A crisis of legitimacy
On 12 January the British Prime Minister signed an ‘Agreement on Security Co-operation’ with the President of Ukraine that openly committed our country to military conflict with Russia. This breaks new ground: it is something that the rest of the West has not yet done.
The document’s preamble says that together with Ukraine we are determined ‘to end forever’ Russia’s attacks and to restore ‘Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its borders, which have been internationally recognised since 1991.’
It feels as though trigger fingers have been itchy for a long time. When in late 2022 a Ukrainian missile strayed off course and killed two people on Polish territory it was initially mistaken for a Russian weapon and opened debate on whether the incident could count as an assault on a NATO member under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The UK-Ukraine agreement is merely bilateral but if British forces are attacked by Russia it might be interpreted as falling under Article 5. The ‘Doomsday Clock’ has indicated 90 seconds to midnight since last year and the sweep is trembling.
The preamble is dangerously vague and aspirational. How are Russia’s attacks to be ended ‘forever’? We have already supplied Ukraine with money, armaments and, it is alleged, special forces soldiers; how much further are we to go? Could the UK and Ukraine together be enough to destroy Russia’s offensive capabilities? Or are we merely preparing the way for formal declarations of war by NATO, the EU and US who have already provided enormous unofficial support?
Diplomatic negotiations are not mentioned. Indeed the Russian Embassy has said that the deal has left the opposing parties ‘without chances for peace talks.’ Not that we seem to have exerted ourselves to make peace: in his interview with the ‘useful idiot’ Tucker Carlson Putin reminded us of Boris Johnson’s intervention to block a deal in 2022, provoking the latter into furious splutterances without (so far as I know) denying it.
Why has the Agreement specified Ukraine’s 1991 boundaries? Historically that country’s shape has been Protean, even within living memory. Several countries occupied lands in Western Ukraine before the consolidation imposed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and Premier Khrushchev added Crimea to the patchwork in 1954, never dreaming of the present situation. What would a victory by the Kiev regime mean for the millions of its citizens who when forced to choose lean towards Russia? It is utter folly to involve Britain in a quarrel of Balkan complexity, with huge risks and no prospective benefit for ourselves.
This is not like 1914 or 1939, where HMG issued ultimata and there was a chance, however small, that our opponents would heed treaty-based warnings and turn back. The military objectives in the Agreement mean that the line has been crossed already: the Russian so-called ‘Special Military Operation’ has been in Ukraine for just under two years and we have now set ourselves the task to drive them out.
Rather than asking Parliament’s permission the PM has embarked on this venture using the royal prerogative. Yet in 2003 the UK Government sought validation through a substantive vote in the Commons on Iraq and two years later Clare Short MP introduced a Private Member’s Bill (sadly defeated) to make military action subject to Parliamentary approval.
In an age when war may lead to the extinction of whole nations surely we need to revisit the general issue of such authorisation, as discussed in a 2006 Constitutional Committee report. Perhaps even now we should call for Parliament’s ratification (with scope for amendments) of this latest Agreement.