John Grogan
Main Page: John Grogan (Labour - Keighley)Department Debates - View all John Grogan's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(7 years ago)
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John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)
I will make four points in about two and a half minutes. I have heard every word of this debate, Mrs Gillan. I would not miss the introductory oration of the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale); one of the best things I have done in Parliament was to introduce him to Ukraine some years ago.
We heard about the diaspora and the Ukrainian athletes. As the grandson of an Irish migrant in Yorkshire, my first contact with Ukraine was on the football fields with the grandsons of Ukrainian migrants. I remember that they tackled hard. The next contact was in the 2005 Orange revolution, when I thought that there was only one side to be on—that of freedom and of democracy. That is why I got involved.
We heard about the withdrawal of the truce monitors. The Foreign Secretary is going to Russia at a fortuitous time because even more than my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), I worry that that will precede additional violence at Christmas. That has happened before when the world’s eyes were looking elsewhere. Over the next few days, we have to be careful that the world’s eyes are on Donbass. It may be time to revive the idea of peacekeeping forces, which the Ukrainian Government have argued for in the past. It would not be acceptable to have Russians as part of that force, of course, because as Ukraine has argued it would have to be stationed across the whole of Donbass and at the border. That needs to be looked at.
On corruption and the economy, the Ukrainian Parliament has an important decision to make on Thursday. I hope that it will confirm the new central bank governor. That decision is on a par with the publication of assets, which recently meant that about a third of judges resigned immediately. That sort of bold measure is needed to tackle corruption.
I disagree with the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) who argued that Ukraine should join NATO. I think that would divide the Ukrainian nation. Even now, opinion polls do not suggest huge majorities for that; they suggest divisions.
On language, it is important that the Russian language is cherished in Ukraine; someone can be a proud Ukrainian with Russian as their first language. In recent years, one of the great symbols was when Shakhtar Donetsk played at Lviv. Obviously, they could not play at their home ground, so they played in west Ukraine. There was a recognition that although the teams came from different parts of Ukraine, they shared that Ukrainian identity. Long may that continue.