Ministry of Defence

Debate between John Spellar and Edward Leigh

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a very good point. With France, and after America, we are the leading military power in Europe and we have to set an example. If we withdraw from exercises, that creates a bad impression.

I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) is here. He introduced his Backbench Business debate on defence last month and pointed out that the risks this country faces are only intensifying. If we face a multiplicity and variety of threats, surely our capabilities must reflect that. Russia is indeed a threat again, because it realised that the only way to be taken seriously is to be seen to be a threat. We treated Russia with contempt during the 1990s and it has drawn the lesson. It is a geopolitical gamble that we may not approve of, but in terms of Russian influence it has paid off. What have we been talking about for the past hour except Russia? According to some estimates, its economy’s GDP is equivalent to that of Italy or even that of Australia. Russia’s emphasis on its defence spending has made it an extremely important geopolitical player. Although we are constantly told that times have changed and that defence spending is not as important as it was, perhaps the Russian example shows that defence spending does pay off. I am not for one moment defending or approving of Russia or anything it does, but it has drawn the obvious lessons from the 1990s. There is a threat from Russia and we need to take it seriously.

Surely one lesson we can draw from the past, particularly from the lead-up to the second world war, is that, in terms of commitments, we must have a real presence. There is no point in our having a token commitment to or presence in the Baltic states; we need a real presence if deterrence is to work.

Many other threats are developing from Russia, the Chinese and other potential opponents: cyber-attacks and information warfare are all potential threats.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly identifies the potential difficulties on the north European plain. Should not the Ministry of Defence therefore reconsider its decision to withdraw from north Germany and reinstate our capability there?

Russian Interference in UK Politics

Debate between John Spellar and Edward Leigh

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We are coming up to Christmas, one of the great feasts of the Christian year that marks the birth of Christ and the bringing of hope to all mankind, but we should recall another event, which is much more recent in time but which happened more than a quarter of a century ago: the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991. When I was elected to this House, 270 million people lived under the direct totalitarian rule of the Soviet Union, with no elections of any meaningful value; and a further 137 million lived in the other countries of the eastern bloc in Europe. On 26 December 1991, Gorbachev went on television to announce that the long nightmare was over. As he went to sign into effect the dissolution of the Soviet Union, his communist-manufactured pen did not work, and he had to borrow a working pen from the CNN camera crew who were filming the event.

We should all believe in the sovereignty of nations and the general principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations. None the less, I think that we should be proud of the part that this country played in the downfall of the USSR and of communism in Europe. Alongside St John Paul II, President Reagan and our own Margaret Thatcher, we were instrumental in resisting totalitarianism and inspiring the captive peoples of Europe to stand up against their communist overlords. At the same time, the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Home Secretary were going on motorbike tours of East Germany. If we might have been accused of interfering in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union then, I think we can be proud of it.

Let us remember to have a sense of proportion. In those years, there were dozens and dozens of Soviet divisions in East Germany and Poland, posing a direct threat to our freedom and democracy, but today we are talking about alleged Russian interference in UK politics and society. We hear things such as “undermining our democracy”, but can we look at the evidence?

[John Spellar]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am about to deal with the evidence, but of course I will give way.

[John Spellar]

Did not the head of the Federal Security Service say only this week that it sees itself as the spiritual heir of the Cheka and the KGB? Does that not tell us all we need to know?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am not seeking to defend the Putin regime. There is much in Russia that is not perfect. I was a member of the Council of Europe delegation to the presidential elections, and I know it is not a perfect democracy, but let us keep a sense of proportion. So much progress has been made, and Russia is an infinitely freer and better place than it was under the Soviet Union. It is not perfect, it is not pleasant and it is not our sort of democracy, so I do not defend the Putin regime, but I want to get a sense of proportion in this debate.

Let us look at the evidence from the Oxford Internet Institute, which is part of Oxford University. It investigated more than 100 Russian-linked Twitter accounts and their activity in the run-up to our EU referendum. The results of the investigation are worth noting. It found that

“(1) Russian Twitter accounts shared to the public, contributed relatively little to the overall Brexit conversation, (2) Russian news content was not widely shared among Twitter users, and (3) only a tiny portion of the YouTube content was of a clear Russian origin.”

The fact is that the majority of the UK population—to a significant extent—is not on Twitter.