Ukraine (UK Relations with Russia)

Debate between Gerald Howarth and Mike Gapes

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in this very important debate. I am surrounded by some of my closest political soul mates, but I suspect that my view is slightly different from theirs. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) on introducing the debate, but it is disappointing that a matter of such significance to the security of our country, and of Europe more widely, has not attracted the participation of more Members.

I agree with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), that we face a very serious situation. My excellent hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and my—also excellent—hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) were right to have been inspirational in setting up the Coalition for Peace through Security. Its work during the cold war contributed to the understanding in the United Kingdom of the need to face up to the Russian threat. I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East said about our not making threats that we cannot fulfil, and not offering NATO membership to countries that we are not prepared to send our children to defend and put their lives on the line for.

I agree with much of that, but my hon. Friends were instrumental in establishing the Coalition for Peace through Security, whereas we face a threat to our security and a threat to peace. I do not know whether anybody saw the BBC programmes on the “37 Days” leading up to the war. I normally fall asleep watching such things, but I was absolutely riveted during the programmes, because the language of the conversations 100 years ago was the same as the language we are using in this place and in the corridors of power today.

It worries me that we might be in real danger of sleepwalking into some sort of very substantial regional conflict. That is because our minds are on Syria, and on the Gulf and Iran. Not enough minds are on China, and on what it is doing in the South China sea, where it is building port facilities and runways on uninhabited atolls. We face a very turbulent world, which is the price we are paying for the fall of the Berlin wall: the balance of terror has been exchanged for a very unstable world.

It is important that we take very seriously what is going on in Ukraine at the moment, and that we look at the Russians’ intentions. We know their intentions without having to look in a crystal ball, because they have been there historically. I have already mentioned what the Russians did to Ukraine in the 1930s: they starved the people who were providing them with their food. As recently as 2008, we saw what President Putin did in Georgia: he successfully provoked the Georgians— Saakashvili probably should not have risen to the bait, but he did—and the result was that the Russians invaded South Ossetia and Abkhazia with complete impunity.

We have seen what I warned would happen—forgive me for saying that, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I could see what was going on in Crimea earlier this year. I understand what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough says about Ukraine having been part of Russia, and about the need not to poke Russia in the eye. Yes, Sevastopol is as important to the spirit of the Russian navy as Portsmouth is to the spirit of the Royal Navy, but that does not justify walking into Crimea and annexing part of another sovereign country, in explicit contravention of the Budapest agreement which was signed in 1994 by Boris Yeltsin, John Major and Bill Clinton. I accept that that agreement did not provide an article 5 guarantee of Ukraine’s borders, but it was a deal with the Ukrainian people in which Ukraine gave up a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons that could have threatened us all, in exchange for recognition of its borders. What are we to make of a man, in the form of President Putin, who has so flagrantly breached an agreement to which his country was a solemn party? Should we regard that as an aberration or a one-off, or as what I believe it to be, which is a complete lack of care for how Russia is viewed, and complete disregard for international norms?

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the pattern of behaviour that has formed over recent years. We probably had illusions a few years ago about where Russia might go, but sadly we have been very disappointed. He referred to the Budapest agreement. Does the way that Russia has abrogated those undertakings underline the fact that Russia also appears to be abrogating arms control agreements? Certainly the agreement on conventional armed forces in Europe is in tatters, and the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty is now being questioned. There is no progress on strategic arms reduction, but rather a big build-up in Russia’s nuclear programme.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point and it all militates in one simple direction: Mr Putin does not seem to care for international norms or that his country has in the past signed solemn and binding agreements. That is why we need to be on our guard.

We have the examples of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as well as Crimea. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, I worry that Putin’s objective is to create a land link with Crimea—at the moment I believe there is a 5-mile gap across the Black sea. He has no intention of giving it up, so will he leave it as it is and reinforce it with air supplies or by sea? I believe there is a risk that he will go for Odessa, thereby denying the rest of Ukraine access to a port. If he moves further west he links up with Transnistria, leaving only a slight border between western Ukraine and Lviv, and around there with Poland, and the rest would be surrounded by Russia. He will then say to the EU, “There you are. You can have the rump of Ukraine,” and that will become isolated and perhaps not economically viable—I do not know. I do know, however, that we must be on our guard because Putin has acted with complete impunity—my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East made that point. But if you make threats and do not follow them up, what is your counterparty to suppose?

The question that I go on to ask myself is this. There is Kaliningrad, that small Russian enclave on the Baltic coast, which is separated from the Russian motherland by a narrow strip of land between Latvia and Lithuania. If Mr Putin can with impunity do what he has done so far, what is to stop him saying, “I need a land link with Kaliningrad”? Article 5 of course stands in his way, but when I ask my friends, “Would you be prepared for your son or daughter to be sent off to go and fight for the Lithuanians or Latvians in the event that Mr Putin decides to annexe their territory and create that land link with Kaliningrad?” I sense no appetite for that. The question is, “Where is the British national interest in that?” People do not understand the significance of article 5—even in this House, hon. Members have been far too flippant about considering offering NATO membership to other countries without considering the consequences.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South was absolutely right: the red line has to be the Baltic states. We must make that red line clear to Mr Putin. We must say, “Thus far and no further,” and it must be followed up. We saw what happened to President Obama when he drew a line in the sand that was promptly blown away by the wind.

European Union (Referendum) Bill (Money)

Debate between Gerald Howarth and Mike Gapes

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes]

I do not wish to detain the House too long because I wish to celebrate later the passing of the equal marriage Bill. I hope that along with all my colleagues on the Opposition Benches and many on the Government Benches—or most of those on the Opposition Benches and some on the Government Benches—we will be able to celebrate the equal marriage Bill. Therefore it is not my intention to divide the House this evening.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

May I correct the hon. Gentleman? It is not an equal marriage Bill because it does not provide for non-consummation or adultery. Therefore it cannot be described as equal marriage.

[Mike Gapes]

I suspect, Mr Speaker, that you would not wish me to get into the next debate so I shall not be tempted to go down that route. [Interruption.] But we could, of course, discuss wider issues—the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is shouting at me from a sedentary position, but I will not be tempted. I remember our exchanges over the Maastricht treaty in the early 1990s and I would much rather debate the referendum with him now.

These are important issues. The Bill needs proper scrutiny. It therefore needs to be considered carefully in Committee, and when it comes out of Committee—whenever that is—in several months, it will need to be properly considered in the House on Report and before it gets, or if it gets, a Third Reading. There are too many important questions to be considered for it to be assumed that the Bill should be pushed through without proper scrutiny and debate. The future of our country in Europe is at stake. Therefore the House and the country expect nothing less than the proper parliamentary scrutiny appropriate for a parliamentary democracy, not a democracy that is undermined by what a former Labour Prime Minister called a device of demagogues and dictators, which was quoted favourably by Margaret Thatcher when she was Leader of the Opposition in the debate in 1975. In that debate she said, and I conclude on this—[Interruption.] I know that Conservative Members were frustrated when they were unable to get their Margaret Thatcher day. At least I will quote Margaret Thatcher—