My Lords, with the leave of the House I will speak in the gap.
I place on record my strong dissent from the position taken by the European Union, the British Government and the Government of the United States in their treatment of this issue. We meddle at our peril in a part of eastern Europe that we little understand.
I will clarify the position on the Budapest memorandum, which has been oft-quoted in the press and during this debate. The Budapest memorandum was determined on the basis of a need to reduce nuclear weapons deployment in eastern Europe in the early 1990s. It was never seen as a settlement of boundaries in that part of eastern Europe. It does not guarantee frontiers and it is not a treaty, but it reaffirms an obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia is perfectly entitled to challenge the territorial integrity of Ukraine as long as it does not use force and it has been so challenging since 1994. Anyone who follows the debate that has been going on over the years in eastern Europe will know that there has been a constant discussion over that matter, which is unsettled business as far as the Russians are concerned.
Furthermore, there is no evidence that force was used prior to this referendum. Yes, there has been lots of reporting of the alleged use of force, but I have not seen evidence of it. At the end of all this—no doubt there will be some kind of inquiry—I feel confident that we will find that force was not used. The use of force has not led to celebration and jubilation on the streets throughout Crimea, particularly on the back of a 96% vote on an 83% turnout. That does not suggest to me that those people have been intimidated into the way they have voted; they have simply voted for what they want, and they can now have it.
The truth is that Crimea is Russian and it is an accident of history, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, that it has ended up in Ukraine. A historical mistake is now being corrected and in my opinion we are overreacting. We have repeatedly humiliated Russia over the past 20 years; it was particularly
humiliated over the break-up of Yugoslavia. Indeed, the Russians now quote the precedent of Kosovo. They pray in aid the 2010 ruling by the International Court of Justice, when it states that international law contains,
“no prohibition on declarations of independence”.
We cannot ignore these precedents. Throughout the world, people are referring to the precedent of Kosovo. It is very interesting that, during this debate, there has been very little reference to what has happened in Kosovo. Indeed, when I intervened on the Minister at the beginning of the debate, she did not respond.
We need dialogue with the Russians, not sanctions. These sanctions will turn us into a laughing stock. It is out of dialogue that we can avoid these problems in future. The course that we are on is going nowhere and we will be humiliated when we back down.
7.16 pm