Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. It illegally annexed part of the latter’s territory and has continued with a war that has cost some 14,000 lives. It has now amassed 100,000 troops near the eastern border of Ukraine, with no conceivable purpose except imperial aggression. In this perilous moment, Britain might have had a prime minister espousing the fantastical delusion that it is all the fault of the western democracies.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, will address a rally today under the slogan “No War in Ukraine: Stop Nato Expansion”. It is none too soon that Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Corbyn’s successor, is travelling to Nato headquarters to convey, as he tells The Times today, “a very strong message of standing firm and united with Nato and reasserting that on behalf of the Labour Party”. Sir Keir’s words are welcome. Britain’s security hinges on membership of Nato, through which the country’s allies are pledged to defend it. This system of collective security, guaranteed by international treaty, should always be a bipartisan cause.
The crisis in Ukraine is not caused by Nato. Though the group that Mr Corbyn is addressing, and previously chaired, the Stop the War Coalition, absurdly maintains that “the British government, alongside the US, is ramping up the threat of war”, there is only one actor making warlike threats.
When President Putin’s regime annexed Crimea in 2014, there was not a single US tank in Europe and no prospect of Nato missiles in Ukraine. Russia menaces Ukraine because it cannot countenance the idea of a neighbouring state embracing western ideals of constitutionalism.
The fact that the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia prize their membership of Nato is testament to the threat they know they live with from Russia. There are even suggestions that Finland and Sweden might wish to join the western alliance. The cause is Mr Putin’s revanchism. Though there is no immediate prospect of an expansion of Nato, it would be intolerable, and contrary to the Charter for European Security of 1999, to allow the Kremlin a veto over who might join it.
Labour has rightly backed the government in this crisis. Sir Keir cites the party’s debt to Ernest Bevin, foreign secretary in Clement Attlee’s post-war government, who was instrumental in the creation of Nato in 1949. The alliance was essential to contain Soviet expansionism and bind together the defence of the United States and Europe.
Sir Keir errs only in stating that Labour has “always been the party of Nato”. This is true of the party’s experience in government, but in opposition in the 1980s Labour espoused a non-nuclear defence policy that would have destroyed the cohesion of Nato, a nuclear-armed alliance with an integrated military command.
It opposed the siting of cruise missiles in Britain even though these were essential to counter Soviet intermediate-range deployments. And Mr Corbyn’s eagerness more recently to absolve the Kremlin even of such hostile acts as deploying nerve agent in Salisbury convinced voters that Labour was not to be trusted with national security.
Sir Keir says the party has abandoned his predecessor’s approach. That commitment must stick. However vigorous the debates on other policy issues, defence is the first duty of any government. Labour cannot afford a return to the politics of neutralism and nuclear pacifism. Britain’s voters, and its allies, would rightly not forgive it.
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Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. It illegally annexed part of the latter’s territory and has continued with a war that has cost some 14,000 lives. It has now amassed 100,000 troops near the eastern border of Ukraine, with no conceivable purpose except imperial aggression. In this perilous moment, Britain might have had a prime minister espousing the fantastical delusion that it is all the fault of the western democracies.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, will address a rally today under the slogan “No War in Ukraine: Stop Nato Expansion”. It is none too soon that Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Corbyn’s successor, is travelling to Nato headquarters to convey, as he tells The Times today, “a very strong message of standing firm and united with Nato and reasserting that on behalf of the Labour Party”. Sir Keir’s words are welcome. Britain’s security hinges on membership of Nato, through which the country’s allies are pledged to defend it. This system of collective security, guaranteed by international treaty, should always be a bipartisan cause.
The crisis in Ukraine is not caused by Nato. Though the group that Mr Corbyn is addressing, and previously chaired, the Stop the War Coalition, absurdly maintains that “the British government, alongside the US, is ramping up the threat of war”, there is only one actor making warlike threats.
When President Putin’s regime annexed Crimea in 2014, there was not a single US tank in Europe and no prospect of Nato missiles in Ukraine. Russia menaces Ukraine because it cannot countenance the idea of a neighbouring state embracing western ideals of constitutionalism.
The fact that the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia prize their membership of Nato is testament to the threat they know they live with from Russia. There are even suggestions that Finland and Sweden might wish to join the western alliance. The cause is Mr Putin’s revanchism. Though there is no immediate prospect of an expansion of Nato, it would be intolerable, and contrary to the Charter for European Security of 1999, to allow the Kremlin a veto over who might join it.
Labour has rightly backed the government in this crisis. Sir Keir cites the party’s debt to Ernest Bevin, foreign secretary in Clement Attlee’s post-war government, who was instrumental in the creation of Nato in 1949. The alliance was essential to contain Soviet expansionism and bind together the defence of the United States and Europe.
Sir Keir errs only in stating that Labour has “always been the party of Nato”. This is true of the party’s experience in government, but in opposition in the 1980s Labour espoused a non-nuclear defence policy that would have destroyed the cohesion of Nato, a nuclear-armed alliance with an integrated military command.
It opposed the siting of cruise missiles in Britain even though these were essential to counter Soviet intermediate-range deployments. And Mr Corbyn’s eagerness more recently to absolve the Kremlin even of such hostile acts as deploying nerve agent in Salisbury convinced voters that Labour was not to be trusted with national security.
Sir Keir says the party has abandoned his predecessor’s approach. That commitment must stick. However vigorous the debates on other policy issues, defence is the first duty of any government. Labour cannot afford a return to the politics of neutralism and nuclear pacifism. Britain’s voters, and its allies, would rightly not forgive it.
I think this is an amazing turnaround for Labour.