The anglo-german treaty, putin and europe | thearticle

Britain was the leading European nation in defending Germany from the Soviet threat during the Cold War, from the Berlin airlift in 1948 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Now Germany

is repaying the debt with a modest arms contract. It is also sending a few patrol planes to Scotland to keep an eye on Russian incursions in the North Sea. After the frivolous foreign and

defence ministers of the Brexit era governments, Britain now has a calm, serious, professional and unflashy Defence Secretary in John Healey. He has agreed a new Anglo-German defence treaty

with Olaf Scholz’s government. But if Britain and Germany really want to face down Putin’s Russia, there is an easier, quicker way to do it than getting the German arms firm Rhinemetall to

make gun barrels in Britain. Berlin and London could (and should) jointly agree to provide their long range missiles – Taurus in Germany, Storm Shadow in Britain – to Ukraine, to stop Russia

using military bases to launch missiles at civilian targets in Ukraine – energy plants, transport, factories, offices, schools.  There is a growing confidence in the pro-Putin camp in

Europe and America that the western democracies are quietly giving up on supporting Ukraine. The main worry is the  very possible victory of Trump in the US. But there are echoes of the

1930s here in Europe too. Then, Britain and France refused to send arms to defend the democratic, elected government of Spain, thus handing the Spanish over to the tender mercies of the

fascist _ golpista, _ General Franco, for four decades. Now it seems that Albion _ perfide _ and _ Putinversteher _ Deutschland are leaving Ukraine and its brave citizens to their fate.  

Like its Anglo-French predecessors, the new Anglo-German treaty has little to do with the EU. Back in 1998 Tony Blair signed the St Malo declaration with the then French President Jacques

Chirac. Cynical FCO officials allowed the French to write most of the words. They and Blair knew that whatever token Anglo-French military cooperation was possible, it would all be within

the context of Nato, which was and is Britain’s principal defence and foreign policy treaty covering Europe. Gerhard Schröder, then the new Social Democratic Chancellor of Germany,

complained sarcastically to me that Tony Blair had not informed him of the French deal with Chirac — a European leader not held in high regard in Berlin. A few years after the St Malo

declaration, Islamists attacked New York and France refused to work in alliance with Britain to build a coalition to tackle Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Chirac was looking at his re-election in

2002 and latent French hostility to “ _ les Anglo-Saxons _ ” meant keeping Britain at a distance. It culminated in Chirac unilaterally announcing he would veto any UN resolution that Blair

was working on to get UN backing for action against Islamist military attacks backed by Arab states. So much for St Malo. David Cameron followed in Blair’s footsteps in 2011, when he signed

the Lancaster House Treaty with Nicolas Sarkozy, who had succeeded Chirac as President. Together Cameron and Sarkozy launched their campaign for regime change in Libya and Syria. They held a

news conference in Tripoli announcing victory, but both nations were turned into failed states without law, policing, democratic elections, a functioning economy and endless armed uprisings

against the central government.  All that the Cameron-Sarkozy military agreement achieved was to turn Libya and Syria into highways for millions of economic migrants and political refugees,

flooding out of Africa and the Near East to seek a new life in Europe and Britain.  The Lancaster House Treaty collapsed in  2013 when the Labour Party refused to support the next President

of France, François Hollande, who had agreed with President Obama to launch an attack on Russian-controlled military bases in Syria who were keeping the Syrian dictator Assad in power.

Labour refused to vote for air strikes. This appeasement of Putin was also supported by Liberal Democrats, whose votes were necessary for Cameron to stay in power.  French planes were

fuelled and ready to leave their hangars to support the pro-democracy forces in Syria, when this stab-in-the-back by Perfidious Albion destroyed all hopes of a united Western response to

face down Putin and Assad in Syria. More than a decade later, both Libya and Syria remain failed states, despite the now forgotten Lancaster House Treaty. It is to be hoped, of course, that

the new UK-German treaty, now being finalised by John Healey and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius, will be more robust. The UK needs to replace its 50 year old Challenger Tank. An

agreement with Rheinmetall to build a UK-German tank would be a big statement, but the default setting in Whitehall is to buy made-in-America defence gear. What neither the St Malo

declaration nor the Lancaster House Treaty did was in any way to help Britain’s relations with Europe as a whole. A new defence and security treaty with Germany is worthwhile. John Healey

deserves congratulations for producing this agreement after eight years of Brexit diplomacy, treating all European nations as inimical to Britain’s national interests. The trade minister,

Douglas Alexander, has just pointed out that 47 percent of UK’s exports go to EU member states. The 1001 barriers to trade with the EU, especially in the services sector – now 81 per cent of

the UK economy – remain in place. With the best will in the world, the hopes of Labour ministers to restore Britain to a serious growth path is unlikely unless Labour ministers and MPs who

do not share Tory hostility to Europe find ways of allowing British firms and individuals to reconnect with Britain’s neighbours and potential economic partners across the Channel. The new

defence deal with Germany is a start, but it won’t worry Putin and it can’t by itself restore relations with the EU. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will have to go much further, both on

Ukraine and Brexit.   _ Denis MacShane is the former Minister of Europe and author of _ _ Brexiternity: the Uncertain Fate of Britain _ _ (Bloomsbury) _ A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the

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