MP, Leader of the Labour
Party, today gave a televised address in response to
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said:
In this dark hour, our thoughts, our solidarity, and our resolve
are with the Ukrainian people.
They have been cast into a war, not through fault of their own.
But because Putin knows that no people will choose to live under
his bandit rule unless forced to at the barrel of a gun.
The consequences of Putin’s war will be horrendous and tragic for
the Ukrainian people but also for the Russian people, who have
been plunged into chaos by a violent elite who have stolen their
wealth, stolen their chance of democracy, and stolen their
future.
And we must prepare ourselves for difficulties here. We will see
economic pain, as we free Europe from dependence on Russian gas,
and clean our institutions from money stolen from the Russian
people.
But the British public have always been willing to make sacrifice
to defend democracy on our continent. And we will again.
Russia’s democratic neighbours and every other democracy that
lives in the shadow of autocratic power are watching their worst
nightmare unfold.
All those who believe in democracy over dictatorship, the rule of
law over the reign of terror, in freedom over the jackboot of
tyranny, must unite and take a stand and ensure Putin fails.
We must make a clean break with the failed approach to handling
Putin, which after Georgia, Crimea and Donbas fed his belief that
the benefits of aggression outweigh the cost. We must finally
show him he is wrong.
That means doing all we can to help Ukraine defend herself
-urgently reinforcing and reassuring our NATO allies in Eastern
Europe, and the hardest possible sanctions must be taken against
the Putin regime. It must be isolated. Its finances frozen. It’s
ability to function crippled.
And there are changes we must make here in the UK. For too long
our country has been a safe-haven for the money that Putin and
his fellow bandits stole from the Russian people. It must end
now.
And this must be a turning point in our history, we must look
back and say what this terrible day was actually when Putin
doomed himself to defeat.
He seeks division, so we must stay united. He hopes for inaction,
so we must take a stand. He believes that we are too corrupted to
do the right thing, so we must prove him wrong.
I believe we can. But only if we stand together.
