Sanctions

Debate between Alex Sobel and David Lammy

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I begin by thanking the Government for the confidential briefings that they have provided to the Opposition on this very urgent and pressing situation.

We sit in this Chamber with dark clouds gathering over Europe. For eight years now, Vladimir Putin has illegally occupied Crimea and stoked conflict and division in Donbas. For two months, he has menaced Ukraine’s borders, mustering the largest build-up of military forces in Europe since the second world war. Last night, he recognised the independence of the breakaway entities that he has created in Ukraine in a flagrant violation of international law and yet another rejection of the diplomatic commitments that he has made.

All the while, Putin has spun lies and mistruths, denied reality and fabricated justifications for his actions. In a speech to the Russian people, he sought to deny the legitimacy and sovereignty of Ukraine and the identity of its people. He concocted grievances and manufactured threats to legitimise his aggression. He spouted myriad lies to the people of Russia, with whom we and our NATO allies want only friendship and peace. And now he has followed that with the explicit deployment of Russian military forces into the internationally recognised territory of Ukraine. The prospect of tanks rolling across the borders of European states recalls the darkest moments of our continent’s history. This is a crime against peace; it is an assault on international law. Let us be in no doubt: Putin bears responsibility. There can be no justification for his actions, no defence of his aggression. While the west has sought a way out of this crisis through firm and principled diplomacy, Putin has doubled down.

The dream of Ukrainians—I felt this very definitely on my trip to Kyiv just four weeks ago—is to shape their own future, to decide their own destiny and to choose the sort of nation that they wish Ukraine to be. All states enjoy that fundamental right, which is why we must be very clear that a line must be drawn at this point. Putin’s assault on a sovereign United Nations member state should be condemned not just by the west, but by every single nation that has a stake in the universal principles at the heart of the post-1945 United Nations system, so Britain must build the widest possible international coalition to show Russia that the world will not tolerate this aggression.

The people of Ukraine have our complete and total solidarity. We admire their courage, we will champion their democratic rights and we will support their right to defend themselves and the democracy that they have built.

[Alex Sobel]

My right hon. Friend mentions the UN. At the UN last week, I met Lesia Vasylenko and Alona Shkrum, two Ukrainian MPs who impressed on me the importance of sanctions on Russian interests in the City of London. They will be disappointed today with the narrow scope of the regulations. I think that many Ukrainian MPs will want to see a far broader set of sanctions than those being proposed.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. I have already seen Ukrainian MPs saying today that they are disappointed that our sanctions regime does not go further.

We have sought to send a unified message across this House and to provide constructive opposition in the national interest. It is in that spirit that we approach today’s announcement. As the Minister knows, while we welcome these measures, we believe that they are too limited and too partial—five banks and just three individuals. The Prime Minister recognised at the Dispatch Box today that this move is a further invasion of Ukraine. It is very hard to square the rhetoric with the reality of these measures.