'Bullies and aggressors': USA now ‘least reliable’ partner in Nato, SNP MP claims

Stephen Gethins, a former professor of international relations at St Andrews University, argued the US has dramatically changed the European security and defence environment. The MP warned there was a danger that Ukraine was hung out to dry by the US and Russia.

Appearing on Bylines Scotland Radio, the Arbroath and Broughty Ferry MP compared events in Ukraine with the appeasement of Germany in the run up to the Second World War, when the Nazis were allowed to take over large parts of what is now the Czech Republic.

Speaking about Sir Keir Starmer’s coming visit to meet with President Trump, Mr Gethins urged Sir Keir to impress on Mr Trump the democracies of the world must work together.

He said: “He should tell Donald Trump that if you believe you are a democrat, you must work with your democratic partners. Not the Russians and the Chinese, who are bullies and aggressors. They don’t share our democratic values.

“The US is now the least reliable partner in Nato.”

His comments came in a week that saw Sir Keir say he was prepared to send UK troops to take part in peacekeeping in Ukraine, something deemed “unacceptable” by Russia.

Mr Gethins said: “You cannot possibly conceive it as the UK going it alone.”

The academic explained it could not be a conventional peacekeeping force and argued it would have to act as a deterrent and be a multinational force. Mr Gethins said it was now imperative the democracies of Europe, including the UK, Norway and Ukraine, who are not in the EU, unite to defend the continent from aggressors.

“No one individual state in Europe has the capacity to respond on its own to the threat from Russia,” he said. “We must pull together as European democracies.”

The SNP politician argued the UK could not continue to be isolated from Europe, particularly given the unreliability of the US. He said: “The world of 2016, when the Brexit referendum took place, is not the world of today.

“Because of EU co-operation, EU member states are now far more energy self-reliant.”