Blair McDougall

Blair McDougall

Labour — East Renfrewshire

Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 March 2025

Debate

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Contribution

I am very happy to do so. The hon. Gentleman and I have worked closely together on Georgia—a country in the backyard of Vladimir Putin that is on day 96, I think, of huge street protests, all for lack of the cost of a single storm shadow missile in recent years. We cannot fill all the gaps, but I hope that we can triage, and can look at places such as Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Belarus, where a small amount of money makes an enormous amount of strategic difference. If investing in arms allows us to fight, we must remember to invest in the reasons why we want to fight in the first place. The fundamental weakness of the authoritarians with whom we are in this unspoken war is the same. Every act of brutality is a confession of their weakness. They know that if their people were free to choose, they would not choose the form of Government that is there. All that those authoritarians offer is corruption, violence and brutality against their own people, who will choose to be on our side in the global fight, but we need to put in the resources to make that case every single day around the world with confidence.

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