`Love is Enough’ is a wonderful song. Well done to Ed Davey and the Bath Philharmonia Young Carers Choir on having targeted the target Christmas  Number 1 spot. As a sentiment, though, it only reflects one side of the essential components that make us who we are as a political movement and segment of British society.  

At Party Conference in Bournemouth in 2023, I helped found a new Affiliated Organisation called Liberal Democrat Friends of Ukraine, focusing primarily on the bellicose military objective of helping Ukraine to defend itself against Putin’s aggression. Humanitarian support and reconstruction aid are our other priorities. It was the right thing to do – for Ukraine but also for Britain.

That Conference in September 2023 passed a belligerent motion urging the Government, `in defence of liberal values’, to:-

Do all it realistically can, in view of Putin’s brazen actions, to help arm Ukraine, including with longer-range precision weapons,…. to defeat Russia. Continue to strengthen the supply of British arms and ammunition to Ukraine… 

Fantastic. Lib Dem Friends of Uraine works closely with sister AOs like the Armed Forces and Hong Kong. We are about values. Membership of Lib Dem Friends of Ukraine alone has surged to about 350, much of it since Brighton 2024. So many Party members care about this.

Standing back from the `Peace Dividend’ mindset that has catastrophically got us, since 1989, to where, militarily, we are now, we can see how Utopian the daydream was.

Liberal, advanced democracies, including ours, have slid into a vicious circle of 1939 ostrich groupthink.

All parties seem to think that voters would question whoever was honest enough to spell out the substantially higher share of GDP that would be needed to re-arm, and adequately defend Ukraine and ourselves.

Responding to this, they collectively encouraged voters to believe that there was no danger – leaving the UK insufficiently capable, apart from our excellent at sea nuclear deterrent.

The last GE campaign was classic. All parties, including ours, sidestepped to give national security, and rearmament, sufficient prominence. Media, led by the BBC, joined the silent conspiracy. So these became non-issues. Yet (with Ukraine our front line) they’re the biggest issue of our time.

Despite his `warts’ obvious today, Churchill, with his infectious bravery, still has much to teach us. He combined political know-how, brilliant oratory to inspire ordinary men and women, and a lifetime’s experience and understanding of war. This Tory then Liberal then Tory was able to get attention.

We need some Churchill-like innovation and determination. Our AOs (Friends of Ukraine and of the Armed Forces), combined with one in nine of our MPs who are ex-military together make a formidable, excellently informed team to voice truth to power. 

The task is to provoke discussion and discourse. 

Get people in progressive politics, like Lib Dems, take the lead national in defiance of Putin, whose ultimate aim is to destabilise and control Europe as this Economist article argued last month. There is increasing pressure for the UK to move towards spending 3% of GDP on Defence. A big debate to have.

A Russian attack on a NATO country by 2030 is a real possibility, some commentators appear to think.

How to pay for this, including military support for Ukraine? Options exist worthy of debate:

∙ Confiscate frozen Russian assets here. A Finnish court has boldly ordered seizure of Russian assets after Russia failed to pay £4.6bn to compensate the Naftogaz Group after its occupation of Crimea in 2014.

∙ Take the painful step of reviewing taxes or cutting certain public spending to allow for substantially increased spending on defence. Freedom costs.

∙ A new and less seismic idea (at least mitigating the above agonising option) is to raise £250bn, for building up capacity and kit over the next five years, through a `coalition of the willing’ in Europe, supported by pledges of higher future defence spending (4). 

Ed Davey recently called on Keir Starmer to hold a `Save Ukraine’ summit of European leaders in London.  Sadly, Love is just not enough. The Hard Talk starts now. 

Our Party can make the difference (eventually harvesting many more votes) if direction comes at pace. 

Our 72 MPs and more than 70 Peers are the first line of persuasion to make greatly increased defence and security spending a central part of any considered UK government platform, as well as love. Good people in the party membership exist who value progressive values, practical politics and a patriotic responsibility to defend the Realm. Time for action. 

These are my personal views rather than a statement from Lib Dem Friends of Ukraine

* Tony Paterson was the Co-Founder and first Chair of Liberal Democrat Friends of Ukraine. He is now an Executive Committee member. A retired Solicitor for asylum seekers, he is a Lib Dem member of Richmond Council.