Ukraine

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

What a powerful speech to have to follow from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). I echo the comment made earlier by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion): this has been a very informative debate. I found the contributions from the hon. Members for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) really worthwhile listening.

The falling back of the Russian army from Kherson in recent weeks and days presents us with an opportunity to reflect on what the UK and its allies intend will be achieved by our support for Ukraine. To date, our position has simply been that we reiterate our moral and material support, and quite right too. But there have been voices in NATO and here in the UK who have since the spring been urging us to have aims that are independent of those of the Government of Ukraine. I am strongly of the view that as 2022 draws to a close we should not have stated aims that differ from those of the Government in Kyiv.

The Government in Moscow are determined to paint the war as one that Putin did not seek. When addressing the Russian people and extending the mobilisation of Russian citizens, the Russian Government seek to stimulate fear of the west. It has been said several times this evening that the UK supports Ukraine because of our outrage at the invasion, in the 21st century, of a sovereign state that posed no threat to its neighbours. But an additional reason why the UK’s aims and Ukraine’s aims are indivisible is in order to undermine Russia’s claim that this is a proxy war where NATO is using Ukraine to fight on its behalf.

Lord David Richards of Herstmonceux has argued that the UK and its NATO allies should have a grand strategic war aim with a defined end state. He said in April that without such a well-defined end state

“there is a risk that events overtake us in the way that happened in 1914”.

But there are some fundamental differences between now and then. In 1914, the UK intervened directly in support of Belgium and deployed the British Expeditionary Force, whereas NATO Governments have been at pains to demonstrate our restraint by supplying Ukraine with materiel while avoiding the direct involvement of our armed forces personnel in the conflict.

There are perhaps stronger parallels between the situation we see today and the one that arose in 1916, when it had been rumoured that some in the US were seeking to engage Germany and the entente powers in dialogue, with a view to peace. That was at a time when the aggressor was still in possession of territory that it had acquired directly as a result of its aggression. Britain’s then Secretary of State for War, the Liberal Minister David Lloyd George, pointed out that Britain and its allies were only just beginning to see some successes and that negotiating a compromise at that time would serve only to reward aggression. Lloyd George talked about the need to ensure that

“military despotism is broken beyond repair.”

Last week, it was suggested in the press that some voices in the US might have been leaning on Ukraine to alter its objectives. The US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, said:

“We’ve seen the Ukrainian military fight the Russian military to a standstill…Now, what the future holds is not known with any degree of certainty, but we think there are some possibilities here for some diplomatic solutions.”

When questioned about that, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said:

“The United States is not pressuring Ukraine…We’re not insisting on things with Ukraine.”

We should just stand back and reflect that Baron Richards and General Milley have been or are the professional heads of their armed forces, so they have seen enough of war to know that it is a blunt instrument, that it is unpredictable and that it is inferior, in most ways, to diplomacy. They and others are entirely right constantly to ask questions about the NATO grand strategy and whether we might be able to articulate our own end state or see a diplomatic way out.

On this point, I disagree with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill that safe skies implemented by way of no-fly zones policed by NATO would be the right thing, although that was something Ukraine called for early in the war. I was with him in Kyiv when we heard about the sorts of demands that were being articulated by Ukraine today, and I would agree with him that removing Russia from all of Ukrainian territory was much more along the lines of what is being called for today than anything else.

[Liam Byrne]

I, too, do not believe that there can be a NATO-policed no-fly zone, but what I do believe is that there can be a much a greater supply of air defence weapons that we have and that Ukraine needs.

[Richard Foord]

I thank the right hon. Member for correcting my understanding.

I talked last week to a Ukrainian MP from the sister party of the Liberal Democrats and he told me how we in the west have failed in the past two or three decades to fully understand that the Soviet Union was an empire. He suggested that we never fully appreciated that there was not consent for states to belong to the USSR in the first place and that it had been a Russian KGB-led empire all along, which some in Russia would like to see recreated.

Those are some of the reasons why the west should not at this time seek to have aims that differ from those of the democratically elected Government of Ukraine. Instead, I urge that we act solely in support of our Ukrainian allies. In the 21st century, there is no case for the logic articulated by Catherine the Great when she said:

“I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.”

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the shadow Minister to wind up for the Opposition.