A Labour-Led Britain Will Stand With the EU and NATO to Defend Ukraine

Almost exactly one year ago, a few weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we stood in front of the Memory Wall of the Fallen Defenders of Ukraine in Kyiv. It was covered in the faces of those killed since 2014.

This is not becoming a long war. It already is one—Ukraine has been fighting Russia for nine years now, not one.

As a veteran told us of the agonizing pain he felt about those commemorated as fallen heroes, we both worried about how united the West would be in the face of further Russian aggression.

One year on, both Kyiv and the Kremlin know that the trans-Atlantic alliance has come together to stand behind Ukraine. In the face of the appalling destruction unleashed in the last year, we are proud that the United Kingdom has provided vital military assistance including Challenger 2 tanks and British Army training for Ukrainian forces.

The conflict will top the agenda at the Munich Security Conference this weekend, where we will be reiterating the Labour Party’s unshakeable commitment to U.K. national security, our NATO allies, and Ukraine.

On Britain’s military help to Ukraine, and on reinforcing NATO allies, the U.K. government has had—and will continue to have—Labour’s fullest support.

The U.K. will be facing an aggressive and threatening Russia for the foreseeable future, as Ukraine has since 2014. This long struggle ahead is why Labour will put the defense of Europe first—and our highest priority will be security in Europe, the North Atlantic, and the Arctic.

Labour will never be complacent about the next election, but across Britain there is huge appetite to get rid of the Conservative government. The next Labour government will ensure Britain is NATO’s leading European nation. We would apply a “NATO test” to major defense projects within our first 100 days to ensure we are on track to fulfill our obligations to the alliance in full and review any capability gaps. There will also be no change under Labour in U.K. leadership within the Joint Expeditionary Force.

A Labour government will not be rejoining the European Union, the single market, or the customs union. But we won’t allow blinkered ideological obstruction to get in the way of strengthening U.K. security with our friends and allies. This war proves that the EU is a security actor in its own right and one that is working closely with our allies in Kyiv and Washington.

The current Conservative government’s post-Brexit blind spot on Europe, exemplified in the 2021 Integrated Review, must be corrected, and the U.K. should rebuild relationships with our European allies to make Brexit work. This is why Labour will seek a new EU-U.K. security pact to complement NATO ties, bolstering our continent’s safety.

When it comes to talking to the EU, Britain’s political meetings are infrequent and ad hoc, and our experts and officials lack formal channels to reach out to their counterparts in the rest of Europe. This holds them back, meaning they endlessly have to refer to ministers to share information or get things done. As one of the world’s leading intelligence and security powers, it makes no sense for Britain to have such stymied cooperation with Brussels, on what will be a long road to support Ukraine and protect Europe from Vladimir Putin—together. Improving this is in the EU’s interests just as it is in Britain’s.

We must start with communication. This is why the next Labour government will seek to institutionalize our cooperation through a structured dialogue at both the political and official levels, enabling ministers and experts to exchange ideas and information more freely and at a regular tempo—much like the kind of deep and structured relationship we currently enjoy with the United States and France.

European allies in NATO must take on more responsibility for European security after Ukraine. The decade and battles ahead will likely consume more ammo and different hardware than we have planned for. Therefore, new mechanisms of security cooperation between Britain and the EU can help tackle increasing threats, growing Russian aggression, and new challenges from China.

Labour strongly welcomed the U.K. joining the EU’s military integration project, PESCO, which allows for some engagement between the U.K. and the EU on defense. But we believe we can do much more to aim to collaborate between our defense industries and on new technology, as well as strengthening cooperation in areas such as cyber-resilience and hybrid threats.

Let’s be clear: NATO will always be the cornerstone of U.K. foreign and defense policy, but closer cooperation and an EU-U.K. pact can complement our NATO obligations. Putin doesn’t care what’s in one Brussels-based institution’s basket or what isn’t. This is why Britain and the EU are natural allies, when it comes to coordinating sanctions, catching kleptocrats, or building defenses to stop Russian money laundering. With technologies outrunning us, of which cryptocurrency is only one, that let the Kremlin circumvent our laws with weaponized corruption rings, we need to team up to develop new shared databases and tools to keep them out.

The structures that Labour seeks to build will not only help our continent withstand the coming years of Russian aggression. They will help us deal together with the myriad other nonconventional challenges weakening us in the face of it, including organized crime and counterterrorism. The better we are at handling those, the stronger we are against Putin.

Labour is ambitious about building a strong relationship of sovereign partners, a new tailored model of cooperation that reflects our common interests, geographic proximity, and broad potential to work together. It is our aspiration that a new partnership for security will unlock the trust to build mutually beneficial cooperation in other dimensions. As we’ve flown over the North Sea, we have been heartened by the number of wind turbines below: Each one of them is a piece of security infrastructure for us—and Europe as a whole—against Putin’s energy blackmail. As our colleague Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, has said, there is an acute need for the EU, the U.K., and other partners to cooperate together on decarbonization. This is an agenda where we are natural partners.

On a recent visit to Kosovo, we felt this keenly. Britain and the EU need to deepen their cooperation for European security. There are diplomatic and security processes that Britain could be better supporting. Those forces that are trying to undermine Kosovo, from the tentacles of organized crime to those of Russian interference, are the same ones harming Britain and the EU.

Reaching out to each other will help Britain and the EU build a future for Ukraine. In what will doubtless be a long road ahead, we hope to advance the European Political Community, which was launched in Prague last year, bringing together 44 European countries. We think this holds important potential for Britain, Ukraine, and for working together. And Labour would also seek to strengthen bilateral ties across Europe, which have become strained in recent years, from Paris to Berlin to Dublin.

The Memory Wall in Kyiv says it all. Putin has been at war for a long time and will not stop undermining our common security—that of all European democracies. We have to be ready for the long haul, and we can’t neglect any ally. This is why Labour’s strategy for the U.K. and wider European security is what it is: our unshakeable commitment to NATO as well as working with the EU to bolster our continent’s safety. This is what we owe the faces of the fallen in Kyiv.