Russia

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who made some extremely important and perceptive points. I begin, as others have, by thanking my noble friend Lady Falkner for introducing this debate and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Anelay on her new responsibilities, which I am sure that she will discharge with vigour, finesse and aplomb.

The first thing that I became really involved with when I was elected to another place in 1970 was the campaign for the release of Soviet Jewry. I sometimes think that we forget the enormous progress that has been made in the form of the Soviet Union since those days, when I and my colleagues were refused visas to go to Russia and we had the door of the Soviet embassy shut in our faces. Now what do we see? Only yesterday, I had to the House a young man whom I met earlier this year when I was giving a talk in Oxford, a Russian studying at one of the colleges in that great university. We talked—and, of course, he has great democratic aspirations, but he recognises, as we all should, that when the wall came down and the iron curtain ceased to exist there was no democratic infrastructure for the people of Russia to look back on. That country has never had a proper democracy. That young man recognised this—and he also recognises that Putin, for all the misgivings we may have about recent actions and pronouncements, has given the Russian people back a large measure of self-respect. He is enormously popular among Russians. Whatever the slight misgivings there may have been in the conduct of polls, there is no doubt that he won an overwhelming victory and, if there were an election tomorrow, he would win another one.

I have been greatly reassured by the realistic tone of so many of the speeches that we have heard this morning. We cannot envisage a stable Europe without good relations with Russia; that is essential. We have to recognise that every country, either implicitly or explicitly, regards itself as having a certain sphere of influence. What has happened in Ukraine this year has not been to our delight, but there are two sides—and that has been put most eloquently by a number of speakers in this debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Owen, echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, made an extremely important point when he talked about the signatories to the Budapest agreement. We are one of the signatories. Therefore, we are in a position to take an initiative. These matters were not well handled earlier this year, and there is a certain amount of drift now. Let our Foreign Secretary seek to convene an international conference on the Budapest memorandum, and let us say to the Russians that we understand their worries. After all, we have to remember that the great patriotic war actually began with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and what happened thereafter, when the Germans turned on the Russians, seared their memories. We have to seek to understand and to engage, and I very much hope that there will be a real attempt to engage. Although the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and others were right to say that this is not another Cold War, nevertheless much of the rhetoric of the past six months has been reminiscent of the rhetoric of the Cold War and has not advanced the cause to which we are all in this House dedicated—human rights and the equality of peoples, with a balanced and civilised world order.

We need to recognise that Russia has its legitimate interests. It must conduct itself in accordance with international law, but in the knowledge that we understand its worries and its background. Certainly, any question of Ukraine joining NATO should be completely off the agenda. Ukraine is a free country, and must be a free country, but there has to be a measure of devolution within that country that recognises the legitimate rights and aspirations of all citizens within that country. The attitude towards the Russian language adopted earlier this year was inimical to a sensible resolution of the crisis.

I very much hope that when my noble friend comes to respond she will indicate that the British Government are not only willing and able but determined to take a role in seeking to bring the signatories to the Budapest memorandum around the table to discuss and give the sort of safeguards that were implicit in the sensible and sensitive questions asked of my noble friend by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. If we can do that, this debate, as with so many debates in your Lordships' House, will not only have been a good debate in itself but might even be of some help in resolving a problem which, if it is allowed to develop, can only play into the hands of those wicked people in ISIL, against whom we are all united.