MPs in the House of Commons mounted a conspicuous display of unity in support of Ukraine on Monday as foreign secretary David Lammy told the chamber that the UK would remain the invaded nation’s “primary friend” in the world.
MPs from across the party divides in Westminster watched on, many nodding in agreement, as Lammy launched a bitter broadside against Russia’s “brutality” and its “foreign policy by lies”.
Just one British political party was not represented at the debate. Lee Anderson and Richard Tice, MPs for Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK, walked out of the chamber moments before Lammy’s speech and the ensuing discussion on maintaining British military support for Ukraine.
On the same day that Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, appeared at Westminster magistrates' court accused of taking Russian bribes while a Brexit Party MEP, Farage’s latest political outfit was condemned in the Commons for spurning the unified show of support.
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As well as the big three – Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – there were MPs present from all smaller groupings such as the Scottish National Party, Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the SDLP, which was represented by former leader Colum Eastwood.
Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister also attended the debate. Even Sammy Wilson of the Reform-adjacent Democratic Unionist Party, who was personally backed by Farage in last year’s general election, showed up to declare support for Lammy’s hardline anti-Russian posturing and to warn of the danger that Wilson said would come from “giving in” to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Reform’s deputy leader Tice was shortly beforehand in the chamber laughing as he was castigated in a separate debate by a Labour MP for criticising the push for electric cars while he was, personally, also an investor in a company with interests in the electric-vehicle sector.
Tice, who was replaced by Farage as Reform leader during last year’s election campaign, held out his hands in a mock show of guilt, before he and Anderson shuffled away from their bench, leaving a gap on the green leather where Reform’s five MPs normally sit.
Earlier, at around noon, Lammy had marked the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with what the UK’s Foreign Office billed as its largest package of sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s regime since the Kremlin’s military offensive began on February 24th, 2022.
The targets include 40 oil tankers the UK alleges are in a “shadow fleet” helping Russia evade existing sanctions, as well as 14 wealthy Russian business figures and No Kwang Chol, the defence minister of North Korea, whose troops are backing Putin’s war effort on the ground in Ukraine.
During the Commons debate, Lammy said Britain’s “long memory” of the history of the Soviet Union and, before it, Tsarist Russia would guide its judgment now of Putin’s actions and the need for a show of strength to deter him.
He derided Russia’s “same old lies” and said Britain would continue to play a “unique role” in championing Ukraine’s interests. At the same time, he was careful not to criticise US president Donald Trump, who has opened peace talks with Russia and been critical of Ukraine, and whom Lammy and prime minister Keir Starmer will travel to Washington to see this week.
Lammy’s opposite number, Tory shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel, offered Conservative support to the Labour government on its Ukraine policy: “His Majesty’s Opposition stands ready to engage with this government at every single level.”
Across the dais, Lammy nodded in appreciation, as Patel had done to him throughout his initial statement – a rare show of unanimity between them.
