Our future stability and security depend on rebuilding bridges with Europe

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If I had been asked as a child what I would like see next year I would probably have said ‘World Peace’. Sadly this year, as an MP, that would also have to be pretty high on my wish list.

It is difficult to remember a time when the international system felt so fragile and the threat to peace so great. The head of MI6’s recent warning that ‘ we are operating in the space between peace and war’ was chilling. Blaise Metreweli was speaking about the challenges our security services face from Russia operating in what she called a ‘grey area’.

We are all aware of recent cyber attacks on infrastructure and drones appearing at airports and various sites. It coincides with the widespread realisation that Putin’s ambitions have not been thwarted by his failure to destroy Ukraine’s resistance. Similary it is becoming increasingly clear to many of us in parliament that we have to recognise the growing and insidious threat from China.

The security challenges facing our government cannot be put off any longer.

Two immediate issues on the horizon are the expected decision on the so-called Chinese super embassy in London.

Proposed for the site of the former Royal Mint both its sheer scale and the redaction of various rooms and their purpose on the plans have created security concerns.

Then there is the continuing interest of China’s Mingyang in building installations for a proposed offshore windfarm in the North sea. The potential benefit is the promise of a factory in the Highlands to create both the turbines and much needed jobs. But the cost would be to put the on and off switch for a vital component of our energy security in the hands of a foreign power. And one that is not necessarily friendly.

Of course we need to have a relationship with China which allows us to trade. Rebuild what we lost through Brexit. They see us as a market into which to sell their vast production capability and for us they fill the need which we have for the investment and trade. But there have to be safeguards.

Mitigations, which prevent China having the power to switch off our energy in a crisis, or as we saw with the Scunthorpe steel works, the possibility that a national resource can be lost because it does not suit the economic needs of its foreign owners.

The final complicating factor is the unpredictability of the current incumbent of the White House. Donald Trump’s apparent reluctance to accept that European and US security is linked and that Vladimir Putin could be a threat to both is central to the challenges we face. And then there is the Greenland and Denmark issue.

Which brings us back to European solidarity. The diplomatic and economic instability in which the US President appears to revel has, whether by accident or design, propelled us closer to our European neighbours.

War in Ukraine, on European soil, the increasing tension with Russia and the absence of the sense of security which the US has traditionally offered through NATO, have all underlined the value of a relationship we might previously have underestimated. Its time to rebuild those bridges which Bexit damaged.

Our future stability and security demand it.