King’s Speech

Lord Moore of Etchingham Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in the gracious Speech, it is stated that His Majesty’s Government

“will continue to give its full support to Ukraine and its people and it will endeavour to play a leading role in providing Ukraine with a clear path to NATO membership”.

That most welcome commitment was emphasised by the decision of the new Defence Secretary, John Healey, to which the Minister referred, to travel to Odessa immediately on taking office. There he promised a new package of support for Ukraine. It was the right time and the right place.

I was in Odessa the previous month. There I visited the bomb-damaged cathedral and the museum of fine arts. Part of the museum had suffered a direct hit, and the movable works of art had all been taken to a place of safety. Putin’s war is, among other things, an attempt to destroy Ukrainian culture. Blasphemously, he invokes Christianity as part of his justification for doing so. As the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, said, it is depraved.

I want to bring out a key word in the passage of the gracious Speech that I just quoted—“continue”. This country’s policy towards Ukraine has been bipartisan since the welcome departure of Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour leadership. This continuity gives it great strength, as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, mentioned, and our new Government should be congratulated on this. But there is a slightly unacknowledged problem: the United States, which after all leads the alliance, enjoys no such bipartisanship over Ukraine. Indeed, the subject is in play in the coming presidential election, as emphasised by Donald Trump’s recent choice of JD Vance as his running mate. As a senator, Mr Vance has been vehement against US backing for Ukraine.

Those close to Mr Trump insist that he does not want to be the president who, as they put it, “loses Ukraine”, and it was good to hear that Mr Trump and President Zelensky had a cordial telephone conversation last Friday night. Nevertheless, the continuing uncertainty surrounding his attitude and that of his fellow Republicans is literally lethal. It causes paralysing doubt about what Ukraine can do next. This doubt may well persist for six more months, or indeed further. In the meantime, lesser allies wilt and Ukrainian casualties mount.

Compared with the Republicans’ attitude, that of the Democratic Party seems closer to our own. Unfortunately, it is not quite as simple as that. I draw your Lordships’ attention to a revealing recent confusion. Meeting President Zelensky at the Washington summit, our new Prime Minister gave him the impression that Ukraine was free to use Storm Shadow missiles to attack Russia well within its borders. President Zelensky tweeted his delight at this game-changing offer—but then things shifted. No, said a Whitehall briefing, there had been no change in the way the missiles can or cannot be used. The fact that the Storm Shadows are Anglo-French was invoked as a reason why this could not be a unilateral decision—but I believe that the chief anxiety here is the anxiety of the White House.

President Biden’s support for Ukraine has always been genuine but never complete. The White House feels itself constrained by Putin’s threat to use tactical nuclear weapons if NATO missiles attack Russian territory. This is a particular preoccupation of President Biden’s national security adviser. It is reported that he got in touch with 10 Downing Street to ask for the denial to which I referred.

Goodness knows, the threat described is something that would worry any statesman, but it should be noted that since 2022 Putin has issued many blood-curdling threats to NATO allies that he has not fulfilled. He knows that the promised US response to any nuclear attack by him would be punitively high.

I conclude by saying that, at least until the presidential election is decided, and probably for some time after, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, pointed out, neither America’s European allies nor Ukraine itself can rely on steady US leadership. This difficulty is probably made worse by the replacement of the Atlanticist President Biden by Vice-President Harris as the Democratic Party candidate. Into the gap thus created will creep all sorts of fine-sounding plans for a ceasefire, which, despite what the noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford, told us earlier, would almost certainly help Russia and damage Ukraine.

This will be a time when a heavier burden of leadership in helping Ukraine win—and I do mean win—will fall on the European part of NATO. It will fall particularly heavily on Britain as the strongest and staunchest NATO power in Europe. People of all parties must encourage our Government to rise, both in spending and in strategy, to the challenge to maintain the peace of Europe.