Ukraine: Defence Relationships

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a very great honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with his immense diplomatic experience. How right he is to remind us that principles are constant but policies have to change. We are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for the thoughtful way in which he introduced this debate.

I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Hannan and his characteristically charismatic imagination. He made one very important point that we must all recognise: it is 106 days since we woke to the news that the invasion had begun. A day after it, we assembled in your Lordships’ House and had a full-scale debate in which some extremely fine speeches were made. We now must assess the situation because, as he made plain, 106 days ago, we did not imagine that we would be quite where we are now. Indeed, all the talk was of a quick occupation of Kyiv and the probable exiling of the Government, which would force President Zelensky to seek sanctuary. His moving words—“I stay here”—galvanised Europe. Here we are today with the Russians shown up for what they are: those who would destroy wantonly and kill indiscriminately, but who have not succeeded in subjugating.

We must be realistic, and recognise what we can actually do with our limited capacities. That is why I called, on Tuesday this week, for an international conference convened by the UK on Ukraine. The noble Lord, Lord West, in his very sober analysis was right to remind us of our limitations. Of course we have done well, and I congratulate the Government, but I do not think that it is realistic to suppose that an honourable settlement demands a restitution of the whole of Ukraine as it existed in 2014—it demands a restoration of Ukraine as it was on 24 February 2022. That is absolutely essential.

If that does not happen, we are all defeated because the principles of democratic government, freedom of speech and all the things we treasure so much in this House will have suffered a severe rebuff which could be followed—and how right the noble Lord, Lord West, was to refer to this—by a greater confrontation with a greater power later this century. We could be in a very difficult situation.

I urge noble Lords to concentrate on ensuring that we give President Zelensky all he needs to achieve an honourable settlement, because what has happened over the last 106 days is destruction that will take years to repair. We have got to put a great deal of money into that repair. That will cost us, as will the food crisis that looms over the world because of the mining of the Black Sea, which is likely to plunge us into greater difficulties in the year ahead.

Above all, as several noble Lords have referred to, we need to have an adult and proper relationship with our friends and allies in the European Union, many of whom are also in NATO, because we do not want a divided West. We have a duty in this country to ensure that we do not create unnecessary difficulties. I sincerely hope that the recent reports of the introduction of a Bill to override the protocol are wrong; you cannot abrogate international treaties which this Government entered into willingly and urged Parliament to adapt, adopt and pass—and we did it willingly. You cannot set that sort of example of abrogating treaties and claim to be a moral leader in global Britain. We must mend our fences with our European friends and allies and go forward together to ensure that the values that we each seek to encapsulate in our democracies are preserved and not defeated.