Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

Mr Speaker, may I wish you and everyone in this House a happy new year? I welcome the progress made on security guarantees for Ukraine yesterday. Geoffrey Robertson KC is a respected authority on international law. He is also the head of the Prime Minister’s barrister chambers and he could not be clearer: President Trump’s actions in Venezuela are illegal. He says the United States:

“is in breach of the United Nations charter”

and

“has committed the crime of aggression, which the court at Nuremberg described as the supreme crime”.

Does the Prime Minister agree with his old mentor, or has he got it wrong?

[The Prime Minister]

There are plenty of things that Geoffrey and I have agreed on and disagreed on over the years, but let me set out our position. It is our long-standing position that Maduro was not a legitimate president in Venezuela, so nobody, I think, sheds any tears at his removal. What we were saying before the weekend, and we say again, is that there needs to be a peaceful transition to democracy in Venezuela. The benchmark of all actions of all countries is, of course, international law, and it is for the US to justify its actions accordingly. My focus is on the defence and security of the United Kingdom. Yesterday we were working with NATO allies, including the US, on security guarantees for Ukraine. It is only with security guarantees that we will have a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, which is vitally important for Ukraine, for Europe and for the United Kingdom.

[Ed Davey]

The Prime Minister just looks ridiculous when he will not tell the truth: that Trump has broken international law. Turning to Donald Trump’s next target, the Prime Minister was right to give the Danish Prime Minister his backing over Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and I welcome his joint statement with other European leaders, but does he also agree that if Trump does attack Greenland, it will be the end of NATO? Given that frightening possibility, does he accept that the UK needs to increase defence spending more quickly than currently planned and build new alliances with reliable nations?

[The Prime Minister]

The Greenland issue is obviously very important and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising it. The future of Greenland is for Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark, and for Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone. Yesterday, he will have seen that I put out a statement to that effect, along with fellow allies in Europe. Of course, NATO is hugely important—the single-most effective and important military alliance the world has ever known. He keeps encouraging me to sort of tug away at parts of NATO, and to choose between Europe and the US. That would be a strategic mistake for our country.

Yesterday we were working with our NATO allies, including the US—our NATO ally—on a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, which will not happen without security guarantees from the coalition of the willing backed by the United States. That is a vitally important issue, and we made progress on it, but there will not be a just and lasting peace in Ukraine without those security guarantees, and not achieving a just and lasting peace in Ukraine is not in our national interest. That is why I am applying so much time and energy seeking to get that outcome.