“Brexit makes us weaker because sitting outside the EU makes you more insecure. The EU is, at its heart, a peace project – it was built as one and is the most successful peace project on Earth and it will continue in that role because of its economic clout, security clout and soft power.”
Stephen Gethins, SNP MP for North East Fife and Professor of Practice in International Relations at the University of St Andrews, has issued a warning about the UK’s security within Europe.
Speaking to The National, the MP said that the UK needs to consider whether we take the security of European neighbours seriously. “We do that by taking defence seriously and being committed to NATO and by thinking about how we can contribute to the rebuilding of Ukraine in the aftermath of the war, as well as how we fit into European infrastructure,” he said.
Referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, Gethins continued that governments across Europe are increasingly seeing EU and NATO membership as the ‘twin pillars of their security and the UK is the only one that is moving away from that.”
“Brexit makes us weaker because sitting outside the EU makes you more insecure. The EU is, at its heart, a peace project – it was built as one and is the most successful peace project on Earth and it will continue in that role because of its economic clout, security clout and soft power.”
The MP continued how Vladimir Putin will be closely watching the US elections, and whether he could use them to his advantage, something which could raise additional questions for European security. “Increasingly there is a huge question about what European defence policy looks like if the US is becoming an unreliable partner,” he said.
The professor added that the war in Ukraine has confirmed that security is not as simple as being about weapons, military equipment, and tanks, but could be measured in relation to energy and food security.
“Now it is about trying to think about security in the round rather than the way it was traditionally thought of, which is simply being better armed than anyone else.
“What is interesting about the Europeans is the way in which they are taking a more rounded approach to these things by taking into account food and energy security and post-conflict reconstruction,” Gethins added.
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward
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