Ukraine (UK Relations with Russia)

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in this very important debate. I am surrounded by some of my closest political soul mates, but I suspect that my view is slightly different from theirs. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) on introducing the debate, but it is disappointing that a matter of such significance to the security of our country, and of Europe more widely, has not attracted the participation of more Members.

I agree with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), that we face a very serious situation. My excellent hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and my—also excellent—hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) were right to have been inspirational in setting up the Coalition for Peace through Security. Its work during the cold war contributed to the understanding in the United Kingdom of the need to face up to the Russian threat. I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East said about our not making threats that we cannot fulfil, and not offering NATO membership to countries that we are not prepared to send our children to defend and put their lives on the line for.

I agree with much of that, but my hon. Friends were instrumental in establishing the Coalition for Peace through Security, whereas we face a threat to our security and a threat to peace. I do not know whether anybody saw the BBC programmes on the “37 Days” leading up to the war. I normally fall asleep watching such things, but I was absolutely riveted during the programmes, because the language of the conversations 100 years ago was the same as the language we are using in this place and in the corridors of power today.

It worries me that we might be in real danger of sleepwalking into some sort of very substantial regional conflict. That is because our minds are on Syria, and on the Gulf and Iran. Not enough minds are on China, and on what it is doing in the South China sea, where it is building port facilities and runways on uninhabited atolls. We face a very turbulent world, which is the price we are paying for the fall of the Berlin wall: the balance of terror has been exchanged for a very unstable world.

It is important that we take very seriously what is going on in Ukraine at the moment, and that we look at the Russians’ intentions. We know their intentions without having to look in a crystal ball, because they have been there historically. I have already mentioned what the Russians did to Ukraine in the 1930s: they starved the people who were providing them with their food. As recently as 2008, we saw what President Putin did in Georgia: he successfully provoked the Georgians— Saakashvili probably should not have risen to the bait, but he did—and the result was that the Russians invaded South Ossetia and Abkhazia with complete impunity.

We have seen what I warned would happen—forgive me for saying that, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I could see what was going on in Crimea earlier this year. I understand what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough says about Ukraine having been part of Russia, and about the need not to poke Russia in the eye. Yes, Sevastopol is as important to the spirit of the Russian navy as Portsmouth is to the spirit of the Royal Navy, but that does not justify walking into Crimea and annexing part of another sovereign country, in explicit contravention of the Budapest agreement which was signed in 1994 by Boris Yeltsin, John Major and Bill Clinton. I accept that that agreement did not provide an article 5 guarantee of Ukraine’s borders, but it was a deal with the Ukrainian people in which Ukraine gave up a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons that could have threatened us all, in exchange for recognition of its borders. What are we to make of a man, in the form of President Putin, who has so flagrantly breached an agreement to which his country was a solemn party? Should we regard that as an aberration or a one-off, or as what I believe it to be, which is a complete lack of care for how Russia is viewed, and complete disregard for international norms?

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the pattern of behaviour that has formed over recent years. We probably had illusions a few years ago about where Russia might go, but sadly we have been very disappointed. He referred to the Budapest agreement. Does the way that Russia has abrogated those undertakings underline the fact that Russia also appears to be abrogating arms control agreements? Certainly the agreement on conventional armed forces in Europe is in tatters, and the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty is now being questioned. There is no progress on strategic arms reduction, but rather a big build-up in Russia’s nuclear programme.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point and it all militates in one simple direction: Mr Putin does not seem to care for international norms or that his country has in the past signed solemn and binding agreements. That is why we need to be on our guard.

We have the examples of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as well as Crimea. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, I worry that Putin’s objective is to create a land link with Crimea—at the moment I believe there is a 5-mile gap across the Black sea. He has no intention of giving it up, so will he leave it as it is and reinforce it with air supplies or by sea? I believe there is a risk that he will go for Odessa, thereby denying the rest of Ukraine access to a port. If he moves further west he links up with Transnistria, leaving only a slight border between western Ukraine and Lviv, and around there with Poland, and the rest would be surrounded by Russia. He will then say to the EU, “There you are. You can have the rump of Ukraine,” and that will become isolated and perhaps not economically viable—I do not know. I do know, however, that we must be on our guard because Putin has acted with complete impunity—my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East made that point. But if you make threats and do not follow them up, what is your counterparty to suppose?

The question that I go on to ask myself is this. There is Kaliningrad, that small Russian enclave on the Baltic coast, which is separated from the Russian motherland by a narrow strip of land between Latvia and Lithuania. If Mr Putin can with impunity do what he has done so far, what is to stop him saying, “I need a land link with Kaliningrad”? Article 5 of course stands in his way, but when I ask my friends, “Would you be prepared for your son or daughter to be sent off to go and fight for the Lithuanians or Latvians in the event that Mr Putin decides to annexe their territory and create that land link with Kaliningrad?” I sense no appetite for that. The question is, “Where is the British national interest in that?” People do not understand the significance of article 5—even in this House, hon. Members have been far too flippant about considering offering NATO membership to other countries without considering the consequences.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South was absolutely right: the red line has to be the Baltic states. We must make that red line clear to Mr Putin. We must say, “Thus far and no further,” and it must be followed up. We saw what happened to President Obama when he drew a line in the sand that was promptly blown away by the wind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I echo the congratulations to the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) on securing this debate. He talked about the EU association agreement, Euromaidan, the shooting down of flight MH17, the sanctions and the response. I am pleased that he also raised the potential influence of the John Smith fellowship programme on the current generation of Ukrainian politicians. I say that as a former trustee of the John Smith Trust. It is an organisation I have had an association with since its foundation.

During this debate, broadly speaking we have heard two views. We have heard the view represented by the hon. Members for Maldon and for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that this has been an outrageous breach of territorial integrity that requires a strong response and which we cannot allow to stand. We have also heard the alternative view, put most forcefully by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), that we should see this from the Russian point of view. Others perhaps fell somewhere between those two views.

I always hesitate to differ from the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), but I do not agree with this metaphor about poking the bear with a stick. The problem with the metaphor is that countries are not bears, but knowledgeable institutions; they know the rules and they know about borders and histories, but the bear does not. I do not think the analogy sticks, therefore, and so I do not think we can absolve Russia of its responsibilities by using that analogy.

There are few more urgent issues facing us than what has been unfolding in Ukraine over the past year. The hon. Member for Maldon reminded us in the most stark way that here on the continent of Europe, a state’s territorial integrity has been systematically undermined by the fomenting, arming and backing of Russian separatists. Crimea has been annexed and parts of eastern Ukraine are effectively beyond the reach of the Ukrainian state. This destabilisation has continued, despite the Minsk agreement reached a short time ago. All of that is taking place against a deepening economic crisis for Ukraine, with a newly elected Government struggling to grip these twin security and economic crises. Beyond Ukraine, as has been referenced several times in the debate, there have been a number of incidents, such as transgressions of airspace, that remind us of how things were in the past. Of course, this situation dominated the recent G20 summit.

What is happening in Ukraine poses major challenges for us relating to security, stability and values. We cannot simply hope that it goes away. The first challenge relates to foreign policy itself. No one wants further to inflame a conflict with Russia, yet its actions in Ukraine cannot go unanswered. That is why it is right that both the European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions. Unity on those sanctions is essential, and we had a debate about them at the beginning of their imposition. It is important that states set aside short-term economic interests in order to communicate to Russia that it cannot do what it would wish, which is to divide and rule and pick off one state after another. Unity is key, and we must resolve to maintain the sanctions and to increase them, if necessary. In his response, I hope the Minister will clarify what further options on sanctions are under consideration at EU level, and what talks have taken place with the United States about differences between the sanctions regimes agreed at EU level and those operated by the United States.

The unified European response has been important, and it serves as a reminder, if one were needed, that there is a security dimension to EU membership and that by standing together we can be stronger in the face of what Russia is doing in the Ukraine. Of course NATO serves as the main alliance for our defence, and recent statements from a number of leaders reiterating their support for article 5 are welcome. However, it is also the case that the EU as well as NATO can use its collective leverage and its adherence to democratic values to resist land grabs and aggression. If this dimension is not always clear in our domestic debates here in the United Kingdom, it is certainly clear to many former Warsaw Pact countries, which regard EU membership, at least in part, as important in protecting them.

Now we know that there are politicians in this country who admire Mr Putin and what he has done. The UKIP leader has said that Putin is the politician he most admires. He has attacked some for their stance on Ukraine, but not Mr Putin. In fact, he has accused the west of “playing war games” in Ukraine. He is not the only nationalist leader who has expressed admiration for Mr Putin. We have also had Mr Salmond saying he admires “certain aspects” of Mr Putin’s policies. The state-owned “Russia Today” channel has written of the hopes it has invested in Mr Farage and his desire to see Britain leave the EU. Let me quote:

“In such a scenario, there are possibilities for Russian-British rapprochement on many levels”.

It also said:

“A UK exit from the EU could mean a dilution of the famed Trans-Atlantic alliance between Washington and London.”

Perhaps it is incumbent on all of us, particularly those who desire such a scenario, to take account of who will be cheering if they get what they wish for.

[Mike Gapes]

That does not just apply to people in this country, does it? Marine Le Pen has been bankrolled by Putin’s supporters, and far-right and nationalist groups in Hungary—Fascist groups—have also been given support by Putin.

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the recent £7 million loan to the French National Front party, and to return us to the question of who would cheer if the European Union were to fall apart at the hands of nationalist movements and parties. For the rest of us, such comments and actions are a reminder that we should not be cavalier in dismissing the importance of the security side of a strong and united European Union which believes in democracy and freedom, and stands opposed to Russian aggression. That is well understood by Angela Merkel, who, a few days ago, told Welt am Sonntag:

“Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine are three countries in our eastern neighbourhood that have taken sovereign decisions to sign an association agreement with the EU”.

She added:

“Russia is creating problems for all three of these countries”.

We cannot regard those countries’ actions as poking the bear with a stick. They have a right to sign such agreements if they wish.