Tag: Stewart McDonald

Stewart Malcolm McDonald – 2022 Speech on Ukraine (September 2022)

The speech made by Stewart Malcolm McDonald, the SNP spokesperson on defence, in the House of Commons on 5 September 2022.

I thank the Secretary of State for the update that he has given the House. Like many, we have been watching over the summer period as Ukrainian forces take back their territory. In one sense, although we would rather none of this were happening, it is heartening to see that weapons being supplied by this country are being used so successfully on the battlefield. Let us be clear about what that represents and what arming Ukraine’s armed forces represents: it is, by definition, an act against fascism and war to support those who are the victims of a campaign of genocide.

It is also heartening to hear of the training by UK armed forces and partnered armed forces that is taking place. I think my office is in the process of organising an opportunity for me and the leader of the SNP here, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), to witness it at first hand.

One thing that definitely worries me—we are starting to see it happen across Europe—is that the unity that we have all maintained over the past six months or so is starting to crack as winter arrives. We saw that in the massive demonstrations at the weekend in Prague and, I think I am right in saying, in Cologne. That is something that we must—absolutely must—stand against.

The single best way to end this war is for the Kremlin to recall every single Russian troop on Ukrainian soil. All the calls to end the sanctions now, as though that would somehow help to end the conflict in Ukraine, are a falsehood, but that takes us to another important aspect of the war, which is the information war. As winter bites, as bills go up, as the effects of the conflict start to appear in people’s bank accounts, and as an obvious information war from Russia takes place in that respect, can the Secretary of State assure the House, or outline to the House—this is similar to what the shadow Secretary of State asked—how he will ensure that we are fully equipped to withstand that information war? Standing with Ukrainians is the right thing to do, and that is something we need to communicate well.

September 8, 2022
Stewart Malcolm McDonald – 2022 Speech on NATO and International Security

The speech made by Stewart Malcolm McDonald, the SNP MP for Glasgow South, in the House of Commons on 19 May 2022.

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), but I am afraid that, at the beginning of his speech, he somewhat misled hon. Members. He said that he would not say things that he had said before, but by the end of his speech, I was pretty certain that he had made those points previously—in fact, he tends to make them whenever I follow him. However, as always, he was worth listening to.

I commend the way in which the Secretary of State opened the debate. Despite his attempts to tease Labour Front Benchers and me—more of that to come, I am sure—he opened it in a suitable fashion. One might even think that he had in mind a future position in Brussels that might come up at NATO at some point later this year. He is far too popular for the Prime Minister, so he may not be Secretary of State for too much longer. [Interruption.] I am sure he would be most welcome in the Scottish Parliament.

I will try to be brief because I am conscious of time. NATO is clearly one of the two main pillars of Euro-Atlantic security. The Secretary of State himself identified the European Union as a strong player in some of the non-hard military capabilities that are required to underpin peace on the continent of Europe. It is undoubtedly correct that NATO is at the forefront of providing hard military defence and security to its member states, but Europe leads in other areas outwith that. The Secretary of State mentioned some—for example, cyber—but we should also look at energy, trade, resilience and crisis management. He is right that the two institutions should not compete but complement one another.

Britain is in a slightly different role in that it has recently left the European Union but remains a member of NATO, so it taps into only one of those two pillars of Euro-Atlantic security. I repeat what I said earlier, that we should seriously consider a comprehensive defence and security treaty with the European Union. I suspect we will end up in that position at some point, although perhaps not under this Government.

The Secretary of State went through some of the history of the alliance, not least its doubling in size over the past 70 years. We now have two applicants in Sweden and Finland. I suspect that the Secretary of State is right that they will join, despite the noises from Turkey. Undoubtedly, both countries will be positive, contributing members of the alliance, producing strong defence, resilience and security. The Scottish National party absolutely supports their application.

I want to consider the Strategic Concept. As the Secretary of State mentioned, we have had the strategic compass from the European Union—I think there is still a bit to come. The Strategic Concept is second in importance only to the Washington treaty and is undoubtedly a major turning point in the ongoing Euro-Atlantic security debate. The shadow Secretary of State is right that it is a shame that it is open only to Governments to participate, but I accept the Secretary of State’s generous offer to have a discussion with him and his officials before the concept is published next month in Madrid.

I am slightly worried about some of the noises from the Foreign Secretary, and I understand, if the media are to be believed, that so are some Members on the Government Benches. The concept, which she has repeated without any detail, that we need a global NATO causes me concern. The Strategic Concept should underline that NATO’s primary focus is the Euro-Atlantic area. We do not need NATO to gallivant around the world. I know that the Government have an obsession with the Indo-Pacific tilt that they want to try to implement, but surely 24 February, if not 2014 and 2008, has told us that the Euro-Atlantic area needs to be NATO’s primary focus, not a global NATO. Although there is no detail about what the Foreign Secretary means by that, I reject it in its entirety.

Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)

On Monday and Tuesday, I had a long conversation with Ukrainian politicians on the border. They stressed to me how vital it is that the United States stays deeply committed to Europe and NATO, and that that is the lesson of what has happened since 24 February.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I do not disagree with any of that. I am not sure whether perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the point that I was making, but I do not disagree at all. The United States is clearly very important to NATO, but NATO’s primary area of focus and operation, on the map, is the Euro-Atlantic area, and my concern is that the Foreign Secretary seems to want to take that further, with talk of a global NATO. Given that we do not know what she actually means by that, perhaps I have already given too much time to it, but it does cause me concern.

As the shadow Secretary of State said, we need to try to open things up with future strategic concepts. No multilateral international organisation, however important, has a right to exist; it always requires work to get the consent of the public. Undoubtedly NATO has that—it has proved this year alone just how useful it is—but it does need to democratise, and the processes for future strategic concepts need to be opened up not just to political parties, but to non-governmental organisations and others. We want to see coming out of the strategic concept a focus on resilience, on emerging disruptive technologies and on ensuring that the eastern flank of NATO is enhanced, as the Prime Minister of Estonia—the new Iron Lady, as she is being called—has been calling for. We would support that.

The Secretary of State knows that we have supported the Government in every move that they have taken to support Ukraine militarily, economically and in many other fields. Our only criticism, a deep and profound one, is how incredibly slowly we are helping Ukrainian refugees, but that is perhaps not for this debate. However, I am interested to tease out of the Secretary of State or the Minister where we are with planning to help to rebuild Ukraine.

The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) was correct to say that no one expected that Ukraine would fight so valiantly and last so long against Russia, or that Russia would crumble. No one saw that coming. Getting on to a debate about rebuilding Ukraine is therefore hugely important, and clearly the Ministry of Defence has an important role to play. Members on both sides of the House need to start engaging in this, not least because Ukraine is hoping next year to host the Eurovision song contest, which, as the Secretary of State said, will take place, one way or another, on the territory of a free Ukraine.

The Scottish National party supports Sweden and Finland in their accession to NATO. We are analysing that process very closely, as Members might well understand. We support the Government in going into the strategic concept if they are serious about democratising it and addressing the challenges that we face in the Euro-Atlantic area.

Given the assault on the international order by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, its continuing fraying and testing in other parts of the world, and the technologies that are used to deepen and hasten that, we need to work together, irrespective of the differing political and constitutional views of hon. Members present. We need to work together because we share values, and those values do not deserve to exist just because we think so; we always need to make the case for them robustly even where there are disagreements. I wish the Secretary of State well for the upcoming strategic concept and look forward to discussing it with him before he heads to Madrid next month.

May 20, 2022
Stewart McDonald – 2022 Comments on Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak Being Fined for Breaking Rules

The comments made by Stewart McDonald, the SNP MP for Glasgow South, on Twitter on 12 April 2022.

The PM has indeed been a strong ally of Ukraine – I have given him credit for it – but that does not entitle him or his party to use Russian war crimes and the victims of them as a shield for his own lying and lawbreaking. The mere suggestion that he might is a new low.

April 12, 2022
Stewart McDonald – 2022 Speech on Support for Ukraine

The speech made by Stewart McDonald, the SNP MP spokesperson on defence, in the House of Commons on 2 March 2022.

I thank the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), for his fine speech and the Minister for his fine response to it. As I am sure others will do as the debate goes on, I thank the Government for the genuine openness that they have shown to Members of the House as the situation has developed. It has made a huge difference to all Members to have that level of access and detail from the Department.

We all look on in horror at what we see on our TV screens with the train stations of a major European capital city and cities across that country filling up with refugees. We thought, did we not, that we had left such scenes behind in our history, but they are back with us once again. Cluster bombs are being used on cities like Kharkiv, a city I visited and know well. It breaks my heart to see what is happening to people in Ukraine: war crimes—war crimes—being committed in 2022 on the continent of Europe. We even have a situation where towns and villages are being surrounded by Russian troops to starve the local population of food, water and other supplies they need to survive. That takes on a particular resonance in a country that in its past suffered, almost 100 years ago, a famine genocide organised by Stalin that killed many millions of Ukrainians and is still very much alive in the minds of Ukrainians to this day. One of the most horrifying things we saw yesterday was the bombing of a holocaust memorial in the capital city of Kyiv. So terrible is it that it puts to bed the utter lie of Putin’s claim to be denazifying Ukraine. Ukraine has denazified itself in the past and will continue to do so in its future.

Like others, I want to pay tribute to the heroism of President Zelensky, the Ukrainian armed forces and the Ukrainian people themselves. I have been in daily contact with friends, MPs and others who I have gotten to know over my many trips there over the years and they still show the incredible resolve, generosity and kindness that we all know them for. They have their own family members and their own safety to worry about, but still they are helping Members of this House to get their constituents to safe places. Some of them are still keeping up their spirits with a sense of humour. Kira Rudyk, leader of the Opposition Holos party, was on UK news this afternoon. It was put to her that she, like every other Member of the Verkhovna Rada, is on Putin’s kill list. She responded by reminding everyone that she is also on the top 10 bachelorette list in Ukraine, so she hopes that that somewhat balances out. To maintain that level of generous spirit and maintain that level of dignity and resolve that we have seen in these circumstances? I suppose we could all hope that we would do the same, but I am not so sure that many of us would.

My party and I have supported the Government over their actions in Ukraine. We have ensured that they get the support from the SNP Benches for the defensive equipment, economic support, and political and diplomatic support they have given to Ukraine, and we will keep doing that. Indeed, like others and, I suspect, the Minister himself, we always want to see the Government go further. That is the job, I think, of the Opposition here. Yes, we are united, but we always want to push the Government to go further where they should.

There are two areas where the Government should. First, on sanctions, it is the case that we are behind other international actors and we want the screws to be turned and turned quickly. Like the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), we agree that there are almost certainly legitimate reasons why we have not done that, but we need to do what we can to fix it. Secondly, on refugees, the Minister is right. Most people will want to stay in a country close to Ukraine, because they want to return to Ukraine. I well understand why people will want to get back there and rebuild their country—it is a proud country and a proud democracy—but we do stand alone in putting in front of people fleeing war crimes all the unnecessary bureaucracy that does not need to be there. I plead with the Government to change that stance and be more open and welcoming, and at least match the offer of EU member states.

It cannot be said enough that our conflict or disagreement is not with the citizens of Russia itself. It is a proud country and it has made incredible contributions over the years to science, innovation, arts, culture and much else. Indeed, Scotland and Russia have shared many connections, not least militarily, over the years. The Russian people, as we are starting to see, are victims of a sort in this conflict as well. As the sanctions start to bite, there will be consequences for them. Indeed, they are already starting to feel it. This war is over one man’s imperial hubris that started not last week, but in 2014. It has already seen the deaths of around 15,000 Ukrainians, and that is before we count the Russian dead. It has displaced about 2 million Ukrainians in their own land.

It is worth taking ourselves back to how this started. It was nothing to do with NATO or the west; it was all because Ukrainians decided that they wanted a European, Euro-Atlantic future, and they wanted Putin’s boot off their neck. Ukraine threatened no one, and remains a threat to no one.

In time—today is not the day for it—we will have to consider exactly what has happened and how the European security architecture has been thrown up in the air like a kaleidoscope. The Minister and the shadow Defence Secretary rightly mentioned the change in German policy. We all watched with our jaws open as the Chancellor reversed 30 years of energy policy and 70 years of defence policy on Sunday. The European Union is now a much stronger military alliance than we ever thought it would be. If someone had told me that that was where it was going two weeks ago, I would not have taken them seriously. That is something for us all to take the time to think about. The integrated review will need to be revisited; only a fool would think otherwise. I was always sceptical of the Indo-Pacific tilt. This is not a time for I-told-you-sos—most definitely not—but all of us in this country and in other countries around Europe will need to rethink defence and security postures going forward.

We are the custodians of the treaties and institutions that were set up to maintain peace and security across Europe, and we need to ask ourselves what we need to do to fix them, because they are more than creaking at the seams right now. How have we got ourselves into a situation where we are seriously contemplating a Government who are accused of committing a genocide against their people—China and the Uyghurs—presiding over peace talks about war crimes carried out by their ally in Moscow against people in Ukraine? I am not sure it could be argued that we have been very good custodians of those treaties and institutions, which have so far by and large held up, but are creaking in a massively unprecedented way.

There will be time to debate those things in the future. Today we must focus on Ukraine, Ukrainians and the war criminals who are carrying out this horror in that nation. For me—if you will indulge me, Madam Deputy Speaker—this is personal, having taken many trips back and forward, like many other Members of the House. We have friends in common, actually. I have phoned friends whose children I can hear in the background being loaded into cars to flee cities—cities in which I have enjoyed meals with their families. I was in Kyiv this time last month. Even then, it did not feel like a city that was on the brink of war. I have been on the phone to friends and heard shells going off in the background—the calls cut off as they have to run. Then there is always that hellish thought when I call someone or text them and for hours do not hear back, and do not know whether they are safe.

It is personal for me, and for many of us in this House. I enjoyed nothing more than welcoming friends from Ukraine to Glasgow for COP26. I had hoped that they would be in my constituency for the Scotland-Ukraine match, although I am not sure what it would have done for our reputation if we had beaten them.

Mr Kevan Jones

No chance of that.

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Well, a boy can dream. That now will not happen, but Ukraine is a democracy and the Ukrainians are a free people. They need and deserve our support and focus, and the unity of this House—today, tomorrow and going forward. I am sorry to say that the Minister is almost certainly correct that this will get worse before it gets better, so let us focus on how we make it better. It will require some big, bold thinking—a Marshall plan to rebuild that country from the destruction caused and the destruction yet to come.

In that, we must maintain unity. Where we push the Government to go further and faster, it is not because we want to be oppositionist for opposition’s sake—that is in nobody’s interest. Let us keep to the unity that Ukrainians need, because it is not just us watching the war in their country; we should ask ourselves what we want them to see when they read our newspapers or scroll through our social media accounts. I want them to see common cause to end the war, support Ukrainians and ensure that Ukraine’s democratic future, which they took a stand on in 2013 and into 2014, is still there. Ukrainians today are the real leaders of the free world, and they deserve nothing less.

March 5, 2022
Stewart Malcolm McDonald – 2022 Speech on Ukraine

The speech made by Stewart Malcolm McDonald, the SNP MP for Glasgow South, in the House of Commons on 25 February 2022.

I am grateful to the Minister, and indeed to his colleague in the Foreign Office, for the work that they are doing and the updates that they have been ensuring Opposition Members have. Like the Minister and other Members, I wish only to heap praise on the Ukrainian armed forces, who ensured that Russia did not get the opening gambit that it thought it would. But, as the Minister says, we are seeing Russian men being sent to die for one man’s hubris—and my goodness, what courage was shown on the streets of Russia last night by people protesting against the aggression from the Kremlin, and we commend them for it.

The Minister rightly spoke of supporting Ukraine with military equipment, and we back the Government in that. It is obviously, in some cases, easier said than done—it requires training, logistics and all the rest—but the Ukraine Government need it. I am not going to ask the Minister for an assurance that he has already given, but I want to press him in saying that we on these Benches want to see Ukraine get all the equipment it needs. I know that the Minister does not want to go into specific areas of equipment, but satellite phones are badly needed. That issue has arisen quite often during the various conversations that I have had with Government and parliamentary officials in Ukraine, and even came up at the protest outside Downing Street last night.

May I ask whether consideration has been given by the Government, and by G7 allies, to cyber-support, particularly cyber-offensive support? I can see the expression on the Minister’s face, but would that constitute an article 5 scenario or not? What do the Government understand it to be? May I also ask the Government to ensure that they provide the appropriate level of humanitarian and medical equipment support that the Ukraine Government need?

Finally—I hope the Minister will forgive me, but I have not heard him mention this yet; it is not necessarily an MOD issue—may I ask for an update on where we are with SWIFT? Members had hoped that progress would have been made with that by now. I know that the Foreign Office has been pressing hard on it, but an update would be useful.

February 28, 2022
Stewart McDonald – 2021 Speech on Ukraine

The speech made by Stewart McDonald, the SNP MP for Glasgow South, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2021.

I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the situation in Ukraine. I will let the Minister get to his seat before we get into it. It has been some time since the House debated this issue, and we have even been given an extra nine minutes this evening to do so, although I do not intend to detain colleagues any longer than is absolutely necessary. I should declare an interest as a holder of the order of merit, which was kindly awarded to me in 2019 by President Zelensky as a friend of Ukraine.

It would be remiss of me not to remark on the fact—although I appreciate that this is not the Minister’s territory as far as his portfolio goes—that as we debate the situation in Ukraine right now, there is a blazing conflict in the middle east between Israel and Palestine that cannot have failed to shock Members of the House and members of the Government, not least the bombing of a building containing the offices of the Associated Press and al-Jazeera. But I will leave that there for now, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I applied for this debate some time ago, when the escalating situation on the Russia- Ukraine border was the big military news story at the time. We have seen an intense build-up of personnel and heavy equipment on land, air and sea and, contrary to what some believed to be a major drawback from the border by the Russian side, that border is still heavily militarised and the drawback is nowhere near what some seem to think it is. Indeed, the situation right now on the contact line in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine remains as bad as it has been since the conflict started. Just this year alone, since the end of December, 37 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 74 have been wounded, some of whom have probably died as a result of their wounds.

It is also worth remembering that Ukraine is one of the most infested places on earth as far as landmines are concerned. I pay particular tribute to the work of the HALO Trust, which does an incredible job of de-mining in Ukraine, although not just in Ukraine. The Minister would expect me to speak up for the funding that his Department provides to the trust for its work there and elsewhere, such as in Syria. It is vital that the cut to international aid funding should not result in a cut to efforts to de-mine what is a European country, as is all too often forgotten.

Before I come to what is happening in 2021, I want to take us back slightly. The House will know the 2014 background, understand the Maidan revolution and know of the non-military, non-kinetic warfare that is being besieged on Ukraine, its Government and its people by its larger neighbour the Russian Federation. I was extremely privileged, although somewhat depressed, to visit eastern Ukraine a couple of years ago. I was pleased to have that visit facilitated by the former UK ambassador, Judith Gough, who I think is now in Stockholm. I saw for myself the misery, destruction and poverty that the war has brought upon free European citizens who deserve the right to choose their own path, and not to have one foisted on them militarily by their neighbour.

Since coming back from that trip, I have kept up contact with people I met—politicians, civil society groups and members of the public—in the capital and the east, to stay in touch and ensure that as a parliamentarian I am as informed as possible. Their worry, concern and anxiety right now, today, is higher than they have ever felt it since the days when the conflict broke out.

When we look at the current military projection from the Russian Federation to the borders of Ukraine, although there has been a very small drawback, the war rages in the east, the illegal annexation of Crimea continues and a blockade is now taking place against the sea of Azov. I ask the Minister to be frank at the Dispatch Box in telling the House whether that blockade of the sea of Azov and the Kerch strait represents a breach of the UN law of the sea and of the agreement between Kiev and Moscow on how the sea of Azov should be managed.

As I am sure the Minister would expect, I want to talk a little about the Government’s response. I criticise the UK Government day in, day out—that is my job as an Opposition politician—but I think that their support to Ukraine, particularly but not just in military terms, is one of their better outfits, shall we say. I know that that really matters in the capital of Ukraine; it has my support, for sure, and that of anyone who wants stability and peace in the country and the wider region.

However, I have to come to sanctions policy and to the red herring that is Nord Stream 2. I am afraid that we have had debate after debate and question after question in the House about the Government’s position on Nord Stream 2, which seems to be, “It’s nothing to do with us, guv.” Indeed, I remember that when Alan Duncan was Minister for Europe, that was exactly the position that he would answer written questions with, although I am not sure whether it made it into his diaries: that the matter was not seen as a priority or an immediate threat and was therefore nothing to do with the United Kingdom Government.

That is a false position to take. Although the UK has left the European Union, it is still the case—not least by dint of the UK’s position as a NATO member state, and a founding member state at that—that European security matters. Nord Stream 2 represents an enormous threat to European security and European stability, so I would like the Government to show some muscle. Right now, what I can see is that the only person standing in the way of Nord Stream 2 as it is supposed to operate is the leader of the German Green party, Annalena Baerbock. If she and her party are successful in forming part of the coalition after the federal elections in September, they may well represent a halt to the project.

I can see you getting nervous, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will pad this out so that you can intervene at the appropriate time, which I think is about now.

10.00pm
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(David T.C. Davies.)

Stewart Malcolm McDonald

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, I hope she is successful for that reason and many others, but I would like to know what the Government’s position on this is now. Has it changed? Has it evolved? Given the Salisbury incident that happened a few years ago alone, how on earth can the Government continue with a head-in-the-sand attitude and approach to Nord Stream 2? We owe ourselves better than that, but we certainly owe our fellow Europeans, not least our friends in Ukraine, a bit more than that too.

I also wish to mention Russia Today, because the war against Ukraine has not just been one of military hardware, foreign fighters, bullets and shells, although they have been a part of the most tragic consequence of it; the information war being fought against Ukraine, not just in Ukraine, but around the western world, is another facet to this hybrid conflict. I would like to know why the Government can correctly sanction a TV news presenter in Russia who is speaking Russian to a domestic Russian audience but will not sanction the head of RT, the global editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, who I am sure is frantically writing out a public statement about me as she hears this. Why will the Government not sanction the head of the outfit that is being used to pump out dangerous disinformation in this country and elsewhere, given that they recognise that this is a threat to our own security and the collective security we stand in as far as NATO, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and much else is concerned? Can we get a more robust and targeted sanctions policy that goes after those who want to sow disinformation, discord, falsehoods and lies and ultimately help continue the propaganda war, as RT does so brazenly?

Let me come to numbers. The war in Ukraine has killed more than 14,000 people, most of them innocent civilians. It has displaced more than 1 million Ukrainian nationals within their own land. I am not sure whether the Minister has had the chance to go to eastern Ukraine to see the impact that the war has had there, but it is a somewhat sorry place. Although I know we will do all we can to help rebuild it, the tragedy of this conflict will go on for many years to come, and that is before we even get on to the situation in Crimea, where a part of Ukraine that was illegally annexed is currently illegally occupied. Human rights abuses are the day-to-day norm there, and Crimean Tatars, some of the oldest peoples in the continent of Europe, are targeted, harassed and imprisoned for the crime of flying the Crimean flag. I would like to hear from the Government what more we can do, now that the Ukrainian Government has launched the “Crimean platform”, to support Crimean Tatars, who are so brazenly and hellishly targeted by Russian forces in Crimea.

In a call a few weeks ago, organised by the chair of the all-party group on Ukraine, the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), we talked to some Ukrainian MPs from across the political spectrum. I mentioned this earlier, but I will say it again: the anxiety is very real. The threat of a full-on military incursion of some description has not gone away—it just might not happen in the spring. That threat is very much there. I know from talking to those Members of Parliament that they do not want their country to be constantly ignored as a country that is at war, a country that is chopped up and annexed by its neighbour; they want to be contributing to the big challenges that we face today. In my own city later this year we will host COP26. That is what Ukrainian citizens want to be focusing on: climate change, data policy, international crime—all the things that any sovereign European Government should want to focus on.

We on these Benches support entirely the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, sometimes known as the bread basket of Europe or the gates of Europe. It is an old country—a proud people and a proud land with a complicated history. It has had a long association and friendship with people here in the UK; indeed, the Donbass region that is currently the subject of war was founded by a Welshman, and the connections with Scotland are long and well known. I do not doubt at all that the Government are a friend of Ukraine; I just think they could be a better friend of Ukraine, and what is the job of the opposition if not constantly to try to edge the Government into a better place than they might otherwise be?

So I want to hear from the Minister about the sanctions policy the Government follow, because it strikes me as somewhat patchy. I want to hear from the Minister—and I am sure he will tell me—about the planned visit by the Royal Navy later this year. I want to hear from the Minister, although we are not part of the formal peace talks process, about the UK’s diplomatic engagement with France, Germany and other countries to bring that about. And I want to hear from the Minister a positive change in the Government’s position on Nord Stream 2, because this will rapidly pose a threat here; if the Minister and the Government think that the cash generated from that project will not be used against us, that is a rose-tinted naiveté that in fairness I do not believe for one second the Minister would be guilty of.

This is a dangerous time for the Ukrainian people. They have suffered enough. The conflict that goes on—the frozen conflict, as it is sometimes known—can escalate, and that would be in nobody’s interests. I am sure all of us want to see peace and prosperity, and all of us accept that it is not easy, simple or plain. In that spirit, I invite the Minister to not just be a friend of Ukraine but to be a better friend of Ukraine, as I know he wants to be. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

May 18, 2021
Stewart McDonald – 2020 Comments on Expulsion of Julian Lewis

Text of the comments made on Twitter by Stewart McDonald, the SNP MP for Glasgow South, on 15 July 2020.

The UK is the only Five Eyes member without a functioning Intelligence & Security Committee – zero parliamentary oversight. At this rate, the government will be kicked out Five Eyes. Julian Lewis was elected fairly and the government should accept that result.

July 15, 2020
Stewart McDonald – 2020 Speech on Security in the Middle East

Below is the text of the speech made by Stewart McDonald, the SNP Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, in the House of Commons on 7 January 2020.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. We on these Benches of course hold no candle for General Soleimani or, indeed, for the actions of the Iranian Government, but I would simply say to the Secretary of State that it is not anti-American to question and press the Government on what they are doing in relation to their closest ally. He says that the US is confident that General Soleimani had co-ordinated the 27 December attacks and was planning further attacks, but how confident is he that that is correct? There is certainly no consensus on Capitol Hill among congressional leaders that that is the case. The Secretary of State mentioned that he had seen intelligence that had perhaps convinced him, but have the UK Government done their own legal analysis of whether the strike was lawful? I ask him simply: does he believe that the strike was lawful? And why has it taken four days for the Government to convene the National Security Council, given the gravity of the situation we now face?

On UK forces, the Secretary of State tells the House—this is the killer paragraph—that all training has been “suspended” and “contingency planning” is going on, which can be taken to mean planning to leave Iraq, so can it be taken as read that there is now no active fight against ISIS in Iraq because of the actions of the President of America?

On de-escalation, will the Secretary of State mount the most robust and unapologetic defence of international law and order? Does he agree with the International Committee of the Red Cross that the threat to target cultural sites, as made by the US President, would be unlawful? Will he work to ensure that the UN Security Council can finally step in and do its job? Will he condemn the fact that the Foreign Minister of Iran has been prevented, against international law, from taking part in UN proceedings? On the JCPOA, I welcome what the Secretary of State has to say, but we really need some detail as to how he will get the plan resurrected with Iran and the United States.

We hear a lot at the Dispatch Box about the international rules-based order, but our closest ally is ripping it up before our eyes, whether we like it or not. I ask the Secretary of State to be unapologetic in standing up for it and to mount the most robust defence of it—America is a close friend, and that is what a close friend should do. If the Secretary of State does that, he will have the support of those on the SNP Benches.

January 8, 2020