National Security and Russia

Debate between Dan Carden and Chris Bryant

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate. I am from a generation that was born as the cold war ended. I am also from a generation that does not want another to begin.

Let me be clear: it is an outrage that nerve agents have been used on the streets of a British city, in clear contravention of international law. It is appalling that people have been left fighting for their lives, including a policeman, Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey. I am sure that the whole House is relieved by the recent news that he has been discharged from hospital and was able to return to his family. We are lucky that other members of the public, who could also have been killed or injured, were not. If the evidence is clear and incontrovertible that the Russian state organised the attack, the measures that the Government have taken are commensurate with what any Government should do in such circumstances.

We need to send a clear message that banned nerve agents cannot be unleashed in this or any other country without robust consequences. However, the often hysterical, ill-informed and plain infantile attacks on my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for calling on the Government to follow due diligence, and particularly the guidelines that the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons set out, are not only disgraceful but have not helped our case in the court of international opinion. I note that the Government quietly heeded my right hon. Friend’s advice.

To call for due diligence makes absolute sense. My generation is old enough to remember the so-called dodgy dossier that was used to take us into what many believe was an illegal war in Iraq. Politicising intelligence and turning it into propaganda is not the sort of activity that a democracy such as ours can ever be comfortable with. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was right then, just as he was right on apartheid, Chile, Afghanistan and Libya. One would think that some Members of this House, who have been far less prescient, would have learned to show a little more humility towards someone who so often found himself on the right side of history.

My question today is: what sort of future relationship will Britain and indeed, Europe have with Russia in the longer term? If it is to be one of ever-growing suspicion and hostility, where could that lead? What sort of relationship does President Putin truly want with our country and with Germany, France and the other European countries that are important for future trade, development and peace?

[Chris Bryant]

I have been thinking about what my hon. Friend says about due diligence and due process, and of course he is right. However, President Putin presumes that we will do everything we can to ensure that there is proper process, a fair trial and so on in this country, but that would not be available to anybody in Russia. We have to face that. Having gone through the whole Litvinenko process when I was a Minister, I know that the worse thing for Marina Litvinenko was that it was impossible to have a proper trial because the Russians simply would not co-operate. We very slowly ended up with a judicial review and inquiry. We may end up having to do exactly the same thing this time, but we need to walk into this with our eyes wide open.

[Dan Carden]

I do not disagree with anything my hon. Friend says. The UK’s role as a beacon and a light of hope in international law is as important as any other role we play.

At some point soon, it will be important to have a grown-up debate, beginning with some of Russia’s closest neighbours, which have the most to lose and gain from all this. At that point, we may also ask whether the Defence Secretary, who told Vladimir Putin to “shut up and go away”, has matured enough to take part in it. The policies that were played out in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union ultimately failed, and have helped contribute to where we are now. Russia has seldom helped itself either, even as some close to the Conservative party were helping themselves to some of its oligarchs’ rotten roubles, not least to help fund the Conservative party.

At some point soon, we will all have to step back from the brink and reset relations with Russia. This House can take pride in the work that this country has undertaken historically with the United Nations and others of destroying chemical and nerve weapon stocks, and bringing about international agreements designed to ensure that they are never used again. The world has been rightly appalled when chemical weapons have been used against civilians in Syria, and that is why the world is at one with Britain now over the use of nerve agents here.