On Sunday, a solemn and welcome silence fell in South Devon, in Westminster, and across the UK and its airwaves at 11am. The two minutes of silence this weekend provided a brief moment of stillness, a quietening of the arguments from what had been for many a distressing week. And an opportunity to step out of the turbulence of our present day to remember all those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect the freedom and democracy we enjoy today.
It was an honour to take part in many events to mark Remembrance Day. Last week, I planted a poppy in Parliament’s Garden of Remembrance, and this weekend I laid a wreath at the war memorial in Dartmouth to honour the lives of all those – especially from South Devon – who made the ultimate sacrifice in war for our country.
It feels apt that we reflect this week on the impact of war, especially on those who lost their lives, on those who serve, who are injured or bereaved because of war – wherever they are.
At this time of year, I reflect, in particular, on the grandfather I never met. Trooper Francis Smith of the 6th Royal Tank Regiment, who was killed in North Africa in July 1942 and is now buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission El Alamein Cemetery.
My grandfather’s story was unique, but his outcome was not. In the El Alamein Cemetery alone, there are 7,240 graves, and in total, across both the Great War and World War II, more than one million British military personnel lost their lives on the battlefield.
I say this because it bears remembering not just this week but all year. In our modern age, it’s very easy to feel disconnected from a history that is less than a hundred years old, or to believe that the cost of war has somehow become diminished in an era of cyberwarfare, drones, and nuclear deterrents.
We don’t even have to cast our minds that far back to know the latter sentiment is not true.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, roughly 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. In Gaza – a conflict which began with Hamas’s horrific attack on October 7th and the kidnapping of more than 250 Israelis – over 40,000 civilians have lost their lives, the vast majority being women and children. Fighting has now spread across the Middle East, without succeeding in bringing a substantial number of the hostages home.
One of the admittedly vanishingly rare instances in which I agree with President-elect Trump is that we are living through a time of unprecedented chaos. But I know I am not alone in fearing what he sees as the solutions to this chaos. In particular here, I’m thinking of his proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war within twenty-four hours and the potential ceding of Ukrainian territory this might involve.
We Liberal Democrats are clear that this would in no way be a just end to the war. In fact, we’ve been calling on the UK government to go further in our support for Ukraine and become a real leader on the issue by seizing frozen Russian assets and repurposing them to help us aid Zelensky’s forces.
We are also clear that defence spending must rise. While the increase to the MOD budget of £2.9bn next year announced in the Budget was welcome, it was disappointing that the new Government did not take the opportunity to reverse the 10,000-troop cut made by the Conservatives, or clearly set out how the UK would increase spending by 2.5% of GDP.
As I laid my wreath at the war memorial in Dartmouth, I thought about how important it is not only to take time to remember the past, but to learn from it. As politicians, we have a duty to take the brave decisions to protect our country and find and secure peace at home and abroad - however difficult that is.
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