Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I wish to confine my remarks to the situation in Ukraine. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), and I will follow his example by beginning my speech by declaring an interest. I am an officer in the all-party group on Ukraine, although I must confess that I cannot remember which particular role I have.

I take it as axiomatic that our aim in Ukraine is to secure peaceful, democratic, political development in that country. By that standard, we are not doing very well. Of course President Putin, for his own internal and external reasons, has done and is doing everything he can to undermine those developments. None the less, I have some questions about the way the UK, as a country and as a member of the EU and NATO, has played its hand; there has been a lot of furious rhetoric but a lack of sombre analysis. The Russians have a strategic interest in a warm-water port in Crimea for the Black sea fleet—we do not. The Russians have a long and close history and relationship with Ukraine—we do not. There is a large Russian-speaking minority in the east of Ukraine, and we are not in that situation. That all means that when push comes to shove, in an open conflict, the Russians are going to be prepared to do more and to push harder than we have and ever would.

Indeed, it is clear that some in eastern Ukraine do not support the Kiev Government and have not supported the association agreement with the EU. Unfortunately, because of the Russian actions it is difficult for us now to see how many people in eastern Ukraine take that view. When I visited Ukraine a couple of years ago, it was clear that the country had weak civil society and weak political institutions. We saw that in the way the Kiev Government were dealing with the problems in eastern Ukraine; there was no proper dialogue but an attempt to impose people on, and control people in, eastern Ukraine. A deeply unsophisticated approach was taken of imposing oligarchs as governors in eastern Ukraine and refusing to listen. We need to look at things again.

During the demonstrations in Maidan square at the turn of the year, the European Union had a tendency to over-promise: to promise more than we have or than we will deliver. Our messages were confused and confusing. Of course, a large number of people and the Kiev Government wanted the EU association agreement, but why did it have to be rushed through in a way that for the Russians was highly confrontational? In July, the Ministry of Defence was briefing that Ukraine is regarded as virtually a member of NATO, which was unhelpful as it created uncertainty and unpredictability in respect of our potential actions in the minds of the Russians. We need to draw a clear distinction between the Baltic states, which are members of NATO, to which we have clear obligations and which have duties and responsibilities to the alliance, and Ukraine, which is not in that situation.

I am not entirely convinced that sanctions are as effective as the Foreign Secretary hopes they are.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give me some details of what she thinks are appropriate sanctions?

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[Helen Goodman]

One problem is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) has been saying, it is not clear that small changes in the income of particular individuals will matter very much to President Putin. Edward Lucas said that in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. There is also a problem of corruption, which is not helped by the Tory party taking a lot of money from Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs.

We need to move to a political process to strengthen the political dialogue. On Monday, the Prime Minister agreed that the Russians had legitimate interests in the area, especially in seeing that the Russian minorities are well treated and protected.

The Foreign Secretary talked about effective international monitoring. I am not clear whether he meant the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe or a UN-sponsored plebiscite. We need to know more clearly what the Foreign Office has in mind. What is absolutely clear is that the former British ambassador to Moscow, Tony Brenton, was right when he said that we should stop shouting and start talking.

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[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I apologise to colleagues for having missed some of the Back-Bench speeches earlier due to an unbreakable commitment related to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

As was observed earlier, when my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is thought about in defence terms the one word that will be associated with him will be “strategy”. When my political epitaph comes to be written, I guess most people would think that the one word that would be associated me would be “Trident”—or, if they were feeling kinder, it might be “deterrence”. Actually, a different word ought to be associated with what I am trying to outline in terms of strategy today: “containment”. Containment is the key to what we need to do in the two very different scenarios of Russia’s behaviour and ISIL’s behaviour. Containment sometimes has to be done by means of a balance of terror, as when dealing with a nuclear-armed state such as Russia. On other occasions, it has to be done with the more traditional concept of the balance of power, as when dealing with states such as those of the middle east. Containment by means of the balance of power often means active intervention.

Let me refer briefly to two scenarios. In the case of Russia and Ukraine, what Russia is doing is not new, as the hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) observed in his interesting speech. In fact, it is based on a model of what it did in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, when countries such as Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary were first subverted and then taken over. I have previously mentioned the important work of Professor Anatol Lieven in analysing the situation in Ukraine. Time prevents me from doing more than pointing out that he has consistently said that the only way in which a disaster will be averted is for some considerable degree of autonomy to be awarded to the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine. If we try to egg on the other parts of Ukraine to win militarily, Russia will simply step up its military effort and the overall effect will be disastrous.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful point, and I agree with him. Did he agree with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), as I was somewhat alarmed to discover that I did?

[Dr Lewis]

Sadly, that is one of the Back-Bench speeches that I missed.

I am grateful, in any case, for the hon. Lady’s intervention, as it gives me a little more time to refer to the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth). There is a huge difference between NATO members that are covered by the article 5 guarantee and other countries, no matter how sympathetic we are towards them, that are not. When I was 16, Czechoslovakia was invaded. I thought what a shame it was that while Czechoslovakia was temporarily free we did not scoop up this poor vulnerable country under the protection of NATO. But I was 16 then—I am not 16 now, and I know the realities. I know that what was done in the aftermath of the second world war was nothing more than a recognition of the reality that the west could band together to protect itself by means of NATO, but it could not, at that stage, protect the countries of central and eastern Europe. Russia had to be contained by means of the balance of terror involving nuclear deterrence.

Let me quickly move on to ISIL. We are not in a situation where we have a choice of good outcomes. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) set out certain conditions in hoping for a good outcome in relation to the choices that face us. I hope they are right, but the likelihood is that there will be no good outcome in these confrontations—that no good guys are going to come out on top, but only somebody of the stripe of an Arab dictator, on the one hand, or revolutionary jihadists on the other.

That is where we move on to containment by means of a balance of power, whereby sometimes there is no ally to be helped and all we can do is try to ensure that no one of a bunch of undesirable actors on the international stage gets to be dominant. That is what we have to do in this case. That is why I gently disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex about the vote that we had last year. I am absolutely delighted to look back on the fact that I was one of the people who made sure that we did not intervene to drag down Assad, atrocious though he is, because the upshot of that would have been similar to that of dragging down Gaddafi. The effect of the latter was not to further western strategic interests but the interests of our deadly enemies on the jihadist front.

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

I think that is an incredibly generous description of how NATO is behaving under President Obama, although it certainly was belligerent under Bush.

NATO’s endless eastward expansion has encouraged an equal and opposite reaction on the other side, in Russia. Although I am not a defender of Putin or, indeed, of Russian foreign policy, one has to say that if there was a general agreement that Ukraine should be a neutral, non-nuclear state, the presence of NATO forces in Ukraine and joint exercises with Ukrainian forces were likely to encourage the Russian military to do the same across the border. If we want to see peace in the region, as we all do, surely there has to be demilitarisation and a process that brings about a peaceful reconciliation in Ukraine, if that is at all possible. Instead, what I hear all the time is the ratcheting up of the military options on both sides, with more and more exercises and more and more overflying.

This is a very dangerous situation that could indeed lead to some dreadful conflict. I want to sound a note of caution about it and also draw attention to the fact that NATO now gives itself the right to involve itself in any part of the world, at any time, through its rapid reaction force. Indeed, the Prime Minister wanted to bring another 33 countries on board. A global military power that can go in anywhere is not necessarily a good thing; indeed, it can provoke all the opposition and all the problems that we are discussing in today’s debate.

The question I want to put to the Minister—to which I hope I will get a reply either today or in writing—is this. The mutual defence agreement between Britain and the USA on the sharing of nuclear information, originally signed in 1958, comes up for renewal this year. There is no date set for Parliament to debate it, and apparently the Government do not seem terribly keen on that, yet President Obama sent a message to Congress on 24 July saying that he approved of the renewal of the agreement and hoped that Congress would approve it. If it is good enough for Congress to debate the mutual defence agreement, surely it is good enough for us to debate it as well.

[Helen Goodman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways to bring down conflict, tension and the international temperature is to be predictable? These unclear mandates lead to uncertainty and unpredictability.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed, and the daily dangers from the situation in Ukraine and eastern Europe are pretty obvious for everyone to see. I hope we can think more carefully about this, rather than rushing more and more troops, more and more arms and more and more missiles into the area, and instead try to search for a political solution, difficult as I obviously recognise that to be.

I want to make two other points. This morning a number of us went to Room 14 to hear a statement from Dr Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestine National Initiative. He showed us a short film that was appalling, shocking and horrible. All I was seeing were pictures of buildings in Gaza that I have visited and known. They are all ruined, and there are 2,000 people dead and many families completely bereft of everything. The bitterness from that bombing by Israel continues and will continue for a very long time. Surely there should have been a response by the British Government on this. It is not good enough just to talk about Israel’s right to exist and its right to self-defence. There was a total disproportionality about the whole conflict. More than 2,000 Palestinians are dead; sadly, 100 Israelis are dead. I wish no one had died from that conflict, but unless we address the rights of and justice for the Palestinian people—their right to nationhood, their right to recognition, their right to travel, their right to trade; all those things—and instead keep them in prison in Gaza, this will all break out again in the not-too-distant future and we will have a renewal of all the horrible bloodletting that has happened over the past month.

There was a massive lobby of Parliament yesterday by supporters of Palestine. On 9 August, 150,000 people came on a demonstration in London to show their solidarity with people under bombardment. It is up to us, as one of the authors of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which is the antecedent of many of these problems, to be prepared politically to do something about the problem, at the very least by suspending all military arrangements with Israel. Although I recognise that that will not solve the problem, it would at least send a significant political message.

My final point in my remaining minute is simply this. I have been a Member of this House long enough to have discussed the Afghanistan war, the Iraq war, the Libya conflict and indeed, before that, the Gulf war. I am no supporter, sympathiser, apologist or whatever for ISIL—for what it stands for, what it does, what its methods are or for its current threat and attacks on the Kurdish people. Surely, however, some basic understanding of history will recognise that our interventions and our behaviour—American interventions, American behaviour—have created the circumstances in which ISIL has grown up. The money now going into the region for arms—from Saudi and other sources—as well as all the other weapons going in are a major cause of the current conflict within Iraq. Let us learn the lesson: intervention everywhere is surely not the solution; the solution is working with people on development and bringing about peaceful solutions to problems rather than the obsession with taking military intervention around the world.