate state; that, therefore, its national sovereignty cannot exist; and that it is Moscow’s mission to obliterate it. We should take him at his word. He would not be satisfied with a settlement that gave him the Donbass. I think that the correct analogy for today is 1938. At Munich, Hitler got one-third; six months later, he was back for the other two-thirds. He was not satisfied then, and I do not believe Putin would be satisfied now. Hitler came back for Poland nine months later; the Poles, the Finns and the Baltic states are quite right to be worried now. So, despite the thinness of the content and the hubris of the title, I welcome the treaty as an additional confidence-building measure for the Ukrainians and a framework for future co-operation with us. All the detail still has to be filled in, but that is a job worth doing. It is strongly in our interest.

My micro point is about the preambular reference in the treaty to the

“United Kingdom being dedicated to supporting Ukraine’s irreversible path to NATO membership”.

“Irreversible” is quite a strong word. I was not altogether sure of the wisdom of NATO’s 2008 offer of membership to Ukraine and Georgia—nor, indeed, of the Vilnius 2023 or Washington 2024 language, which introduced the concept of irreversibility—but it is out there now and President Zelensky will no doubt want it repeated at the June NATO summit. Given President Trump’s clear scepticism—I use no stronger word—about Ukraine’s NATO membership, pressing for it at the NATO summit would be all too likely to lead him to denounce it, so disproving irreversibility at a stroke.

The drafting of the report’s paragraph 28 is a little obscure—particularly the last sentence—but paragraph 29 is judiciously silent on irreversibility. I hope that the Government are following its example and advising President Zelensky that the least said about irreversibility at the NATO summit, the better: no repetition, no denunciation. Let the summit instead concentrate on the immediate and manifest need for Europe to up its game, spending more on defence and spending it better; building up its support for Ukraine; and ensuring that the United States does not withdraw its support. If you want peace, prepare for war.