My worry is very much that they know exactly what they are doing, because they know exactly what we will do and they have already prepared the ground for this. They probably think to themselves, “We’ll do a certain amount and then we’ll discuss an awful lot more about what else we might do,” and then at some point a couple of countries will break ranks, go back to Putin and say, “Let’s work out a deal.” After all, the Minsk deal was a terrible deal because it forced on Ukraine the loss of its own territory, not necessarily in perpetuity but saying, “Don’t fuss about this any longer because we just want peace.” Peace at any price is not peace. Ukraine now faces an extended conflict and we see what is happening. A bad deal is a bad deal, and it leads to further pressure. That is what is happening.
I really do believe that the Government have to take this many notches further and hit the Russians very hard—yes, with the cleaning out of some of the Augean stables in the financial services area, but we also need to go on to grander, more supranational sanctions, working with our allies absolutely to cut off supplies of money, such that the Russians and President Putin cannot find a way through this and they feel the pain. When we hit them with these sanctions we must hear them squeal, not see them smile quietly and say, “They won’t get any further.” Let us do that earlier, now.
In conclusion, and returning to a point I made earlier, I genuinely believe that the free world has been half asleep on the watch. We thought that democracy was triumphant. We thought that there was no way, in coalition with the free markets, that the rest of the world would not turn to democracy automatically and embrace it, and we would have a fair and reasonable place. We failed to realise that the idea of totalitarianism—of brutality and oppression—exists and will go on existing. Unless we fight them wherever they exist, they will rise again. In China now, they practise slave labour, they have genocide, and they persecute people and lock them up. They absolutely dominate the citizens of that country. In Russia they are doing the same, as in Belarus, Iran and many other countries that the hon. Member for Rhondda and I have discussed in the APPG. They are on the move. This axis of totalitarianism supports itself across the board. If we do not act on Putin now and with firmness, then in China they will look at Taiwan and say, “They’ll never do anything; it’s even further away.” Then there is Iran and the nuclear weapons, and
Belarus looking across at Poland. We must move hard, we must move now, and we must make them squeal. If we do not do that, then we will have failed.
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