Hansard

I was concerned for a moment, as my friend and colleague Colin Beattie seemed to struggle to move that motion. I thought that it was because he knew that I was next—in which case, all the nice things that I was about to say about him, including thanking him for the debate, would have been gone. However, I thank him for bringing the debate to the chamber and for finally standing up and moving the motion to extend the time for us to have it.

When we get to this stage of the debate, all that I can talk about is the emotion and how I feel about the situation. A lot of people are asking themselves how they feel about the situation. I will give a perfect example. Members will be surprised to know that I was at St Mirren Park on Saturday to watch the football. At half time, the conversation was about what happened in the Oval office. It was not about Scottish football referees or the video assistant referee system, which is a disgrace, but about the disgrace of JD Vance and President Trump and what they did to someone who has stood against Putin over the past three years. That shows how this has got into the psyche of everyone in the world.

There are pivotal moments in history when what we—Scotland, the UK, Europe and the world—do is important. We need to be really careful. As I have mentioned to the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture before, there is €300 billion frozen from the Russian central bank in the EU. What Europe decides to do with that money in the future, and how we discuss that, is extremely important. At the end of the day, that has made a difference to an aggressor. That money could be gotten, because it is from the Russian central bank and it is frozen; it is not from the Russian oligarchs and all their mates who have been on the take in Russia for the past 20-odd years. That could be done and dealt with quite easily.

I will speak about someone I know, Stevie Blythe, a former soldier in the Black Watch who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and who got a military cross. He is not from Paisley; he is originally from Dundee but lives in Paisley. Stevie is now an ambulance driver. He takes ambulances over to Ukraine to drive them on the front lines and puts videos on his Facebook page to show us everything that is happening there. Stevie is a really close friend. When I asked him why he does that he said, “It’s the right thing to do.”

That is very similar to what the Ukrainian consul told the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee last week. He said that the Ukrainian people have to stay positive all the time. He literally likened the war to light against darkness and good against evil. Some people think that we are using hyperbole when we talk in that way, but he is 100 per cent right. This issue, at this time, is a fight between good and evil and between right and wrong. There is no middle ground.

We saw what happened with Trump and Vance last week. Incidentally, Stevie is quite annoyed about JD Vance saying that British soldiers have no idea how to fight a war when he was involved in quite a lot of skirmishes—he did not get his military cross for nothing. They took someone who is fighting the good fight, against a dictator, for the free world and created a theatre—a pantomime—in the Oval office. They diminished America and the office of the President of the United States, and we all felt a bit dirty afterwards. Why would they do that in diplomacy? Even if their narrative was correct, which I do not believe, they should not go into a room and say, “Don’t do that again. Here’s what we’re going to do.” No one should do that in front of the world’s press. What happened was done purely to humiliate and embarrass.

I do not think that the American people will fall for that, because they still see Russia as the aggressor and many of Trump’s supporters will see Russia as the aggressor in that situation. I think that he will be found out. He sat there in a discussion with a world leader and said, “You don’t have the cards.” He was with someone whose people have been fighting for their lives and he talked about playing cards. That is a joke, and he is a joke as a president.

I will follow the consul’s advice. If he says that this is a fight of light against darkness and good against evil, that is good enough for me and I will support Ukraine in everything it does in this good fight.