European Council

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Ukrainian membership of NATO is not on the agenda at present, but it is absolutely right that NATO countries are responding as strongly and as clearly to the threat of Russian aggression and destabilisation as they are. We should listen particularly to countries such as the Baltic states and Poland that wanted to join NATO. We made absolutely the right decision to allow them to do so.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that accepting a Russian seizure of part of Ukraine is against the national interests of the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We should define what our national interest is in this instance, and I think it is that Britain benefits from there being a world where countries obey the rules and where there is a rules-based global system. We are an international country—a country that relies on the world’s markets being open, and on countries obeying norms and standards of behaviour. We know what price is paid if we turn a blind eye when such things happen: we build up much bigger problems for the future.